HISTORICAL NOTICE OF EPIDEMIC DISEASES.
The earliest notices we have of Pestilences are contained in Holy Writ. The
plagues which smote the Egyptians in the time of Moses are not unworthy
some comment here. Of those ten plagues, four out of the number were due to
the miraculous appearance of myriads of the lower animal tribes, in three
instances of insects,[13] viz. lice, flies, and locusts; in the fourth,
when Aaron stretched forth his hand with his rod over the streams, over the
rivers, and the ponds, frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. In
these instances living beings are made the instruments in God's hand for
the punishment of the wicked. These plagues include the second, third,
fourth, and eighth. The first plague is mentioned as a conversion of the
waters into blood. Now if we may take this expression as being literal,
there is no reason to suppose that this blood differed in any respect from
ordinary sanguineous liquid; we therefore may assume, as the blood is every
where in Scripture spoken of as the _life_, that this fluid was endowed
with vital properties.
{35}
The fifth plague is described as a murrain among beasts; and the sixth, as
exhibiting itself as "a boil breaking forth with blains, upon man and upon
beast."[14] Now these affections bear a resemblance to the diseases known
to us at the present day through authentic records. The Black Death of the
14th century affords in its history but too awful a picture of the horrors
of such pestilences. In the tenth plague, the smiting of the first-born, we
are not told by what means it was brought about; but we have something even
here to lead us to conjecture. In the second visitation of the Black Death,
there were destroyed a great many children whom it had formerly spared, and
but few women. The seventh plague of hail is within our conception; as is
also that of darkness, the ninth plague.
It is not a little remarkable that of the ten plagues, seven of them
depended upon agents intelligible to our comprehension; we can conceive of
{36} the invasion of a country by myriads of loathsome insects and
reptiles, and can imagine the wrath of an offended Deity directing the
force of a supernatural storm of hail upon a disobedient people; and we can
conjecture, though faintly, the consternation of human nature on being
subjected to a total darkness of three days' duration, when we consider
_that_ darkness has been described, as "a darkness that might be felt."
From this abstract we discover that the three plagues whose causes we
cannot understand, or rather upon which no light has been thrown by
Scripture, bear analogies to those which we recognise, in the writings of
modern authors, as fearful pestilences.
It is now our province to reflect on the causes supposed to be in operation
in the three instances, which become naturally separated from the rest.
We are told that a murrain appeared among the cattle, without any
preliminary step. When the blains broke out upon man and beast, Moses had
been previously directed by the Almighty to take handfuls of the ashes of
the furnace, and sprinkle them towards the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh.
"_And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt_, and shall be a
boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast, throughout all the
land of Egypt."
Another coincidence, in connexion with subsequent pestilences, arrests the
attention, on the subject of the mysterious appearance on these occasions
of {37} matter resembling dust being prevalent about the houses, and on the
clothes of the people. Clouds also, and showers of dust-like particles,
were not of infrequent occurrence. Indeed, in the summer of 1849, during
the progress of the Cholera, several phenomena of a similar nature were
observed and authenticated; I myself can bear testimony to one instance of
the kind. It was observed by many persons in my neighbourhood after the
passage of an ominous and lurid cloud, that as they walked their clothes
became covered with a singular dust-like matter of very peculiar
appearance. That this phenomenon was not destitute of significance may be
gathered from the fact, that on the night of that day several severe cases
of Cholera occurred, though our village had been comparatively free for ten
days.
Hecker, in writing on the Black Death says, the German accounts expressly
speak of a "thick stinking mist which advanced from the east,[15] and {38}
spread itself over Italy; there could be no deception in so palpable a
phenomenon." It is not unworthy of mention, that in the East successive
invasions of locusts "which had never perhaps darkened the sun in thicker
swarms," preceded the great outbreak of this disease, for they left famine
in their train.
From 1500 to 1503 in Germany and France, during the prevalence of the
sweating sickness, spots of different colours made their appearance,
"principally red, but also white, yellow, grey, and black, often in a very
short time, on the roofs of houses, on clothes, on the veils and
neckerchiefs of women, &c." Blood rain is also mentioned as having occurred
at this time, which consisted of the aggregation of minute particles of red
matter.
