On the influence of atmospheric changes upon disease / by Arthur Ransome and George V. Vernon.

  • Arthur Ransome
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the influence of atmospheric changes upon disease / by Arthur Ransome and George V. Vernon. 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.

    23/28 page 21
    these two elements might act together, the temperature falhng as the degree of humidity and disease-curve rise, and vice versa. Of the weeks in which the degree of humidity and temperature rise and fall together, the appa- rent effects, as sho^vn in the rise and fall of the disease- curve, are almost exactly balanced, there being fifteen points of agreement with the temperature, sixteen with the humidity-curve. The fact of accordance between the rise and fall of the curves, however, must be of little im- portance in determining the influence of the element upon the disease, compared with observations upon the actual state of the air at the time of prevalence or absence of the disease. A few instances will, we think, show that the tempera- ture, although by no means inactive, exerts less influence than the humidity. While the degree of humidity is ,at its lowest point in 1857, between June 6 and July 18, the number of cases is also the least, scarcely rising above thirty. During the corresponding period in 18^8, between April 1 and July 10, although the disease is rather more prevalent than in the year before, yet the number of cases rarely exceeds fifty, and does not increase until the degree of humidity begins on the whole to rise. Both in 1857 and i8^8, when the amount of moisture in the air is greatest, the disease-curve is at its highest point. On the other hand, a low degree of temperature accom- panies both the smallest and largest number of cases in both 1857 and 1858, and the same is true of a high tem- perature; e.g. on July 18, 1857, the mean temperature is 68° while the disease is at twenty-five, and in August 1858, with the mean temperature above 60°, the number of cases remains above 100. Notwithstanding this remark, however, many of our observations will prove that tem- perature has au important modifying action.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3