On the nature and causes of fever : especially that termed yellow fever that is not a disease "sui generis", neither is it a malady of "modern origin" read at the meeting of the Epidemiological Society, in May last / by Edward Bascome.

  • Bascome, Edward
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature and causes of fever : especially that termed yellow fever that is not a disease "sui generis", neither is it a malady of "modern origin" read at the meeting of the Epidemiological Society, in May last / by Edward Bascome. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/40 (page 15)
    contradictory opinions as to its nature and origin^ but also as to its causes and treatment. With reference to the causes of yellow pesti- lences, it must be borne in mind that they should, as in all endemic or epidemic diseases, be divided into the predisposing and the exciting causes; the former consisting in that which enervates or spoils the human vitality—as noxious vapours or gases arising from a variety of sources, irre- gularity, scantiness, and unwholesomeness of diet, &c.; but, more notably, non-acclimatization, as in the full-habited European, the unaccus- tomed intense heat rarefying the blood of such strangers to the climate, thereby rendering the system more susceptible of the existing states and vicissitudes of the atmosphere. The exciting causes are exemplified in the variations of hot and cold, moist and dry heat, rarity or density, &c., which have been noticed and commented on by both ancient and modern authorities. Eegionum positiones, ventorumque mutationes, et tempestatum transmutationes, annique condi- tiones,” writes Celsus, in imitation of the great parent of rational medicine: whence all endemic and epidemic diseases proceed, or by which they are excited. In order to show the difference between what is called Bilious Remittent^ and the malady termed Yellow Fever—that the latter is distinct.