Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the theory and practice of physic (Volume 1). 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.)
379/776
![western branch having reached England [and Ireland], the extreme point of western Europe, the stream has suddenly retrograded to the east through France, Spain and Italy, to Malta, where it seemed to have become evanescent. In pursuing its westward course, it ap- pears to have been developed in two different manners, probably according to the nature of the country, sometimes forming one or more centres, from which disease has radiated in every direction ; and again running in lines of no great breadth, the country on either side being healthy. {Dr. R. Williams's Elements of Medicine, vol. ii., p. 000.) The same writer from whom I have just quoted relates some of the peculiarities of cholera progress, as follows: — Although the great streams of cholera have, on the whole, steadily advanced, they have not proceeded at an equal pace, the rate of progression varying greatly in different countries In the year 1817, the cholera had overrun in India, in three months, a space westward of not less than four hundred miles, while to the south it had penetrated no farther than Ganjam, only ejghty-eight miles from Calcutta, in six months. In the next six months, however, it had extended in a southerly direc- tion from that point over more than four-fifths of the Peninsular. It reached Pekin in about 'he same time that it attacked Muscat, the former being twice the distance of the latter. In Europe its progress was equally capricious. It travelled from the Caspian to Vologda and Pskou, within one hundred miles of the Baltic, at a rate which would have infected all Europe in three months, while it did not reach Riga, only one hundred and eighty miles distant from the latter town, until eight months after. Its rate, however, appears to have been most retarded in its retrograde movements, for it took six years after London was infected to reach Rome. In a word, it took only one year to span the base of the Peninsular of India, while it occupied twenty years to compass the globe. LECTURE XL. DR. BELL. Causks of Epidemic Cholera.—Connexion between cholera and other diseases— Influenza—Influenza and cholera in 1780 and 1781—Both have pursued a similar course, including divergencies from the main line—Prevalence of bowel affections in cholera seasons—Increased mortality at this time from other diseases—Scarlet fever with cholera.—The special cause unknown — Predisposing and modifying causes, in weather and season; low situations; poverty, destitution, and vice of the inhabitants ; had food ; watery fruits and vegetables ; intoxicating drinks ; sudden debility of the nervous system; fear; great and unusual exposure to atmospherical extremes and changes—Atmospheric and other phenomena anterior to and contemporaneous with cholera—Attacks of the disease mainly in the sum- mer-half of the year—Prevalent winds—Sickness and mortality among animals coincident with cholera in different countries—Cholera not transmissible by contagion. Causes. — Before speaking of the probable exciting causes of cholera, I wish to direct your attention for a few moments to the connection between this pestilence and other diseases. Its precursor,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21156955_0379.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