In the seven plagues, miraculous operations of the Deity consisted in the
unusual manifestation of phenomena, but which in their effects are
recognizable as of clear and definite import. The miracles here are,--in
the _mode_ of producing the swarms of frogs, locusts, &c. but they are
manifest and unmistakeable _causes_ of plague and famine; in the other
three, on the contrary, we witness only the effects, the causes are hidden
from us; we may, therefore, as in current events, legitimately investigate
the subject, and what better course can be adopted than that which
classifies the traditionary past with all subsequent history. Presuming
such a method of research to be admitted, I have assumed that as {39} the
_causes_ of the seven plagues have been distinctly given, the others,
though only mentioned in their effects, were due to causes of a nature in
some way to be compared with their concomitants, that is to say, if a
special intervention of the Deity brought about a miraculous appearance of
frogs, lice, &c. there is but little reason to doubt that some other agent
was miraculously multiplied and concentrated to induce the murrain,
engender the blain, and smite the first-born: as if to lead us into this
enquiry, on the visitation of the blain in man and beast, the Bible History
tells us that Moses threw ashes of the furnace, which became a dust
throughout all the land of Egypt; we cannot imagine that this simply as
ashes could have caused the blain, we may conclude that by some special
miracle, either the ashes were converted into a specific form of matter
capable of inducing the effects recorded, or that an independent septic
matter was generated for the purpose. If the latter, the act of throwing
the ashes of the furnace into the air may have been intended to signify
that the extremely minute division of the particles when thus cast into
space, typified the inscrutable and hidden nature of the matter endowed
with such marvellous properties.[16]
{40}
Further on in the book of Leviticus are passages which I cannot forbear
transcribing, for they point out to us most indubitably a line of enquiry
in reference to diseases of a contagious nature.
"The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen
garment, or a linen garment, whether it be in the warp or woof, of linen or
of woollen, whether in a skin, or in any thing made of skin, and if the
plague be greenish or reddish in the garment ... it is a plague of leprosy,
and shall be shewed unto the Priest, and the Priest shall look upon the
plague and shut up it that hath the plague seven days; and he shall look on
the plague on the seventh day; if the plague be spread in the garment,
either in the warp, &c. ... the plague is a fretting leprosy, it is
unclean. He shall therefore burn that garment ... wherein the plague is,
for it is a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire. And if the
Priest shall look, and behold, the plague be not spread in the garment ...
then the Priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague
is, and he shall shut it up seven days more: and the Priest shall look on
the plague, after that it is washed: and behold if the plague have _not_
changed his colour, and the plague be not spread, it is unclean; thou {41}
shalt burn it in the fire; it is fret inward; whether it be bare within or
without. And if the Priest look and behold the plague be somewhat dark
after the washing of it, then he shall rend it out of the garment ... and
if it appear still in the garment either in the warp or the woof ... it is
a spreading plague: thou shalt burn that wherein the plague is with fire.
And the garment ... which thou shalt wash, if the plague be departed from
them, then it shall be washed the second time and shall be clean."--Chap.
xiii. 47-58.
Again in Deuteronomy. The curse for disobedience: "The Lord shall make the
pestilence cleave to thee until he have consumed thee from off the
land.--The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and
with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the drought,
and with blasting, and with _mildew_, and they shall pursue thee until thou
perish.--The Lord shall make the rain of thy land _powder_ and _dust_: from
heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed."
It may be said, and I doubt not will be said, all this is unnecessarily
dragging the sacred volume into an enquiry totally foreign to its general
tenor; on the contrary, however, I maintain by that Book we are to learn
the ways of God to man, and further, that no study can impress mankind with
so awful, so terrific an idea of his responsible position, as that which
leads him into the investigation of the causes {42} by which the Almighty,
doubtless in His wisdom, has thought fit at various epochs of this world's
history, to place man face to face with pestilence, famine and sudden
death.
There is no man would less willingly than myself introduce profanely the
revelations of Scripture. The observations here made are not, therefore,
intended for light or heedless controversy; if they have a significance of
any import, let them be alluded to in the same spirit with which they have
been quoted; if they convey nothing for approval to the reader, let silence
rest upon them. To those who would fain disregard my request, let me recall
to their minds the veneration which from childhood I trust we have always
felt on hearing or seeing those two words--Holy Bible.
