Memorials of the malignant cholera in Oxford, MDCCCXXXII / [Vaughan Thomas].

  • Vaughan Thomas
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorials of the malignant cholera in Oxford, MDCCCXXXII / [Vaughan Thomas]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/79 (page 17)
    fortnight from the close of July, the cases were daily increasing, whilst the former district was either totally free from the disease, or had only one or two strag- gling instances of it. From the New Hamel about the middle of August, it passed into St. Clementes, which is at a considerable distance to the S.E. This statement, however, must not be so understood as to lead the reader to suppose, that before this time the disease had not appeared at all in St. Clement’s; for on the 25th of July, two families of great worth and respectability in the parish were over- whelmed by its severity. In one instance a husband and father had to lament the loss of a wife, aged 48, two daughters of the ages of 22 and 19; his female servant also died, whilst his youngest daughter after a month’s illness recovered. In the other instance also, a husband and father, Mr. Fisher, the eminent engraver on copper, wood, and stone, had, as in the former affliction, to mourn the loss of an amiable wife aged 30 years, and two infants, Joseph six years old, and Elizabeth four. These were the severest afflictions which occurred; and like those which after- wards happened in August in the family of Mr. Lewis the police officer, who lost three out of five attacked, excited universal commiseration. But the two former were the only families in St. Clement’s affected at that time. It was not, as has been before observed, till after 17 the migration of the disease from the New Hamel, a little before the middle of August, that the great outbreak of Cholera took place in that Parish ; during which time, that is, from August 19, to Oct. 4, and whilst Caroline Street, George Street, Bath Street, New Street, Brewery Street, and even the High Street of St. Clement’s, were extensively afflicted, not a single case occurred in the New Hamel. But the sporadic* character of the Epidemic admits Sporadic L character of of farther illustration; for single cases, scattered‘he,disease here and there, and now and then, will serve to shew lustra,ed- it just as well, if not better, than series of cases consecutive—consecutive, like those above referred to, both in order of time, and contiguity of place; these single or insulated cases scattered about * sporadic.] Thucydides may be cited, not precisely as the author of this term, but as having given occasion to it; for Galen, commenting upon the first book of the Epidemics of Hippocrates, says of these diseases, It has been usual to call some of them pan- demic and common to all, (Wyxorvst ti rrxv^tipoc,) and others sporadic, [<rxo^iKet,) being such as do not seize many together, (ftti xoitaIj 7reXXovg,') but individuals separately, sk«o-tov lilet.) He then proceeds to the derivation: for the Greeks use o-jriigH* in the sense of dictrxii(>eiv xa't un' Axxtixat diet%a(l£ew: and, lastly, refers to the passage in which the historian says, speaking of the Thebans who got possession of Plataea by surprise and treason, some were killed in one part and some in another part of the city dispersedly, or scattered about; cixxoi l» tZ ’uXXat ?roXta( m(al. o-TrogciS)jv) lixxvno. Hippocrates also speaks of nv^rto) irXuvtnoi, wandering fevers.