Sketch of the medical and statistical history of epidemic fevers in Ireland, from 1798, and of pestilential diseases, since 1823 : with an appendix, consisting of a dissertation on the pathology of fever, edit. Dublin, 1826, and a comparative view of cholera morbus -- edit. Dublin, 1832 -- illustrated by cases / by William Stoker.

  • Stoker, Gulielmus, 1773-1848.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketch of the medical and statistical history of epidemic fevers in Ireland, from 1798, and of pestilential diseases, since 1823 : with an appendix, consisting of a dissertation on the pathology of fever, edit. Dublin, 1826, and a comparative view of cholera morbus -- edit. Dublin, 1832 -- illustrated by cases / by William Stoker. 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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    I shall now proceed to the extracts from those letters, which, under an imperative sense of duty, as senior phy- sician to the Fever Hospital and House of Recovery, I was induced to address to the managing committee, with a view to some regulations which, under existing circum- stances, might promote the original design of that insti- tution, namely, the relief of those affected with epidemic and pestilential diseases,^ and the acquisition and diffusion of medical knowledge.t To conciliate the indulgence of the public which I feel 1 stand so much in need of, I have to premise, that in this part of my duty, I mean to rely chiefly on those re- sults of my experience, to be found in the registry and annual reports of the proceedings of the Cork-street Fever Hospital. And though from those sources no new matter may be derived upon a subject about which so so much has been said and written of late; still by com- paring those documents in your hands with the last ac- counts which have reached us of cholera morbus in other places, I hope to show the identity in all the essentials of that devastating epidemic abroad, with the typhus fevers of this country with which we have been so long ac- quainted ; so as to enable us to aid those humane men now engaged in investigating the nature and causes of the threatened calamity. That the experience of those engaged in the treatment of epidemic and pestilential fevers during their unprecedented growth and malignity in Dublin for the last thirty years,J can afford that as- sistance is a reasonable expectation; and by availing myself of it on the present occasion, I hope to prevent the overwhelming panic, and its injurious consequences which might follow any remarkable increase in the num- * Original resolutions, &c. by the Managing Committee in their first Report, Dublin 1801: That to relieve the destitute poor afflicted with fever, and to check the progress of contagion are the main objects of the proposed institution. Page 5. t First Medical Report, Dublin, 1806, (page 11,) the physicians state their objects to be: 1st, *cThe prevention of infection: 2dly, the alleviation of diseases; and thirdly, the acquisition and diffusion of medical knowledge. X Admitted from the 14th of May, 1804, to 4th of January 1831, inclusive, 84,588 patients into the Fever Hospital in Cork-street, alone; of which 5,352 died, the mortality being nearly as 1 to 16 admissions within the last year patients have been admitted, and have died, a mortality of 1 to . The latter period may be adverted to more especially in comparing the course of the epidemic of Dublin and that of Sunderland during the corresponding two months.