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
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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.

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    ■■flBnHnBnniH EPIDEMICS ARE PREVENTABLE. 23 subtle fluid which has not wholly lost its organic composition, and that it consists of particles of extreme minuteness, capable of attaching itself to the surfaces of other bodies, and even of increasing under favourable circumstances. It is further thought that this body is not equally diffused through the atmosphere, but is only partially distributed, and that this accounts for the local distribution of epidemics, and for their occasional absence from places which apparently pre- sent all the conditions favourable to their development. Lastly, the opinion is gaining ground, that this body acts in the manner of a ferment. It is urged in favour of this view, that a ferment being an azotized substance in a state of putre- factive alteration, the body in question must find, in the decom- posing organic compounds with which impure blood is charged, precisely the materials for taking on the fermenting process. The advocates for this view think that the term zymotic is not only the appropriate name for the whole of this class of diseases, but that it also declares an interesting fact connected with them. Whatever may be the truth with respect to these points, on which at present we have no positive knowledge, one thing is certain, that practically our concern is with the known causes,—the ascertained conditions. These are palp- able, definite, and capable of complete removal and prevention. Overcrowding, for example, we can prevent; the accumula- tion of filth in towns and houses we can prevent; the supply of light, air, and water, together with the several other ap- pliances included in the all-comprehensive word Cleanliness, we can secure. To the extent to which it is in our power to to do this, it is in our power to prevent epidemics. The human family have now lived together in communities more than six thousand years, yet they have not learnt to make their habitations clean. At last we are beginning to learn the lesson. When we shall have mastered it, we shall have conquered epidemics. Our duties, then, and our hopes in this respect, I shall show in my next lecture.