It is yet to be determined, whether the greenish or reddish appearance of
the garment spoken of, as being contaminated with the plague of the leprosy
had any specific relation to the disease itself. The priest orders that the
garment shall be shut up seven days, and on the seventh day, if the plague
be increased, by which, of course, is meant if the greenish or reddish
colour have increased, and from which we may gather that a power of
spontaneous increase was possessed by the matter, such a result indicated a
fretting leprosy, and the garment was to be burnt. Again, though there may
have been no increase, but a persistence of the coloured matter after
shutting up and washing the garment, it is to {43} be burnt, for it is fret
inward, signifying, that the germs of the affection are still there, and
may soon increase. Other rules follow in reference to the plague of
leprosy, and the mode of deciding whether an article be unclean or clean is
definitely laid down, but our purpose is served in mentioning the above, to
shew that in the time of Moses the spontaneous increase of certain minute
multiplying germs was supposed to have a close connexion with disease. It
is equally clear, that the priests were aware by the order given them, that
if the ordinary modes of purifying articles of clothing failed in their
effect, the safest and surest method of destroying infectious matter was to
resort to the practice of consuming by fire all materials capable of
propagating an infectious malady.
The facts above noticed, accurately correspond to what we now know as
applicable to the matter of infectious and contagious maladies. It is a
rule, I believe universally adopted throughout the Poor-houses of this
country, to put the clothes of all persons about to become residents in
these establishments, into ovens, where they are submitted to a temperature
incompatible with the existence of either animal or vegetable life. By this
means all living matters are destroyed, but the fabrics and inorganic
matters retain their properties intact. This simple proceeding, I am
credibly informed, is an effectual preventive of contamination by articles
of clothing, a desideratum of no small importance, when it is {44}
remembered that the diseases among the poor owe much of their inveteracy to
the accumulation of effete organic matters about their persons and clothes.
A few more observations are called for on the quotation from Deuteronomy,
in which allusion is made to living matter being an agent in the production
of disease. In the curse upon the children of Israel for disobedience, we
read that they are to be smitten with mildew. No further information,
however, is vouchsafed to us, nevertheless, we can conceive the wretched
condition of those on whom the curse might fall. Again, we find in a
continuation of this curse that the Almighty uses means such as He adopted
in the sixth plague of the Egyptians. The ashes of the furnace became a
small dust in all the land of Egypt, breaking forth with blains upon man
and beast. In the curse of the Israelites the words are: "The Lord shall
make the rain of thy land _powder and dust_: from Heaven shall it come down
upon thee until thou be destroyed."
It might be conjectured that the absence of rain would be sufficient to
account for the extinction of the people on whom the curse was pronounced,
by the famine and drought necessarily attendant upon the loss of moisture.
But this does not appear to be the meaning of the passage, for the powder
and dust are mentioned as the agents of destruction; besides, in the
continuation of the curse, the locust is to destroy the grain, the worm the
grapes, and {45} the olive is to shed his fruit; we may thus take for
granted that drought and famine are not to be caused by the showering of
powder and dust, it must consequently be supposed that the effects of the
dust in the instance of the Egyptians are to be compared and classified
with those of the dust which smote the Israelites.
As far then as Sacred History conducts us in the enquiry, concerning the
causes of pestilences, we gain encouragement in the belief that living
germs are the active agents, for in the case of the leprosy, we have
evidence of reproduction in connexion with infection, which, if our line of
argument be tenable, amounts to demonstration; then, in the other instances
of the plagues, by boils and blains, they distinctly bear comparison with
the accounts given by profane writers, of the visitations of pestilences on
the earth, subsequently to those mentioned in Scripture history.
This leads now to the consideration of recorded facts observed and noted
during the various Epidemics in the early and subsequent periods of Man's
History, as given by those on whom reliance may be fairly placed.
