The volcanic origin of epidemics / by John Parkin.

  • John Parkin
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The volcanic origin of epidemics / by John Parkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sary to proclaim it openly, tlie real agent, under the mortal influence of which the cholera morbus has burst upon us, with the rapidity of lightning, has, up to the present moment, completely concealed itself from our researches.’' It is refreshing, after wading through all the vain speculations, that have been broached on the subject, to listen to such avowals as these. “ It is some- thing,” as M. Morin Desbrosses remarks, “ to discover our ignorance, and to dare to confess it with honesty. He, who has optical illusions, will certainly take a false route. The blind man, on the contrary, proceeds circum- spectly, and uses precautions, which will more probably lead him to his destination.”2 Having, in the first part of this work, traced all the false routes taken by those who must have been labouring under optical il- lusions ; let us now see whether we cannot, by using the precautions of the blind man, grope our way in the midst of the darkness by which we are surrounded ; until we reach that goal, where all the clouds of doubt and scepticism will be removed, and the light of truth be alone visible. Before the doctrine of contagion was promulgated, tlie majority of writers, from Hippocrates down, conclude d, that the cause of all diseases—both epidemic and endemic —existed in the atmosphere. Hence the aphorism of the father of medicine, Her est omnium rex morborumque causa. This conclusion is generally allowed to hold good, in the present day, with the class of diseases termed endemic, which are known to be produced by the presence in the atmosphere of a poison, to which the term malaria— 2 Histoire de VEpidemie du Cholera Morbus dans le Ddparte- ment de Loire.
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