Fever, in its relations to sanitary reform, being the address in medicine, delivered ... [to the] Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / [William Davies].

  • Davies, W. (William), 1818?-1893.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fever, in its relations to sanitary reform, being the address in medicine, delivered ... [to the] Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / [William Davies]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    original, the other three derived. It so happened that each of the original cases was admitted into a different ward, and that there was no other case of fever of any kind in either of those wards at the time of such patient’s admission. Now if we consider—firstly, that maculated fever is a very rare disease in Bath—secondly, that at the time of the admission of each of the original cases described, there was no other case of fever of any kind in the same ward— thirdly, that each of the three derived cases had been in the hospital for a considerable time previous to the admission of the original ones; one upwards of a month, another six weeks, and the third a nurse of the hospital of several years’ standing—and lastly, that a considerable amount of intercourse is shown to have existed between the two classes of cases:—if these facts are regarded, without the introduction of any mental idol, I do not see how any other conclusion is to be arrived at than that the two classes suffered under the same disease, and that the one was derived from the other. In order to justify any other conclusion, it would be necessary to assume that a local cause of fever sprung up in three distinct wards of the hospital, at three different periods of time; and that the coming into operation of this cause, in each instance, agreed, both as to time and place, with the admission of patients labouring under the same disease. I am. anxious to have this matter clearly apprehended, for two reasons—firstly, because it furnishes an argument in favour of the speciality of maculated fever, like producing like; and secondly, because it supplies a link in that, to my mind, perfect chain of facts and arguments by which the contagious property of typhus is proved. It will, perhaps, be considered that I have occupied too much space in the attempt to establish the eruptive character of typhus, as the fact is to be found stated with sufficient clearness by several authors. In deprecation of this judgment, I would observe that a fact usually becomes established as a scientific verity, long before its operation on men’s minds as a practical belief displays itself; and that the fact we are discussing is in the former, and not in the latter predicament, I have much reason to believe. 2nd. I now come to the second proposition, namely—That maculated fever is propagated by contagion. By the term contagion, I mean to express the means by which a specific malady is com¬ municated from a diseased to a healthy person, without inquiring