Monthly retrospect of the medical sciences : January to December 1849 / edited by George E. Day, Alexander Fleming, W.T. Gairdner.

Date:
MDCCCXLIX [1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Monthly retrospect of the medical sciences : January to December 1849 / edited by George E. Day, Alexander Fleming, W.T. Gairdner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [According to Lecoq, Jour, de Chim. Med. iv., the rhizomes yield in the month of December about an eighth of their weight of fecula, which, with boiling water, forms a jelly like that from jalap. This starch diminishes in spring as the shoots form.] 37. —The Freshwater Chestnut.—This is the fruit of Trapa natans, I.., and was at one time cultivated in France, and ex¬ tensively in Belgium. It is easily propa¬ gated by throwing the nuts into any marshy place or pond. The growth of the plant is not injurious to fish in the water. Some fine specimens were shown at a recent agricultural exhibition in France; and at¬ tention is directed to this plant as a re¬ source in times of scarcity. In many of the departments of the west of France and of Italy, these nuts are eaten like chest¬ nuts, roasted or boiled.—Gazette des H6- pitaux. No. 137. [Though not indigenous to Britain, there seems no reason why it might not be grown here.] 38. —Mortality among the German and Irish Emigrants to America in 1847.—The condition of the German and Irish emi¬ grants prior to their embarkation, and during their transit of the ocean, was in most instances conspicuously different. Whilst the former were generally robust, and well provided on the passage with the means of subsistence, and observant of cleanliness and ventilation,—the latter were in most cases enfeebled from the want of sustenance, and on ship-board, destitute of supplies of wholesome food, depressed in mind, clothed in filthy gar¬ ments, and crowded and confined in air rendered pestiferous by the excrementi- tious matters eliminated from their own bodies. In contrasting the hygienic cir¬ cumstances in which the two classes of emigrants were placed, it is easy to ac¬ count for the greater amount of sickness and mortality which occurred in one class than in the other. It is said, that of the admissions of emigrants into the hospitals and almshouse of New York, the Irish ex¬ ceeded the German in the proportion of about ten to one; and we are told, that the Irish in British ships suffered more than those in American. The Montreal Immigrant Committee, in their report for 1847, state, that “ in no year since the conquest has Canada pre¬ sented such fearful scenes of destitution and suft'ering.” “ The year 1847 has been unparalleled for the amount of immigra¬ tion to Canada; near 100,000 souls have left the British isles for these provinces the past year,—over 5000- of these died on their passage out, 3389 at Grosse Isle, 1137 at Quebec, 3862 at Montreal, 130 at Lachine, and 39 at St John’s, making in all at these several places 13,815. How many have died in other sections in Ca¬ nada East cannot now be known, nor, in¬ deed, how many have perished in Canada West; but coupling all those who have perished with those who have passed into the United States, Canada cannot now number 50,000 souls of the ninety odd thousands which landed upon our shores. In sketching a retrospect of these terrific scenes, the Montreal committee forcibly remark—“From Grosse Isle, the great charnel-house for victimized humanity, up to Port Sarnia—along the borders of our magnificent river, upon the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and wherever the tide of immigration has extended, are to be found the final resting-places of the sons and daughters of Erin—one unbroken chain of graves, where repose fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, in one com¬ mingled heap, without a tear bedewing the soil, or stone to mark the spot. Twenty thousand and upward have gone to their graves, and the whole appears, to one not immediately interested, ‘ like a tale that is told.’ ” The disease of which the emigrant pas¬ sengers, and in many instances the offi¬ cers and crews of ships, perished at sea, and of which a great number were ill on their arrival in the United States and Cana¬ da, was typhus in its genuine form. In some ships dysentery, small-pox, and measles swelled the amount of mortality, and add¬ ed to the number of sick that reached the ports of destination.—Trans. Amer. Med. Assoc., voL i. p. 111. LONDON : JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO. EDINBURGH : SUTHERLAND AND KNOX, 23, GEORGE STREET. FANNIN AND CO., DUBLIN ; J. B. BAILLEUK, PARIS ; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.