Preventive medicine in relation to the public health ... Being lectures and addresses delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital and elsewhere. Revised by the author / by Alfred Carpenter.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preventive medicine in relation to the public health ... Being lectures and addresses delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital and elsewhere. Revised by the author / by Alfred Carpenter. 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.

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    the approach of cholera are progressive from place to place. The factor z may be brought in, and the disease produced earlier than it otherwise would if it had to wait for development sua sponte. In solving the power of each member of the equa- tion X, y, z — enteric fever, we may be certain that the factor z is a living organism capable of repro- ducing its like in any situation in which faecal contamination has occurred, and in which the products of filth-decomposition are to be found. The rules which apply to typhoid apply with equal effect to cholera and its allies. Do any of these diseases arise sua sponte ? The sudden way in which some of them develop sanctions the idea. This is especially the case with enteric fever and scarlatina. Many intelli- gent and accurate observers have been unable otherwise to account for the appearance of those diseases in given cases. Yet, the ordinary laws of natural histoiy would forbid the suggestion. Growths, apparently spontaneous, are common in the vegetable kingdom, but in no case is it sup- posed that the growth has taken place without the previous presence of appropriate spores or seeds. The sudden and wide-spread appearance of eczema epizootica among cattle, or the destruc- tion of potato by potato blight, seem to be spontaneous, yet those diseases spread by con- tagium particles; we may reasonably suppose that the propagation depends upon spores like to Penicillium glaucum or Mucor mucedo. Those