Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of epidemic diseases : and of its relation to their predisponent constitutional causes, exemplified by historical notices and cases, and on the twofold means of prevention, mitigation, and cure, and of the powerful influence of change of air as a prinicpal remedy ... / by T. Forster.

Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of epidemic diseases : and of its relation to their predisponent constitutional causes, exemplified by historical notices and cases, and on the twofold means of prevention, mitigation, and cure, and of the powerful influence of change of air as a prinicpal remedy ... / by T. Forster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    mind as he reads on ; it will be resumed with additional facts towards the close of the work. ^ G.—Of Catarrh in general and of Influenza in particular. One of the most striking proofs of the doctrine laid down in these pages is afforded by the history of catarrhal complaints, and particularly by that more malignant epidemic the influenza, Avhicli with some varieties has visited the world like a pestilence at distant periods of time, and has often been the forerunner of still more severe forms of disease. The years when this epidemic has prevailed most are—1510, 1557, 1580, 1587, 1591, 1657, 1709, 1733, 1743, 1762, 1775, 1782. It appeared again in 1801 and 1802, and was not gone by 1823, though it kept shifting its quarters and travelling about Europe, making its attacks where least expected. The reader may compare these dates with those in the catalogue of epidemics, Chapter Y. That this epidemic produces some very remarkable and specific changes in the animal system there can be no doubt. I am luckily favoured by Dr. Miller, of Chelmsford, with his notes on this disorder, as it appeared in Edinburgh in 1803, and was described in Dr. James Home’s Clinical Lectures. It a]>pears that in February of that year it appeared in France, and was called La Grippe, and soon got to England, by March it had arrived in Edinburgh. It proved chiefly fatal to weakly subjects, and to old people suffering under chronic complaints: but its spread Avas not near so rapid, nor its destructiveness so great, as the influenza of 1782. What struck me most in this full and accurate description of the disorder, to which I lament that Avant of room prevents me from inserting at length, Avas the fact that the blood drawn from the patients did not separate readily into serum and crassamentum, and though it co- agulated speedily, never showed the buffy coat. It seems the symptoms were very much those of other influenzas which have appeared, and the average duration of the