On the geographical distribution of some tropical diseases and their relation to physical phenomena / by R.W. Felkin.

  • Robert Felkin
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the geographical distribution of some tropical diseases and their relation to physical phenomena / by R.W. Felkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    is now known to have visited Egypt, Senegambia, and Tripoli, and the valley of the Nile as far as Khartum ; also Arabia along the coasts, and Mecca. It is epidemic all over India and Further India, and in Batavia; and has appeared in Shanghai, Amoy, and the island of Formosa. It has also visited Reunion, Tahiti, Zanzibar, and the Canary Islands ; and epidemics have overspread the West Indies and a great part of the Southern States of the Union, as well as the northern shores of South America. Space will not permit of indicating the various areas of diffusion during the several great epidemics of Dengue, but it must suffice to state that its greatest area of diffusion lies between 33° N. ]at. and 23° 30' S. lat. Remarks.—The period of incubation of Dengue is probably about six days. It is a highly infectious disorder, spreading with extreme rapidity. Summer and early autumn are undoubtedly the Dengue season, and the disease appears to depend on a high tempera- ture for its production. In the tropics as well as in the sub- tropical zones, nearly all the epidemics of Dengue have been in the hot weather, and as soon as a great fall of temperature takes place the disease declines rapidly. It is probable that the moisture of the atmosphere has little or nothing to do with the production of Dengue; as a rule it is chiefly confined to coast districts, to the courses of great rivers, and to places having a low altitude. It has been noticed in various epidemics of Dengue that it spreads in a curious way amongst various classes of the community. Every race, nationality, age, and sex may be attacked by the disease, although in separate epidemics a remarkable immunity has been noticed on the part of certain classes. Sometimes Europeans will be attacked, and natives enjoy comparative freedom from the disease; again, in other cases, natives will be almost solely attacked : sometimes children suffer i e than adults, or the reverse may obtain. For instance, Pasqne says, speaking of the epidemic at Benghazi, that it was noticeable for the decided immunity experienced by the blacks, but they air attacked as much as anyone else in Egypt and Senegal Christie remarks that in one or two of tin' epidemics which he witnessed in Zanzibar, the natives suffered less than the Europeans. In the epidemic in Mauritius in lv7:'., hardly any children were attacked by the disease. In the Deocan epidemic of 1872 there was noticed a peculiar predisposition to
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