On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases / by Daniel Noble.

  • Noble, Daniel, 1810-1885.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases / by Daniel Noble. 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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    not receive an especial exemplification. And of itself, indeed, this fact, in its familiar aspects, acquits from any reasonable charge of presumption, when certain theories now very largely in vogue receive challenge, and are proclaimed to be essentially groundless. I propose, in this paper, to discuss the validity of a dogma relating to the production of epidemic diseases, than which none has at any time been more energetically propounded, or received a more earnest and practical support; I allude to the doctrine that organic matter in a state of decay, associated with other conditions denominated filthy, constitutes the immediate cause of all febrile, contagious, and infectious maladies, and that, consequently, such ailments as cholera, typhus, scarlatina, measles, and smallpox, would be nearly, if not completely abolished, if we could establish some perfect system of drainage, cleansing, and ventilation,—a teaching, I submit, which, however beautiful in idea, will be seen to have no solid foundation in the realities of things, if the facts bearing upon it are looked at without bias, and are interpreted aright by the aid of a sound and discrimi- nating judgment. It is, and has long been, familiar knowledge, that disease for the most part is recovered from with the greater difficulty according as the surrounding ah is loaded with impurities. This fact is from the nature of the case more obvious and appreciable in the progress of the maladies denominated febrile, because ordinarily they run their course with a certain regularity which, when deviated from, challenges inquiry, and enables the observer to estimate more accu- rately the value of such .agencies as appear to disturb the normal progress of particular cases. And as the removal of persons labour- ing under febrile ailments from an impure to a purer atmosphere has ever been noticed to diminish the virulence and fatality of these diseases, it was an easy step for a speculative mind to assume that the sensible conditions thus witnessed to prejudice such maladies constituted their efficient cause. About thirty years ago, a very able and philosophically-minded physician, still living, wrote a book in which it was contended that all the forms of fever had a common origin, and in their essential nature were identical; and, consequently, that typhus fever, scarla-