On small pox and its prevention, including experiments upon the lower animals : and on the establishment of government hospitals for this and some other contagious diseases in the suburbs of London / by Edwards Crisp.

  • Crisp, Edwards, 1806-1882.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On small pox and its prevention, including experiments upon the lower animals : and on the establishment of government hospitals for this and some other contagious diseases in the suburbs of London / by Edwards Crisp. 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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    of Small-pox. lu Liverpool the disease has been more fatal than in London, the deaths in this city amounting to 10*5 per cent, of the deaths, whilst in London they are 3-5 per cent. On looking over the Eegistrar-General’s Eeturns from 1850 to 1861, I find during, these ten years that no case of Small-pox ocem-red in the following Unions: Christchm-ch, Eingwood, Whitchm-ch, Peusey, Holsworthy, Askrig, Bellingham, and Belford. The unions that had only one case in these ten years, were Arlesford, Farnhoro’, Granbrook, Cuckfield, Petworth, Winslow, Whittlesey, St. Faith’s, Blofield, Scilly Isles, Tetbury, Uppingham, Sedberg, and Wetherby, During these ten years, the deaths in England and Wales amounted to 42-,071; 22,416 males, and 19,655 females. It is worthy of remark, that in all the above-named places, the population was comparatively scanty, and the sick were easily isolated. METHODS OF INFECTION. But now let me ask how this disease is spread among the people ? First and foremost among the causes is that of our pubhc vehicles—cabs, omnibuses, railway carriages, and steam-boats. The carelessness of some people convalescent from Small-pox is beyond belief: many are in pubhc places eight or ten days before they cease to contaminate others, and until a very stringent law is passed to punish severely those who thus endanger the fives of the public, there is little chance of a cessation of the danger. Other methods of contamination are by means of clothes and bedding not properly disinfected, fmmished lodgings, linen from washerwomen and laundresses, books from circulating libraries and literary institutions, second-hand clothes, wooUen goods of various kinds, money too I believe may sometimes convey the poison, and attendance at funerals where persons who have been in attendance upon the sick are present, and the congregation of persons at churches and chapels, as well as at theatres, and other places of amusement. I am afraid, too, that members of my own profession who are not careful to wash them hands and change them coats, may 'sometimes be the conductors of the disease, and this leads me to speak of one evil likely to accrue