Cholera epidemics in East Africa. An account of the several diffusions of the disease in that country from 1821 till 1872, with an outline of the geography, ethnography, and trade connections of the regions through which the epidemics passed / By James Christie.
- Christie, James
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Cholera epidemics in East Africa. An account of the several diffusions of the disease in that country from 1821 till 1872, with an outline of the geography, ethnography, and trade connections of the regions through which the epidemics passed / By James Christie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![premonitory diarrhoea, or of the confirmed cholera, does not exceed a few days [elsewhere more precisely limited by the words, ' a week at the outside']. All facts which have been cited of a longer incubation relate to cases which are in- conclusive, either because the premonitory diarrhoea has been included in the period of incubation, or because the in- fection might have taken place after the person's departure from the infected locality. Observation shows that the duration of the choleraic diarrhoea which has been termed premonitory (which must not be confounded with every diarrhoea met with at cholera times), does not exceed a few days. The facts which have been cited as exceptional do not prove that the cases of diarrhoea prolonged beyond this period are really choleraic, and are susceptible of transmit- ting cholera when the individual suffering has been with- drawn from all sources of infection. After a very long debate, the Conference of Vienna assented to these con- clusions by 13 affirmative votes to one negative, four delegations abstaining from voting. The difference of opinion, at least between the dele- gations which voted in the affirmative and those which abstained from voting, was, I apprehend, more apparent than real. I did not gather from the discussion that it was at all disputed by the latter that in the immense majority of cases (perhaps the expression ' almost all' might have been felt by them a little too strong) the period of incuba- tion does not exceed the limits stated in the resolution. Their objection attached rather to the too small importance, which in a prophylactic point of view, the resolution seemed to attach to the exceptional cases, of which the most reasonable explanation consisted in admitting a longer period of incubation. As Professor Pettenkofer put it, the question was to be regarded from a prophylactic net a clinical point of view ; adding, that from the latter ' il accepterait la these d'une courte dur^e.' On the other](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21353700_0516.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
