The common nature of epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilization, also remarks on contagion and quarantine : from writings and official reports / by Southwood Smith ; ed. by T. Baker.

  • Thomas Southwood Smith
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The common nature of epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilization, also remarks on contagion and quarantine : from writings and official reports / by Southwood Smith ; ed. by T. Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    108/144 (page 98)
    proof of tlie allegation in question requires^ present a clear and palpable cliain of evidence^ connecting as cau^e and effect the fever of the ship with the epidemic on shore; butj on the contrary^ there is not a single link undoubtedly connecting the one with the other. Take the first case forming what is represented as the first link in this presumed chain, the seizure with fever of the two guards at the Fort. Two European soldiers lately arrived in the colony, and therefore peculiarly predisposed to an attack of endemic fever, go from Boa Yista, which at that time was healthy, to a confined, unventilated, over- crowded, and filthy spot on another island, where fever was raging to such a degree that within the space of three weeks there had occurred no less than 60 attacks and 33 deaths, in a crew consisting on the arrival of the ship of 117 ofiicers and men. There is in this no evidence of the propagation of disease by a specific contagion ; on the contrary, it is the ordinary production of disease by its ordinary cause, namely, exposure to a polluted atmosphere,, the pollution being, in this instance, excessive from over- crowding j from accumulation of filth; from foul and offensive privies; from the impossibility of the admission of fresh air, owing to the construction of the building', and from the intense and oppressive heat, the thermometer ranging from 81° to 86° of Fahrenheit. The seizure of two men with fever under such circumstances is precisely analogous to the attack of persons, previously healthy, with typhus, who take up their abode in the crowded and filthy courts and alleys of English towns. Take the next link in the chain, the attack of the negro soldier. The circumstances respecting this man, being precisely the same as those relating to the two other guards, the same answer would have sufficed for both, but according to the testimony of the man himself, his illness was very slight, and his com]3anion who was sent to lodge with him