Handbook of the science and practice of medicine / by William Aitken.

  • William Aitken
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of the science and practice of medicine / by William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    144/880 (page 26)
    kinds, cholera, plagiie, and diseases of a similar type. To the second, namely, the animal malaria poisons, are ascribed typhus, and the epidemic typhoid fevers, dysenteiy, and the like. To the third, or mixed poisons, are due erysipelas, metria, furunculoid diseases, such as boils, carbuncles, and othei-s. Of these in their order ; and fii-st, of the Mainrions or Paludal PoUons.—The diseases usually attributed to this endemic source, and which were formerly so destructive, have almost disappeared from this country, with one exception^ namely, cholera. The iieason of this may fairly be ascribed to tlie improved drainage both of the towns and of the agiicultural districts. The fact may be proved, did space permit; and the practical inference leads one to hope for still more immimity fi-om diseases arising from this soui'ce, if the proper authorities direct further efforts in tliis direction. The facts collected by medical writei-s from Hippocrates down- wards, show that every country is unhealthy in proportion to the quantity of marsh, or of undrained alluvial soil that it contain.? : the inhabitants of such districts dying often in the ratio of 1 in 20, instead of 1 in 38, the average mortality in healthy countries. The connection of a given class of disease with mai-shy districts i;s distinctly established. Places kiiovfu as Malarious.—Ancient Rome was once the seat of so many fatal epidemics, that the Romans erected a temple to the goddess Febris. These arose from the gi-eat masses of water poured down from the Palatine, Aventine, and Tarpaeian hills becoming stagnant in the plains below, and convei-ting them into swam]i.s and marshes. The elder Tarquin ordered them to be drained, aud led theii- waters by means of sewers to the Tiber. These subter- raneous conduits ramified in every direction under the city, and were of such considerable height and breadth, that Pliny'term.s tliem operum omnium dictu maximum suffossis montibus atque urbe pensili subterque navigata ; and this system of drainage, which was continued as late as the Ctesars, rendered Rome propoi-- tionably healthy, and the seat of a larger population than has since perhaps been collected within the walls of any city. On the inva- sion of the Goths, however, the public buildings were destroyed, the embankments of the Tiber broken down, the aqueducts laid in ruins, the sewers obstructed and filled up, and the whole countrv being now again overflowed, Rome once more became the seat of au almost annual paludal fever, as in the times of her earliest foundation. The in.salubrity of the Pontine Marshes, jiast or present, is notoi'ious. Three hundred years, however, before the Cliristian era, Appius Claudius drained them by making canals, building bridges, and by constructing that magnificent road, portions of which