The Epidemiological Society, founded 1850 : the commemoration volume, containing an account of the foundation of the Society, and an index of the papers read at its meetings between 1855 and 1900.

  • Epidemiological Society of London
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Epidemiological Society, founded 1850 : the commemoration volume, containing an account of the foundation of the Society, and an index of the papers read at its meetings between 1855 and 1900. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    It would seem superfluous, in view of the full Index now for the first time published, to refer in anything approaching detail to the work of the Society. It must suffice in the main to point to the pages of the Transactions, which contain not only the Papers read before the Society, but also the Reports of the several Committees deputed by the Society to study special branches of Epidemiology. Of the Committees thus appointed there may be men- mentioned :— 1. The Committee on Small-pox and Vaccination. 2. The Cholera Committee. 3. The Epizootic Committee. 4. The Hospitals Committee. 5. The Continued Fever Committee. 6. The Committee appointed to inquire into the Diseases appertaining to the Vegetable Kingdom. 7. The Committee appointed to take into consideration the question of supplying the Laboicring Classes with Nurses in Epidemic and other Diseases. Of these Committees, the one which has left behind the greatest record of its labours is the Committee on Small-pox and Vaccination. It may, indeed, be said of the efforts of this Committee that they were almost epoch-making. The attention of the Society was from its earliest days turned towards bringing about such legislation as would tend to reduce the heavy death-toll (some 5,000 deaths yearly) from Small-pox ; and the Committee appointed to deal with this matter had the advantage of possessing as their Secretary (Dr. E. C. Seaton, subsequently Medical Officer of the Local Government Board). In the first instance the Committee ascertained, by means of correspondence, the opinion of some 2000 medical men practising in the United Kingdom and the British Empire ; and after a most painstaking investigation they presented a Report to the Society embodying suggestions, many of which, through the efforts of the
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