Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

188/440 (page 170)

(p. 728, Englisli edition) gives his verdict against it; Montault (pp. 12 and 186) recapitulates the arguments against it. On the other hand, MM. Bretonneau, Gendron, Chomelj Lombard, and Gauthier de Claubry maintain, more or less decidedly, the contagious nature of the disease. It is rather amusing that the last-named author, while arguing for the contagion of typhoid fever, in order to prove its identity with typhus, adduces the contagion of the latter in the English hospitals, in support of his position, while Montault, holding the difference of the two affections, feels constrained, in order to get over an imaginary difficulty, to express a doubt (p. 12) as to the cleanness and salubrity of the British, as compared with the French hospitals, and to assert that the English physicians are not perfectly acquainted with the anatomical alteration of typhoid fever while Gauthier de Claubry, in order to get over the real difficulty arising from the absence of anatomical lesions in the Glasgow and Edinburgh typhus, speaks of the serious circumstances of misery and exhaustion of strength, which have so deplorably modified the constitution of the inhabi- tants of these wretched countries, Scotland and Ireland. Those who know the admirable cleanness and ventilation of our fever hospitals, and the acquaintance of our medical men with the lesions referred to, will readily dispense with any serious refutation of such gratuitous suppositions; and the too sweeping assertion of Gauthier de Claubry, as we shall afterwards see (though partially borne out by the recent statements of Dr. Alison, regarding the condition of the lower classes in the large cities of Scotland), even were it admitted in its fullest extent, proves nothing in his favour. Chomel's third conclusion (p. 339) is, that, if the identity of the anatomical lesions in the two diseases were proved, the question of contagion would be set at rest. We shall see hereafter what is the testimony of facts in regard to the lesions in typhus. Meantime, let us consider the facts in reference to contagion. Louis, I have mentioned, does not allude to the subject. From this we might conclude, that he had found no facts in support of the theory of contagion, for we can scarcely sup- pose that an observer so scrupulously accurate would neglect