Volume 1

Annals of influenza, or epidemic catarrhal fever in Great Britain, 1510-1837 / prepared and edited by Theophilus Thompson.

  • New Sydenham Society
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annals of influenza, or epidemic catarrhal fever in Great Britain, 1510-1837 / prepared and edited by Theophilus Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    An Extract from the Public Register of Burials in Edinburgh. 1732 June . . . Men, Women. Children. Still-born. Sum. 23 32 27 0 82 July.... 16 21 37 5 79 August . . . 19 20 39 2 80 September 15 32 20 4 71 October . . 20 19 32 4 75 November. . 24 28 33 4 89 December . . 31 41 34 3 109 1733 January . . 56 81 74 3 214 February . . 40 44 48 3 135 March . . . 36 42 34 5 117 April . . . 20 28 41 2 91 May . . . 19 26 57 3 105 Total .... 319 414 476 38 1247 [In France, during the years 1731 and 1732, the Arctia pheeorrhceaj a moth allied to the brown-tail moth, was so nu- merous, as to occasion a general alarm. The oaks, elms, and whitethorn hedges looked as if some burning wind had passed over them and dried up their leaves; for the insect devouring only one surface of them, that which is left becomes brown and dry. They also laid waste the fruit-trees, and devoured the fruit; so that the Parliament published an edict to compel people to collect and destroy them; but this would, in a great measure, have been ineffectual, had not some cold rains fallen, which so completely annihilated them, that it was difficult to meet wdth a single indmdual.^] The weather,^ during the period referred to in the Edinburgh account of this epidemic, is recorded in the Meteorological Register (see pp. 47—52). It was carefully observed with- the aid of instruments thus described in ' Med. Essays and Observations,^ vol. i, art. 2:— ^^The Barometer is a simple portable one, the tube of which is about a fourth of an inch diameter in its bore, and has a proportional large cistern for the stagnant mercury. It is kept in a chamber at the height of 270 feet above the level of the ' Reaumur, vol. ii, p. 122; as quoted in Kirby and Spence’s Entomology, vol. i, p. 206. ^ The Tertian agues, which were mentioned in the close of our preceding year, continued likewise through June, and part of July, 1732.