Climate : its influence in the production and prevention of phthisis and other disease / by John Parkin.

  • Parkin John, 1801-1886.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Climate : its influence in the production and prevention of phthisis and other disease / by John Parkin. 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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    regions ; as, also, with the epidemic cholera, when it is con- fined to a particular district or town. But there are other diseases, that have no such limitation of range, being found, to a greater or less extent, in all localities, and in all climates. Flight, therefore, in such cases, would not only be of problematical advantage, but it might be attended with injurious, instead of beneficial, results—those flying might be shipwrecked on Scylla, while trying to avoid Charybdis. In England, this course is adopted principally in cases of consumption; a chronic disease, that gives, in the majority of cases, ample time for the effect of a change of climate to be tried and ascertained. The question therefore is, to which category does Phthisis belong ? Is it a disease, that admits of cure or alleviation by removal to another climate, or not ? Judging from the numbers that leave our shores annually, an uninformed person might conclude, that Phthisis is a disease almost peculiar to England; and that it is imknown, or prevails only to a slight extent, in other, and more favoured, regions. That it prevails to a great extent in England is undoubted; rather more than 50,000 persons dying annually from Phthisis, irrespective of other affections of the chest. The mean, from 1851 to 1860, was 53,046, which gives a ratio of 12 per cent, on the total mortality. If calculated with the living, instead of the dead, the annual rate will be 2.67 per 1,000 ; the general mortality, for the same period, having been 22.18 per 1,000 : in round numbers, we may say, that out of every 1,000 persons li\-ing, 2^ die annually from consumption; or 5, in every 2,000. Con- sumption may, in truth, be regarded as the principal endemic of England; but, then, it does not follow, that this result is due to peculiarity of climate, or that the disease is unknown
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