Life of Dr. John Reid : late Chandos professor of Anatomy and Medicine in the University of St. Andrews / by George Wilson.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life of Dr. John Reid : late Chandos professor of Anatomy and Medicine in the University of St. Andrews / by George Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    with references to the progress of cholera, and to the sports of the carnival. “Talking of hit days, as they may be translated, the Catholics have fat days and lean days. On the former they are ex- pected to eat as good a dinner as they can afford ; on the others they are supposed to eat nothing stronger than fish. Monsieur La Saigne, luckily for me, is not so good a Catlnflic as to pay a strict observance to the rules of his Church, so that we keep all the fat days, and pay no attention to the lean ones. . . . I am continuing to like Paris very well, and still feel myself very comfortable in the family. The little boy is really an amusing little fellow, and he and I are great friends.” The last letter from Paris is dated April 17, 1832. A large part of it is occupied with references to the frightful mortality occasioned by cholera. A single quotation will suffice on this topic. “ We have had the cholera here for the last three weeks in a very serious manner. Within that time it has committed considerably greater ravages than it has done iu the whole of Britain during the whole time it has been there. It is generally believed, and ap- parently with reason, that the Government does not publish in their bulletins above one-half of the num- ber of those attacked, or only those who have entered the hospitals, and yet the published list has some- times acknowledged above a thousand new cases in the twenty-four hours. I have seen at the same time between 200 and 300 cholerics [cholera patients] myself in one hospital, and I have counted above