Under this caption the British Med. Journal for February 11, 1888,
contains an editorial review of a pamphlet of 87 pages, published in
1788, and entitled: “_A Treatise on Fevers, wherein their Causes are
exhibited in a new point of view, to prevent Contagion; and Putrid Sore
Throat, Inflammatory Fluxes, Influenza, Consumptions, as well as the Low
Nervous Fevers that terribly affect the Spirits, may be cured with
ease_.”
The most remarkable part of the book is the speculative or explanatory
part, consisting of an exceedingly ingenious argument, based upon the
analogy of admitted facts, to prove that the cause of contagious fevers
is some invisible noxious matter in the air. Of the intimate nature of
this matter he says: Some consider it to be a sulphurous exhalation from
the earth; but this cannot be, for, if so, acrid and sulphurous fumes
would increase it, instead of checking or annihilating it. Another
theory is that it is due to the products of putrefaction; but how can
dead putrid matter ever get such activity as to work such astonishing
results? It must therefore be something endowed with a more powerful
activity than anything belonging to the mineral kingdom or simply
putrefying matter, and must, therefore, be something “actually living.”
He further concludes that these living organisms must have an existence
independent of the body in which they are found. For this view,
surprising and novel enough at first, loses some of its singularity, if
we search for resemblances elsewhere. Now, just as it was well known
that itch is due to the presence of acari, insects visible by the aid of
the microscope, so close attention to these matters in numberless cases
during many years, has proved beyond a doubt that the gaol distemper,
putrid fever, plague, and infectious epidemics generally, proceed not
from matter putrid in itself, but from invisible insects also, that,
floating in the air at times, are lodged in the skin in immense
quantities; feeding here in clusters, they produce pimples, pustules,
etc.; for instance, the eruption of small-pox. He overlooks, or fails to
mention, the possibility of their entering by the air passages or
digestive system. “Medicines,” he says, “which poison insects without
injuring the constitution have always proved specific.” These insects,
which constitute contagion, are communicated by air, the raiment, as by
contact. He admits that vegetables as well as animals suffer from the
ravages of these animalcules. He believed that they originated from eggs
and not _de novo_. He advises fumigations with sulphur and frankincense
to destroy contagion in rooms, and shows that many diseases in lower
animals are cured or prevented by the use of certain agents known to
kill insects.
In summing up his theory, he says that, generally speaking, there are
two sources of these animalcules. First, from subterranean sources,
which operate in all sorts of weather and are accompanied by electrical
phenomena. Second, from the surface of the earth, swamps, filthy lakes,
stagnant ponds, etc. The eggs left on the soil develop in summer, and
“the multitudes effluviate into air.”
The essay is interesting to us because of the very clear foreshowing of
a theory that we are apt to regard as the creation of recent years. It
is a good example of the power of attentive observation and inductive
reasoning, which is so seldom met with even in scientific medical men of
the present day.