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.

    158/880 (page 40)
    Animal Malaria PoUona—Animal effluvia arise from the decom- position of the exhalations, excrements, or excretions of individuals (whether of mankind or of the brute creation), of fUthy habits, or crowded in confined spaces. Such poisons appear to be more limited m their cause than the paludal poisons just noticed. We know little about them except that they are developed in situations where num- bers are crowded together, as in prisons, hospitals, besieged towns, camps, ships, and such like places. Winter is known to be favourable to their development and deleterious influences. They are sedative or depressing in their actions, and while they lower the energies of the nervous system, they tend also to corrupt or poison the blood. We have given typhous fevers and dysentery as types of the disea<-^ produced by their influence. EPIDEMIC INFLUENCE. The second peculiar and characteristic feature pecvdiar to the miasmatic order of Zymotic diseases, is, that they sometimes sjjread rapidly, so as to incapacitate and destroy great numbers of the people. The disease is then said to be ejndemic (s upon j and 3>j,£toj, the people).^ ]Slo subject has aSbrded greater scope for specidatiou, than the origin, cause, and progress of epidemics. It is in vain to speculate upon the subject; and, in the words of Dr. Wood, ol Pennsylvania, all we can say, with cei-tainty, regarding epidemics, is, that there must be some distempered condition of the circum- stances around us—some secret power that is operating injuriously upon our system—and to this we give the name of epidemic infimtice or constitviimi. The most recent speculation, regards the discoveiy of a peculiar atmospheric condition, ascribed to a principle called ozone, or osnj«- zone {<>l^uv, stink, or oV^»j, smell), of which, as yet, we know nothing definite ; although many subtle instruments and apparatus are in use to detect and measure the amount of this principle in the air. A careful study of the effects of the epidemic inflnence appears to warrant the enunciation of cei-tain laws which seem to regulate its operations. These laws are thus condensed from the statements of Dr. Wood, above noticed. l^awa of Epificmic Influence. — (1.) Tliis influence frequently gives rise to diseases, apparently independent of any otlier known cause, as in the case of influenza and cholera. It makes itself manifest also by appearing to give increased energy to causes which produce particular diseases : so that small-pox, scarlatina, typhus, and the like, sometimes rage with great violence as epidemics. It also appeal's to ].)redispose to new and anomalous forms of disea.se, as witnessed in the. lurunculoid epidemic, M-hich recently prevailed