Epidemics considered with relation to their common nature, and to climate and civilization : in two lectures delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, November 1855 / by Southwood Smith.

  • Smith, Southwood, 1788-1861.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemics considered with relation to their common nature, and to climate and civilization : in two lectures delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, November 1855 / by Southwood Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/84 (page 5)
    Cholera traverses the earth in zones, spreads with equal facility through tropical and polar regions, and attacks alike the seats of civilization, and the huts of the slave and the savage. 3. Epidemics resemble each other in the rapidity of their course. Sometimes, indeed, they begin slowly, advance halt- ingly, and gather strength in silence. For some time they give so little indication of their power that the apprehension of their presence is very constantly regarded as a false alarm. Now and then, here and there, they strike a sudden and mor- tal blow ; but it is only an individual that falls. After a con- siderable interval, perhaps at a great distance, another blow is struck; and then one by one, another and another, until at last the fact becomes too manifest to be doubted or denied, that two victims have been seized in one family—several in the same street—three or four on the same day, in distant parts of the town, or in the adjoining town, or it may be in towns separated from each other by the distance of hundreds of miles. At length the terror-stricken nation, startled from its fondly cherished security, sees no place safe from the Plague. AVhen, however, the causes are intense, it may break forth quite sud- denly, and spread with astonishing rapidity. In 1831, when Cholera first appeared in Cairo, it extended within the space of five days over the whole of Lower Egypt, de- solating simultaneously all the towns and villages of the Delta. In .1832 it leaped at one bound from London to Paris, and when once there, spread in five days over thirty-five out of forty-eight quarters cf the city. When Influenza broke out in London in 1847, it spread in one day over every part of the metropolis, and upwards of 500,000 persons suffered from the malady. Many who now hear me must retain a lively recollection of the rapidity with which it pervaded this city, and seized on almost every one, high and low. 4. Epidemics resemble each other in giving distinct and unmistakeable warnings of their approach. These warnings