Observations on ophthalmia and its consequences / by Charles Farrell, M.D.

  • Farrell, Charles, 1779-1855.
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on ophthalmia and its consequences / by Charles Farrell, M.D. 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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    will be also proved in time, when our knowledge of the fact is more extensive and better founded, that an inflammation of the eyes, is much more frequent, and runs to a much higher degree, among the inhabitants of Sicily and other islands of the Mediterranean, than among the same num- ber of people in any part of the united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland.' This maybe owing to a variety of causes ; but the most obvious are, the srtare and heat of the sun bv dav, succeeded by the coldness and humidity of the night, and vicissitudes from hot to cold, changes not at all unfrequent in the climate of the southern islands and shores of the Mediterranean sea. Egypt is, perhaps, the part of the world, in which all the causes of ophthalmia, arising from soil and climate, exist in the greatest abundance and force. This circumstance is sufficient in itself to account for the prevalence of the disease in that country; and how far such a combination of causes may contri- bute to the production of a species of ophthalmia, which by frequency, inveteracy, or other means, may acquire the power of propagating itself by contagion, I cannot take upon myself to deter- mine. As it is probable that the contagious qua- lity of many diseases originated from a source somewhat similar, I see nothing contrary to ana- troops at all times; but this will not account for the unusual frequency of the disease in the army for the above-mentioned period.