Outlines of the chief camp diseases of the United States armies as observed during the present war : a practical contribution to military medicine / by Joseph Janvier Woodward.

  • Woodward, Joseph Janvier, 1833-1884.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of the chief camp diseases of the United States armies as observed during the present war : a practical contribution to military medicine / by Joseph Janvier Woodward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    SECTION II. Crowd Poisoning. The mischievous effects of overcrowding may be manifested in a variety of ways, differing in accord- ance with the degree of the evil and the period during which individuals are exposed to it. The air of crowded cities, camps, and habitations becomes con- taminated through emanations given off during res- piration, through effluvia from the skin and by the decomposition of the various normal and abnormal excreta. When great numbers of individuals are crowded together within very narrow limits, the con- sumption of atmospheric oxygen and the substitution of carbonic acid in the ordinary process of respiration may take place to such an extent as even to induce fatal results, which has happened on more than one memorable occasion. When the crowding is less ex- treme, however, the danger arises from a very dif- ferent source. The nitrogenized matter carried into the air from the skin, and the products arising from the decomposition of the excreta are now the chief sources of mischief, and these, though not so rapid in their action as the conditions of the category first mentioned, are ultimately quite as deadly. The effects of overcrowding are not only manifested by the in- creased violence and the adynamic character of all diseases occurring among those exposed, but the de- velopment and severity of the adynamic fevers ap- pear peculiarly connected with this cause. To this group of diseases belong at least three