On the origin, habits and diffusion of cholera, and what may be done to prevent or arrest its progress, and to mitigate its ravages / [by J. Fayrer].

Joseph Fayrer

Date:: [1886]

Credit: On the origin, habits and diffusion of cholera, and what may be done to prevent or arrest its progress, and to mitigate its ravages / [by J. Fayrer]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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2tr 4 it is still a question to be solved, whether these may not owe their origin, as well as their diffusion, to more general causes. Epidemics are fevers; “ cholera is a fever which appears in its true character when not immediately fatal, and when time is allowed for the development of its successive stages.” They resemble each other in the extent of their range and the manner of their diffusion. They sometimes give warn- ings of their approach by the outbreak of some milder epidemic, and, it has been said, “ by the modification of the type of existing diseases, or by the transmutation of ordinary diseases into something more or less resembling that which is at hand.” It would appear that they are occasionally preceded by influenza; this was the case in the visitations of cholera in 1831 and 1848. They are sometimes actually in operation in a place before they assume their distinct form; eg diarrhoea may prevail before cholera breaks out. “They resemble each other in their migration;” advancing by leaps they come to their height, decline and disappear in one locality, attack another, pass through the same process, proceed to another and so on to a fourth, fifth, and sixth; the same resem- blance is seen in the periodicity of their return. The predisposing causes are external and internal. External are vitiated air or water, overcrowding, sewer gases, stagnant subsoil moisture, and other insanitary con- ditions ; such are also called “ localizing causes.” Internal causes are such as render the blood impure. The atmosphere, without being vitiated by such causes, undergoes natural changes which predispose to the spread of epidemics. It is quite certain (says Dr. S. Smith) that there is an epidemic meteorology. Mr. Glaisher took the first steps towards bringing this matter within the purview of science, having studied it during three cholera epidemics. This department of Epidemiology is making progress and promises to yield important results. I may say it is now the subject of careful investigation by a well-organized Meteorological Department in India. Variation in atmospheric pressure, extraordinary stillness of the atmosphere, deficiency in the tension of positive electricity or of rainfall, absence of ozone, fogs, blights, low forms of life in the air, all have been regarded as possible predisposing causes. Attention has been called more than once to the disappearance of birds from cholera-affected

On the origin, habits and diffusion of cholera, and what may be done to prevent or arrest its progress, and to mitigate its ravages / [by J. Fayrer].

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