Memoir on the nature of miasm and contagion : read before the Cincinnati Medical Society, February, 3, 1836 / by John L. Riddell.

Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir on the nature of miasm and contagion : read before the Cincinnati Medical Society, February, 3, 1836 / by John L. Riddell. 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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    tradition. New and relevant truths are from time to time brought to light, indicating in some instances the propriety of their total abandonment; but the fascinated minds of men are wedded to the prevalent hypotheses, and but too often, the requirements of venerable systems are mistaken for the immutable laws of nature. The novel facts are perhaps doubted, controverted, overlooked, deemed anomalous, or made to bend and accommodate themselves to the favorite theory. The leading views I am about to offer, have been suggested at various times and by various writers. If I mistake not, however, it has always been unfashionable to believe in them, and still more so to advocate them. When the science ol physiology was infinitely more vague than it is now, ere the genius of a Hunter or a Cuvier had brought to light the structure of the lower tribes of beings, or the microscope re- vealed its atomic worlds of animate wonders; while chemistry was yet in its feeble infancy, before the nature of the atmos- phere had been investigated, or the laws of union in definite proportions determined; then might such doctrines have been considered as resting on slender probabilities. But at this time, with the multiplied results of careful observation and skilful experiment before us, it is certainly far otherwise: wherefore in venturing to stem the current of popular opinion, brooking the intolerance of some, and the ridicule of others, I feel upborne by the consciousness, that my conclusions are indicated by analogies the most clear, and facts the most incontrovertible. 1 assume that the matter of contagion is of an organized nature, and consequently subject to the same general laws, which regulate the origin, increase, modes of existence, and duration of animal or vegetable bodies. I assume also, that the same is true of the morbific miasms which are exhaled from putrid marshes, and of the occult causes of choleia and other epidemic diseases. In order that due weight may be assigned to the facts and arguments on which this hypothesis rests, I will first notice