Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of epidemic diseases, and of its relation to their predisponent constitutional causes : and on the twofold means of prevention, mitigation, and cure, and of the powerful influence of change of air as a prinicpal remedy / by T. Forster.

  • Forster, T. (Thomas), 1789-1860.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of epidemic diseases, and of its relation to their predisponent constitutional causes : and on the twofold means of prevention, mitigation, and cure, and of the powerful influence of change of air as a prinicpal remedy / by T. Forster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    reference to the observations that I made in a former chapter. The darkness so often mentioned is another fact calculated likewise to show the atmospherical origin of epidemics. I must pass over numerous plagues recorded by Livy, Justin, and Pliny, to the consideration of a curious fact respecting the death of Julius Caesar, in B. C. 44. A pestilential period was then beginning to prevail, and it was preceded by a set of natural events such as have been shown to have so frequently been the forerunner of disease, but which superstition, aided by an accidental coincidence, represented as signs of the death of Caesar, as Virgil says, when Sol etiam exiincto miseratus Csesare Romam, cum caput obsciird nitidum ferrugine texit, or as Ovid more aptly has it, Phcebi quoque tristis imago Lurida sollicitis probabat lumhiu ierris.* At the same time we are told Nec diroe toties arsere cometae. The comet of this period is said to have been the same according to calculation, which had appeared in B. C. 1767, when it would correspond to the deluge in the time of Ogyges, which inundated Africa, and when the planet Venus is said, on the authoritf of Varro and Pausanius, to have changed her figure, her colour, and her orbit, as if violently disturbed by this comet. It is said to have appeared again in B.C. 1194, when Electra left her sister Pleiades in the zodiac, and flew to the pole. According to writers its third period corresponded to B. C. 619, where it is recorded as the blazing star of the Sybil, and it appeared again always accompanied by terrible electric commotions and by pestilence in A. D. 531, 1106 and 1680 when it was seen by Sir Isaac Newton. I will here remark generally, for the details of the historical facts which I have examined, would be too long for insertion, that the following has expressedly been the order of phenomena, during the last seventeen centuries. A comet has appeared, northern lights, meteors, and other atmospheric commotions have accompanied it, an unhealthy period of general occur- rence, but prevailing most in particular regions, has followed, * Virg. Geor. i. 466, and Ovid Met. xv. 786.