Dengue, its history, symptoms, and treatment : with observations on the epidemic which prevailed in Bombay during the years 1871-72 / by José Gerson da Cunha.

  • Da Cunha, José Gerson.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dengue, its history, symptoms, and treatment : with observations on the epidemic which prevailed in Bombay during the years 1871-72 / by José Gerson da Cunha. 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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    at a remote period. Independently of this, there are good grounds for supposing that one at least of these complaints originated in the delta of the Ganges. The earliest record we have with any shadow of authenticity about it comes to us from Egypt. In the seventeenth century a peculiar eruptive fever broke out at Cairo bearing a remarkable resemblance to dengue, which is thus described by M. De Theve- not: “ In March 1658, after some days of high winds, a certain distemper broke out, which began with headache and fever and continued with a great rheum. The fever lasted not above two or three days at most, but it rendered men so feeble that all the limbs seemed to be broken, and if preservatives were not used the patients relapsed into a fever that continued three weeks or a month. All in Cairo, from the highest to the lowest, both aged and young, were seized with it, and everywhere there was nothing to be heard but coughing. This distemper was so contagious that it infected by the breath ; it was called Abou- Chamaa, because of a certain song made some months before, which began with Abou-Chamaa and ended Ha ! ha ! ha ! Now, seeing that this distemper caused great coughing, it was thought to resemble the song Ha ! ha ! ha ! wherefore the Pasha prohibited the singing of that song with so much rigour that when the Sub-Pasha found any one singing it in the streets, though it were but a child, he ordered him to be laid down and bastinadoed, because it was fancied that the song was the cause of the distemper, which spread so far that afterwards we learn- ed at Jerusalem, and in other places about, that they had been troubled with it at the same time—nay, the corsairs who took us had all had it at that time. It was said at Cairo that, ten years before, such another distemper had raged there, which they called Mahessa, that made those who were troubled with it think their very bones were broken, and they were cured by eating oi’anges, which made these so dear at that time that one