The collective investigation record / edited for the collective investigation committee of the British Medical Association by Professor Humphry and F.A. Mahomed.
- Mahomed F. A.
- Date:
- 1883-1884
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The collective investigation record / edited for the collective investigation committee of the British Medical Association by Professor Humphry and F.A. Mahomed. 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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![II.—FOREIGN. Records of epidemics of genuine pneumonia are not very numerous in literature, and it has been already stated that they fall mainly within the last decade. But for three hundred years (Hirsch, Haeser) epidemics have occurred, and been recorded, in which pulmonary symptoms have prevailed, although it is impossible to say whether they were what would now be called cases of uncomplicated pneumonia or not. Indeed, it is highly probable that many of these epidemics were part of other diseases, as typhoid fever and influenza, and therefore do not strictly fall within the scope of the present review. Thus Hirsch* (1), in speaking of pneumonia, after a lengthy discussion upon the meteorological and climatic conditions that influence its prevalence, states that a large number of cases of primary pulmonary or thoracic inflammation are recorded, which can be explained by no known etiological factors; and for the occurrence of which some unknown influence or s]3ecific cause, miasmatic or other, has to be invoked. Such cases are wont to occur in epidemic form, and have been variously described as 'bilious' or 'putrid pleuropneumonia' or 'typhoid pleuropneumonia.' Hirsch appends a chronological table, which includes references to records of no fewer than 187 such epi- demics, from the 16th century to the middle of the 19th. It is noteworthy that Italy furnished the larger proportion in the lGth and 17th, France in the 18th, and N.America in the 19th centuries. Only six of the epidemics are assigned to the British Isles, viz., one in February, 1736, in Fife (Edinb. Med. Obser- vation, v., 35); two in Plymouth, spring, 1740, and winter and spring, 1745-6 (recorded by Huxhamf); one in London, in January, February, 1805 (Bateman, Report on Diseases of London, 1819, p. 37); one in Dublin in 1832-3 (Hudson, Dublin Journal of Med. Sci., vii., 372, in an article entitled * The second editien of this remarkable work has not yet been completed, so that we are unable to give Professor Hirsch's matured opinion upon the subject of pneumonia. It is matter for congratulation that the work will now be avail- able for English readers in the translation by Dr. Creighton (New Syd. Soc). f Huxham was the first to employ the term pneumonic fever to this type of the disease.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21700886_0214.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
