The cyclopaedia of practical medicine: comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc (Volume 2).
- Date:
- 1849-59
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The cyclopaedia of practical medicine: comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
46/812
![the nature of the Polish air; the second unwhole- some water, for the common people usually drink that which is nearest at hand, taken from rivers, lakes, and even stagnant pools ; the third cause is the gross inattention of the poor to cleanliness, for the better class are far less liable to it than those of inferior stations; the inhabitants of large towns than those of small villages ; and the free peasants than those in a state of vassalage. Dr. KerckhofTs confirms the fact that the rich are generally ex- empt from plica, and that it is seldom seen but among the poor, who wallow in filth and mi- sery—(qui croupissent dans la misere.) 5. Guinea-Worm. — Plutarch, (Sympos. cap. ix.) slates that those who live near the Red Sea are liable to a disease in which small worms, called dracontia, are found in various parts of the body. Kcmpfer observed the disease in the island of Ormuz, in the Persian Gulph, and also in Tartary. According to Wclsch, it is known to prevail among the negroes in all the marshy parts of Africa. The worm is a native of both Indies. Dr. Chisholm, who has given the fullest and best account of the dracunculus that we have seen, (Edinb. Med. and Surg. Jour- nal, vol. ii. p. 145,) says that the complaint is not confined to the natives of Africa in the West In- dies, and that it is an endemic, and, during a cer- tain portion of the year, an epidemic disease, in the island of Grenada, where he practised. In one estate of this island all the field-negroes, about three hundred, who drank of a particular well, had the disease every year, in the months of No- vember, December, January, and February, for several years, (or from the year 1787, when the well was dug, till 1794, when Dr. Chisholm left Grenada;) and from March to November not an instance of the disease occurred among them. In another plantation the same thing was observed, and after cisterns were made to hold rain-water for common drink, and the wells were filled up, the disease entirely disappeared. The domestic negroes and whites who drank roiVi-water, while the well-waier was in use, generally escaped. Three infants, from five to seven months' old, to whom their mothers had incautiously given the water of the well, had each a worm in one of their legs ; and a domestic negro boy, who in the year 1793 drank of the well-water, had several Guinea-worms the same year, a7id only thai year. In a third jdantation similar facts were noticed; none of the whites on the estate had the disease except one, who inconsiderately or ignorantly drank of the well-water. Bruce and Mungo Park give a similar testimo- ny respecting the effects of particular wells in Africa ; and Dr. Chisholm concludes that in all countries in which the dracunculus is endemic, the prevailing belief of the people is, that it pro- ceeds from drinking water which contains the ova i>r the embryo of the animal. It is a singular fact that the disease is observed 10 prevail at Bombay and along that part of the (.oast of India about the same time of the year when it prevails in the West Indies, viz., in the months of December, January, and February. It also appears in many other districts in the Car- natic and Madura, to within the distance of one »r two days' journey from the sea-coast. A learn- ed missionary, named Dubois, in a letter to Dr. Anderson, the physician general, states tliat lie has often seen villages in which more than half the inhabitants were affbctcd by it at the same time. The inhabitants of a village who dnnk water from one well are attacked by the disease while the inhabitants at the distance ol only half a mile who drink water from another well are not affected by it. Besides, the inhabitants living on the shore of the Cavary and other rivers, who constantly drink their limpid waters, are never visited by it; while those who live at the distance of one mile on both sides, and are obliged to drink the saltish water of wells, are all, or the most part, yearly exposed to it. Dr. Smyttam (Calcutta Med. Trans, vol. i.) confirms the observation of Dr. Chisholm and others that an argillaceous (^and tuffy') soil, with a considerable impregnation of salt, or percolated by sea-water, is what the Guinea-worm affects. And another fact seems to be pretty well ascer- tained, both in the East and West Indies, that the worm not only insinuates itself into the body through the skin, but that its ova may be convey- ed into the system through the stomach, and de- posited in the cellular membrane under the skin, where it attains its growth, and at length pro- duces that local irritation which leads to its ex- pulsion. The fact that those who are affected with the dracunculus rarely suffer from any other disease at the same time, with a few other reasons which appear entitled to little weight, has led some per- • sons, and lately Dr. Milne of Bombay, (Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journal, No. 106,) to maintain the position that the substance which is observed in this disease is not a worm, but a lymphatic vessel. We cannot take further notice of this opinion, nor is it necessary to advert to the cir- cumstances which led Sir James Macgrigor to conclude that the dracunculus was contagious, as the facts have been explained by Dr. Chisholm on a far more reasonable hypothesis. The Guinea-worm has been rarel)' seen in its native state out of the body. Nevertheless, the observations of Dr. Helenus Scott of Bombay, (See Medico-Chir. Review, vol. iv. 1823,) and recently those of Dr. Robert Grant, (Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journal, No. 106.) set the question of its independent existence at rest. 6. Blostalgla.*—The concourse of depressing symptoms which sometimes arise in persons who are absent from their native country, when they are seized with a longing desire of returning to their home and friends and the scenes of their youth, constitutes the disease called nostalgia. Some have considered it peculiar to the natives of Switzerland, because it was often observed in the Swiss soldiers when on foreign service. But, alas ! too many instances of this affection occur in the natives of other countries, and evince that it has its source in the very frame and constitu- tion of human nature in every part of the world. Though It might appear that the inhabitants of mountainous countries were more liable to nos- talgia than others, yet many instances have oc- curred in which a removal from the plain to the [* It is not easy to see how Dr. Hancock makes thi. an endemic disease.] HKes trug](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21116817_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
