On the study of epidemic disease, as illustrated by the pestilences of London : being a paper read before the Epidemiological Society of London, at the opening of the session 1857-8 / by E. Headlam Greenhow.

  • Greenhow, Edward Headlam, 1814-1888.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the study of epidemic disease, as illustrated by the pestilences of London : being a paper read before the Epidemiological Society of London, at the opening of the session 1857-8 / by E. Headlam Greenhow. 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.

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    impropriety, employ a portion of the brief time at my disposal in thus attempting to sum up shortly the most obvious heads of inquiry in the study of epidemic diseases. I have done so with much diffidence in such a presence, and rather in the expectation of furnishing a topic for profitable discussion, which may serve to elicit the opinions of my auditors, than from any hope of conveying to them any new hints. I now propose briefly to illustrate the preceding suggestions by a reference to the epidemics of London. By the epidemics of London I mean only the more notable diseases of this kind, and such as, if they be capable of spreading by infection, are likewise admitted by almost uni- versal consent to spread sometimes irrespectively of personal intercourse with the infected or to require some peculiar condition of persons or places for their full development. Thus purely contagious afl'ections, such as small-pox and scarlatina, which, however much they may vary in intensity with variations of time and circumstance, vary in amount only in proportion to the number of persons unprotected by a previous attack or by personal idiosyncrasy, who are brought into relation with the special contagion, will not come under notice on the present occasion. The epidemics, therefore, whose history I propose to employ for my present purpose, and which might very appropriately be termed pure epidemics, will be conveniently divisible into two classes, viz. : 1. Epidemics apparently depending upon some purely atmo- spherical influence, which will comprise only the single form of febrile disorder, known under the name of influenza. 2. Epidemic pestilences, depending also, indeed, in a great measure, upon atmospherical influences for their production, but requiring likewise some definite condition of persons or places, peculiar to each, for their full development. Under this head, the black death, sweating sickness, plague, dysen- tery, or, as I propose to term it, alvine flux, and cholera (also a form of alvine flux) will be included. The most prominent feature in the history of all these diseases is their irregularly periodical character, their ten- dency to recur again and again, in the epidemic form, after absences of longer or shorter duration. Such has been the history of all of them, excepting the black death, of which only one visit is recorded. Sweating sickness, plague, and cholera, have each returned several times. Their successive appearance is next worthy of note. The black death was the distinctive pestilence of the fourteenth century. The sweating sickness occupied the last portion of