Spirillum fever : synonyms : famine or relapsing fever as seen in western India / by H. Vandyke Carter.

  • Carter, H. V. (Henry Vandyke), 1831-1897.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Spirillum fever : synonyms : famine or relapsing fever as seen in western India / by H. Vandyke Carter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    of casualties registered was 33,511, and of these 12,832 were due to ' fever,' no other heading being nearly so predominant. In connection with famine-diarrhoea, which was shown to be so pre- valent in the Presidency town of Madras (holding not unlike relations to its own country districts), I would add that the municipal report indicates a similar affection may have prevailed here, especially amongst destitute immigrants ; the absolute number of deaths from cholera (so interpreted) and diarrhoea m excess of the normal mean was, however, inconsiderable as compared with the augmented fever-deaths. 1878.—Though famine immigration from the Deccan greatly di- minished, yet the fever mortality did not subside in proportion ; and from hospital data, I am able to state that now the resident poor of the town suffered more than in the previous year. The total deaths exceeded those of 1876, the latest normal year, by 6,116 ; and of this surplus 4,007, or two-thirds, were due to 'fever ;' vide the Chart. As in 1877, but rarely in normal years, the fever mortality augmented in May and declined in June, when it is the custom of country labourers to return to their homes ; in general features too, of caste, sex and locality, the ex- perience of the great famine year was partly repeated. The fever sickness here seemed to be kept up by localised epidemics, the chief of which, according to my hospital data, occurred among weavers and other Mus- sulmans ; and on testing these data of ' relapsing fever' with those of fatal ' remittents ' shown in the Municipal Returns, I find the clinical experience may have been (as was not unlikely) a sample of larger facts; thus, during 1878 fever-deaths in the town amongst Mussulmans, so far from declining distinctly, as did those amongst Hindoos, are found to be rather in excess of the previous years, viz. as 2,477 to 2,422 ; and 375 weavers in the town died, against 186 in the previous year. A second sub-epidemic outbreak was detected amongst low-caste immi- grants from Kattiawar, whose numbers brought to hospital aided in the May predominance of spirillum fever shown in the Chart, Column E. 1879.—Fever mortality but slowly declined, the deaths being 8,445, or more than 50 per cent, in excess of the previous normal mean ; its monthly distribution is shown in the Chart. Experience at the G. T. Hospital showed best the frequency of relapsing fever when carefully sought for, there being four or five times as many admissions there as in the larger Native hospital (alone referred to in the Chart) ; and I had the clearest evidence of its spread by contagion. Deaths amongst Mussul- mans still predominated in the town ; and equally in my wards, cases of relapsing fever amongst them. There occurred this year another minor famine immigration of ryots from Kattiawar, and several cases of specific fever from this group were admitted into the G. T. Hospital ; two died (father and daughter), and I note that here ' remittent' fever deaths were registered outside. By caste these people were Jains, and the municipal returns show an augmentation of fever mortality in this sect ; the signifi- cance of the datum, like that of contemporary high Brahmin mortality, being not obscure to medical practitioners acquainted with the local history and contagious properties of the new disease. 1880 and 1881.—Traces of the late epidemic still remain, notwith- standing subsidence of the main cause giving origin to it in 1876-77 ;