Address delivered at the opening meeting of the Debating Society of Army Medical Officers, Aldershot, April 2nd, 1883 / by Robert Lawson.

  • Lawson, Robert
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered at the opening meeting of the Debating Society of Army Medical Officers, Aldershot, April 2nd, 1883 / by Robert Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    communication in such a way, for instance, as that places along the lines of railway are exceptionally attacked (p. 255). The experience of this country has been to the same effect. Though great additions were made to the railway mileage between 1849 and 1866, and the numbers of passengers increased enormously, it has been shown above the successive epidemics diminished in severity, and the areas of the country which escaped the disease increased. Drs. Pettenkofer and Pistor, having' no idea of an epidemic influence in cholera, have to fall back on communication by man to account for the introduction of the germ from which they derive these epidemics. The experience of Dr. Bryden in India enabled him to point out the influence of the aura, of an advancing epidemic to excite undoubted cases of malignant cholera far beyond the limit where the disease had been developed as an epidemic, and the instances cited above in 1859 and 1865 show the same thing in Europe; the epidemic influence then must supply the factor necessary for this purpose, and the agency of man is not required. It would be interesting to learn how this factor is diffused, but at present, though there are a number of facts bearing on it in different ways, they scarcely do more than indicate the probable line of inquiry that must be pursued to clear it up; but, inasmuch as many of you may be placed under circumstances which may enable you to prosecute the investigation, it is well to mention them. At several of the stations occupied by the American troops in the Rocky Mountains, fever of a remittent form appears from May to July, which yields readily to quinine; there is no known source of malaria near those stations, and the season is not that at which malarious emanations arise in other parts of the States. It was observed, however, that the river water proceeding from the melting snow contained a large amount of organic matter, and that the first heavy fiUl of snow also contained a large quantity, but in subsequent falls it decreased. As the melting began to fill the rivers in sprints the fever appeared among tliose using the water, and Dr. Smart] the officer who recorded the facts, considered the organic taint to consist of vegetable emanations and d6lris, swept up by the winds from the face of the continent and precipitated by cold and moisture along with snow from the higher regions of the atmosphere (Army Medical Department Eeport, 1877, p. 192). If malaria can le transported in this fashion, which there is good ground to believe it was in the instance just quoted, there seems no reason why the excitmg cause of cholera, supposing it to be particulate, might not be carried a long way in the atmosphere, and be brought to the ground either by a shower of rain, or a descensional current of air arising from other causes. In connection with this the outbreaks ot cholera met with in India after unusual or heavy rains or after