On continuous molecular changes, more particularly in their relation to epidemic diseases : being the oration delivered at the 80th anniversary of the Medical Society of London / by John Snow.

  • Snow, John, 1813-1858.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On continuous molecular changes, more particularly in their relation to epidemic diseases : being the oration delivered at the 80th anniversary of the Medical Society of London / by John Snow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    existence of malaria or miasmata, much less of their nature. Intermittent fevers were attributed to such agents from the absence of any other known cause, especially as they were observed to come on after expo- sure to the air of certain localities, more particularly at night. There is, however, some evidence of another and different cause of intermittent fevers than that above alluded to. In the General Report of the Poor Law Commissioners on the Sanitary Condition of Great Britain,* Mr. Wm. Blower, Surgeon, of Bedford, states that typhus and ague, which had long infested the village of Wootton, near Bedford, had been much diminished by digging a few wells, and obtaining good water. He also states that, in the neighbouring parish of Houghton, almost the only family which escaped ague, at one time, was that of a respectable farmer who used well water, whilst aU the other families had only ditch water. M. Boudinf relates a very marked instance in which intermittent, and apparently also remittent, fever were caused by drinking marsh water. It is as follows :— In July, 1834, 800 soldiers, all in good health, embarked on the same day in three transports at Bona, in Algeria, and arrived together at Marseilles; they were exposed to the same atmospheric influences, and were, with one essential difference, suppHed with the * 8vo. 1842, p. 66. t Essai de G-eographie Medicale, p. 53.