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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    prevails in wet weather, as well as in dry, but tbe ravages of it would appear to be increased during such a state of the atmosphere. Larrey states, that the attacks of plague, in Egypt, were constantly augmented in wet weather. Peignet also remarks: “It is inconceivable how the number of patients increases every time that the atmosphere becomes more humid.” Hippocrates and Galen have made the same remark. Moisture, on the other hand, cannot be necessary for the production of epidemic diseases, which prevail as fre- quently, if not more frequently, during dry than in wet weather. For instance, at Chuprah and at Arcot the cholera commenced before the rains had set in, and when the weather, for a month previously, had been excessively dry and sultry. In fact, Mr. Davies, in his letter, attributed the origin of the disease in that spot to the extraordinary dry season and sultry weather; for he adds, “We have every reason to trust for the setting in of the rains, which can alone relieve us from the noxious miasmata.” The disease, therefore, as was well observed by a writer in the Asiatic Journal, having shown itself at Chuprah after excessive drought, and in Bengal in the midst of continued rains, sets at defiance all theories resting on the state of moisture and dryness of the atmosphere. The same results have been observed in other countries, in hundreds of instances, since that period. Even influenza, contrary to what we should have expected, cannot be referred to atmos- pherical vicissitudes. It prevails alike within the tropics, iu the highest inhabited regions of the north, and durmg all conditions of the weather. Referring to the influenza that attacked the horses in America, in 1872-3, one
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