Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in relation to the cholera-epidemic of 1854.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in relation to the cholera-epidemic of 1854. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was succeeded by a strong S.W. wind, which soon dissi- pated the former stagnant and poisonous atmosphere. In both periods at the end of September^ the temperature of the Thames fell below 60°, but in 1854 the barometer again increased, the air became again stagnant, and the decline of the disease was considerably checked. It con- tinued, however, gradually to subside, although the months of November and December were nearly as misty as that of September. By the close of the year diarrhoea and cholera had subsided, but a high rate of mortality still continued. It now remains for us to appreciate, one by one, in their relation to life, the several meteorological deviations which Mr. Glaisher records. And this is no easy task ; for the pathological meaning of many atmospheric variations, at least in their_ minor degrees, is hitherto quite unknown. What effect is produced on human life by an inch rise or fall in the barometer, by fluctuations of humidity and dew- point, even by seasons of non-average temperature, is very imperfectly measured. Still less is known of the chemical activities of the atmosphere. fWe know, indeed, that this DomlHTess ocean of air is, in one-fifth of its volume, oxygen ; the gas, which more or less rapidly brings all organic com- pounds into simpler chemical forms, exhausting those quali- ties that make putridity, and terminating those transitional states in which the powers of morbid infection resides. But there is every reason to believe that the oxidizing power of the air varies at different moments, as assuredly It varies at different spots. Electrical discharges—the fre- quent source of such variations—constantly occur in the atmosphere, developing in it, wherever it extends that mysterious increase of its oxidizing power which is called ozone; a qualification of the air so subtle in its kind that^ chemists still doubt whether it be a separate entitv' yet m its function so definite, so hostile to organic miasms' so incompatible with them, that its presence enables us to attirm their absence; for wherever it meets them it must be spent in disinfecting their unwholesomeness, neither leaving ol them any residue unneutralized, nor itself re- maining free,^ except as predominant force have been on hlCt f .1 '''''fT It i« likewise pro- bab e that the great acts of aerial renovation are modified by the powers of solar light, wherein our worid floats and revolves; smce in every ray of it there are chemical