The geographic distribution of disease in Great Britain.

  • Haviland, Alfred, -1903.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The geographic distribution of disease in Great Britain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    1868, this will be given in the introduction to the chapters on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Phthisis. The interesting observations of Dr. Farr, Mr. Hingeston,1 and others on the significant connection between a calm state of the atmosphere and an increase in the fresh cases of cholera, and in the mortality from this cause, were anticipated by Hippocrates, who noted in his Pestilential Constitution that the calms that prevailed during times of epidemics were accompanied and succeeded by their intensification. Such was the origin of the present inquiry, the object of which requires but a very few words, and may be summed up under the following heads : (1) To ascertain the geographical distribution of a disease is the first step towards a knowledge of its natural history, as it is in that of the fauna and flora of a district, a continent, or ol the world. (2) Thus to dis- cover where diseases prevail, and where they do not thrive. (3) To search for, in those localities, the causes' of prevalence, or absence, or scarcity, whether they reside in their local airs or waters, or are due to general or local climates, geological structure, physical configuration, or social surroundings. But whilst these are the three fundamental objects, we may rest assured that as we proceed we shall be led, in our en- deavours to attain them, to follow other branches of study, which, although they may not immediately serve our purpose, will, in the end, illuminate many a dark passage in our research. 1 Climate, Weather, and Disease, p. 128. (London : John Churchill, 1855.)