On certain causes affecting the origin of disease in large towns / by Thos. Williamson, M.D.

  • Williamson, Thomas.
Date:
[1866], [©1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain causes affecting the origin of disease in large towns / by Thos. Williamson, M.D. 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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    ON CEKTAIN CAUSES AFFECTING THE ORIGIN OF DISEASE IN LARGE TOWNS. By THOS. WILLIAMSON, M.D., F.R.S.E., RR.C.S.E., Etc. REPRINTED FROM THE EDINBURGH MEDICAL JODRNAL mu FEBRUARY 1866. In the year 1856, I published a pamphlet, titled Sanatory Be- marks in Connexion with Nuisances, and mainly addressed to students and young physicians. At the period referred to the health of towns did not engage so much attention, either on the part of doctors or legislators, as it has latterly and very properly done. How far my publication may have helped on the good cause I have no means of knowing, but have reason to believe that through its influence many of those sanatory measures which have recently proved of so much import- ance to the town of Leith owe their origin. The following observations, then, may be regarded as simply a practical sequel to the remarks contained in my pamphlet. As one of the oldest parochial surgeons in Scotland, and occupy- ing one of the largest town districts, I venture to submit a few observations, which may not be altogether unimstructive, upon one or two operative causes in the production ^ind demlopment of disease, more especially in large towns. I commence by remarking, that I have frequently had reason to regret that no power was vested in me, either as a private or public practitioner, under certain circumstances^ to compel the removal of patients labouring under infectious disease from their own homes to an hospital for treatment We are all painfully alive to the rapidity with which contagious disorders frequently spread them- selves throughout a town or district. Whatever may be the direct cause in the development of zymotic disorders—different individuals, perhaps, adopting opposite views of the matter—I think that we are, nevertheless, all agreed upon this, viz., that when an epidemic is about to visit a particular locality, it invariably, so to speak, shows a partiality for pouncing upon a prepared soil. In other words, its favourite haunts are to be found in the abodes of squalid misery, where, from a variety of operating causes, the ordinary laws which regulate health have not been maintained or cared for. Once having fastened its poisonous grasp upon any given spot, its natural tendency resembles the fire in the forest creeping slowly and insidiously from tree to tree, and halting not until its history is unfolded in the complete destruction of vitality and strength. To follow out the analogy, however, when the crackling of the burning bushes is first heard, and before the conflagration has spread its