The sanitary lessons of Indian epidemics : letter from Inspector-General R. Lawson.

  • Lawson, Robert.
Date:
1883
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sanitary lessons of Indian epidemics : letter from Inspector-General R. Lawson. 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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    SxB,—In your remarks on the paper of Dr. Cuningham, on the “ Sanitary Lessons of Indian Epidemics,” in the Medical Times and Gazette of July 21, you object to his statement that there is no evidence to prove that cholera is caused by any special contagium developed in the bodies of the sick, and communicated, either directly or indirectly, by human intercourse, on the ground that in Europe, and from Europe to America, it has invariably followed the great routes of trade, and that in countries which have direct communica- tion by sea only with others where it is endemic or epidemic, it has invariably made its first appearance in those seaport towns which lie on the routes of such intercourse; and as constantly among persons just arrived from infected ports abroad. As Dr. Cuningham has left England on his return to India, and it is of especial importance, at the present juncture, that we should confine our theories of the causa- tion and mode of transmission of cholera to what we can establish by logical inferences from ascertained facts, I venture to draw your attention to some facts bearing on this question you have inadvertently overlooked. The epidemic of 1873 in the United States commenced at New Orleans in Febi'uary, and, during the summer, extended northwards along the valley of the Mississippi, and east- wards and westwards along those of the Ohio and Missouri, respectively, but did not pass into the valley of the St. Lawrence and great lakes, or cross the Alleghany range, so that the whole Atlantic seaboard and the country south of the lakes remained exempt, save at the south-west corner of Lake Michigan, where Chicago came within the epidemic field. The earliest known case-occurred on February 8, in a man who came from Pensacola two months previously,.and had since resided in New Orleans; the second, on the following day, was in a man who had lived in New Orleans four years: these men lived at a considerable distance from.