Notes and observations upon the contagion of typhous fever, and contagion generally / by William Fergusson.

Date:
[1832?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes and observations upon the contagion of typhous fever, and contagion generally / by William Fergusson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    18/22 (page 18)
    The ancients * * knew not what it was, and it may fairly be questioned, whether greater misery and danger has not been in- flicted upon mankind through the superstitious dread of the imaginary evil, than security derived against the true conta- gions, from our improved, but still imperfect, knowledge. That knowledge, when perverted, has been found capable of most pernicious application in almost every country, and when ob- scured by panic, has led to the wildest inroads upon the peace and welfare of society. The most simple diseases, and the most innocuous in respect to the community, have been proclaimed for contagious by the best physicians of the last century ; and little more than thirty years ago, my own preceptor at St Thomas’s Hospital, Dr George Fordyce, the most enlightened philosophic physician of his age, taught that ague was an infectious disease. Many still believe in the infection of phthisis pulmonalis, and propagate that belief to the no small terror and disquiet of those families, where unhappily that deadly taint is hereditary. There are even countries of Europe where the victims of this disease, so often the young and the lovely, while standing on the brink of an un- timely grave, instead of being cherished in the bosom of their families, are shut out from human intercourse, and debarred the solace of society, through terror of its contagious nature. So firmly rooted is this belief, that even after death the habitation where the ill-used victim has dwelt is declared unapproachable till it has been exorcised, as if it had been the abode of a de- mon—the bedding and clothes of the deceased committed to the flames,—and the walls expurgated. No native physician dares to question the propriety of these measures. It is an ar- ticle of the medical creed, taught in the authorized schools, sanctioned by the church, and confirmed by the people ; and the heretic practitioner who might dare to question its truth, would meet about the same degree of toleration as if he had question- ed the dogmata of the true Catholic faith. In regard to phthisis pulmonalis in this country, I may at least say, that those, who act the part of the Spanish and Italian physician here, cannot have given the subject any thing like yet with as many undeniable instances of it as can be desired, who would now ven- ture to say that all these maladies are propagated by contagion. I am aware that not very long ago contagion was taken for granted in almost every disease by the wisest and most learned of the faculty ; but subsequent experience has opened the eyes of all impartial observers to better views of the case. It was then the creed of the times, and through the remains of that creed, and in default of experience, it is to be feared that society will still be subjected to groundless alarm on the appearance of every new epidemic. * 1 speak here only of the ancient physicians, from Hippocrates to Celsus; for I cannot acknowledge the authority of the poets, nor even that of the historians, if unsupported by the physicians in a medical paper.