Report on the questions, submitted by Dr. Farr to the Council, concerning the classification of epidemic diseases / Epidemiological Society.

  • Epidemiological Society of London.
Date:
[1863]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the questions, submitted by Dr. Farr to the Council, concerning the classification of epidemic diseases / Epidemiological Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    devolved, can afford sufficient information to illustrate that subject. It may be sufficient for me to express my opinion that the new classifica- tion has been rendered much too complicated for military readers, and that the former system of grouping the diseases according to the organs affected was much more likely to make the results intelligible to the majority of officers commanding troops. It is seldom that such officers are possessed of the medical knowledge requisite for appreciating the minute divisions and sub-divisions of diseases, insisted upon in the forms of the Registrar-General, or for comprehending distinctly what is meant either by zymotic diseases, or such orders of them as have to be arranged under the heads of miasmatic, enthetic, dietic and parasitic. Prior to the introduction of these terms, every officer commanding troops had some idea, on looking at the classified table of the diseases among his men, what were the organs chiefly affected, and hence might infer the nature of the precautions he ought to insist on, whether as regarded duty, clothing, diet, exercise, or temperance, in order to aid the efforts of the medical officers, and keep his men in a good state of health ; he could also, under the former system, form some idea whether the sickness of his men was more the result of their own vices than attributable to the nature of the service in which they were employed; but since the change in the nomenclature and classification of the diseases these facts are no longer apparent from the returns themselves; a knowledge of them can only be obtained through the interpretation of medical officers, who are not always agreed as to what diseases should under particular circumstances be considered as zymotic, nor under what order of that group they should be classed. I am glad to find that this subject is engaging attention in a quarter where an appropriate remedy is likely to be suggested, and I can only express my regret that more hesitation was not felt at the time, in altering arrangements, which, whatever might be their defects, had been found practically useful in the medical departments of the army and navy for upwards of a quarter of a century. Memorandum. In signing this Report, I think it right to place on record, that I am strongly of opinion the course prescribed in regard to the Returns and Reports referred to should be regarded merely as an indication of the manner in which the statistical duties should be conducted, provided the office establishment and the information attainable from the Returns will readily admit of it, but that those to whom the working of such difficult and intricate machinery is intrusted should have full power to introduce any modifications which their experience may find to be required. * -jf ***** * The nomenclature of disease, being purely a professional question, I