On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases / by Daniel Noble.

  • Daniel Noble
Date:
1859
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases / by Daniel Noble. 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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    On the contrary, I conceive, and I believe upon sufficient grounds, that it is one among the many causes that depress vitality,—that lower the tone alike of the muscular, nervous, and assimilative energies,—that tend to injure both the individual and the race, and sensibly diminish the duration of life. I consider these consequences to arise, not in any particular way from small-pox, fever, scarlatina, or cholera, but from a certain superinduced debility and vice of the system, generative of chronic rather than of acute disease,— productive more specifically of scrofulous than of febrile maladies. A bad atmosphere, indeed, is but rarely compatible with the ruddy glow of health, the stalwart frame, or herculean strength ; and diseases for the most part, whether surgical or medical, can be treated more successfully in pure air than in that which is polluted either by the products of respiration or the emanations from organic matter in a state of decay. In a few words, the thesis which I have proposed to myself to maintain is this : that typhus, scarlatina, cholera, and other such ailments, are not specifically produced by what are called nuisances, there being no scientifically traceable connexion between the assigned cause and the imputed effect. Non hie mens est sermo. In having for years held the opinions propounded in this paper, I have not been peculiar. Amongst practically eminent members of my own profession, there have been bnt few who have at any time given in their adhesion to the popular doctrine. Dr. Watson, of London, whose lectures on the Practice of Physic have become the text-book of the rising generation of medical men, states that “neither animal nor vegetable decomposi- tion is sufficient to generate fever of any kind; ” and the late lamented Alison—clarum et venerabile nomen—in one of his latest productions, an article in the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, controverts the modern theory, in discussing the contagion of cholera. It may be asked,—Why discourage the philanthropic efforts of sanitary reformers by pressing hard upon their harmless exaggera- tions, and being at pains to confute their incidental errors? My answer is, first, because errors and exaggerations prejudice the truth, and that no upright and honourable mind will knowingly call in the
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