Setting aside the uncertain information contained in the writings of the
Chinese,[17] a people whose {46} progress in the science and practice of
Medicine has nothing to commend it (even as it is at the present day) to
the notice either of the physician or the historian, unless it be to the
latter as a mark of peculiarity both in a social and political point of
view,--passing also over the Egyptians, the Arabians, and the Greeks,--and
even Hippocrates himself, we are driven to the Romans for any authentic or
precise notice of Epidemic Affections. It has been attributed to
Hippocrates that he predicted the appearance of the Plague at Athens, {47}
and that when it was introduced into Greece he dispelled it, "by purifying
the air with fires into which were thrown sweet-scented herbs and flowers
along with other perfumes."[18] But little advantage can be derived from
enquiries concerning the first appearance of any disease, for the
probability of discovering the primary cause is certainly a {48} hopeless
case, if attempted by means of the writings of ancient authors, when it is
recollected that with all the science and learning of the ancient
Egyptians, the use of optical instruments was not comprised among the
paraphernalia of their arts. The knowledge that was limited to the powers
of natural vision, where the foundation of knowledge is based upon facts
obtained through the aid of that penetrator of nature's secrets, the
microscope, offers no advantages to the student of the present day.
To say that a disease commenced in the East and travelled westward, and at
length found a habitation and a name in every part of the globe, is no more
than to say that disease is coeval with the fall of man. The cause is as
much hidden in the region of its birth, as in that where it sojourns for a
time. The cause of the sweating sickness was as much a mystery in England
as in all the other nations of Europe, which were visited by its
devastating power. And these observations apply with as much force to one
disease as another; for even our indigenous ague, originating in some
places so limited that the shadow of a passing cloud may mark the boundary
of its dwelling place, as inscrutably evades our vigilance, with all the
appliances that art can bring to our assistance, in endeavouring to evoke
its extraordinary properties under the cognizance of our senses.
If we weigh the air which carries the poison, or analyze it by the most
delicate chemical tests, or {49} take the weight of the atmosphere which is
charged with it, or if we take the blood which carries the germs of the
disease to the tissues of the body, and submit them after the work of
destruction is accomplished, to the most rigid inspection, we can but
exclaim,
"These are Thy marvellous works!"
and confess our total inability to fathom the unbounded.
If then no practical advantage can accrue from investigating the writings
of the ancients on these subjects, beyond comparing their historical
statements with those of more recent date, our purpose will be served by
occasionally embodying any remarkable observations of the former with those
of the latter.
In proceeding with this course it were better to confine our minds chiefly
to two diseases which appear from history to have been known from the
earliest periods, these are the Plague and the Small Pox, mentioning other
diseases only _en route_.
Passing then, to the sixth century of the Christian era for the first
distinct and connected account of the Plague, it appears from a host of
testimony, that the history of this disease, as given by Procopius, well
merits our attention. Drs. Friend and Hamilton, in their Histories of
Medicine, and Gibbon, in his History of Rome, are equally warm in their
praise of Procopius: the latter says, he "emulated the skill and diligence
of Thucydides in the {50} description of the Plague at Athens." The account
given by Procopius of this disease, does not differ materially from that
given by subsequent eye-witnesses of similar pestilences. Its point of
origin is clearly marked, and its mode of dispersion in all directions
distinctly traced from "the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between the
Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile." It commenced in the
year 542. It raged in Constantinople in the following year, and it was in
this city that our historian gathered the materials which are handed down
to us. When, however, we anxiously look for any explanation as to the cause
of the malady, we are told that it must have been a direct visitation from
Heaven, in consequence of the eccentric characters exhibited in its
wide-spreading influence, in not yielding to the scrutiny nor bending to
the laws known to prevail, and to regulate the course of other diseases:
neither country nor clime, age nor sex, the strong and healthy, nor the
weakly and previously diseased, could be said to be free from its
indiscriminate destruction.
But some phenomena preceding the outbreak of the pestilence are observed as
coincidences by all authors. Gibbon thus writes: "I shall conclude this
chapter with the comets, the earthquakes, and the plague which astonished
or afflicted the age of Justinian." From the accounts given by this author,
earthquakes for some years had been threatening and destroying many
portions of the globe, {51} that in the ruins of cities and in the chasms
of the earth, great was the sacrifice of human life. Constantinople, which
suffered so severely from the plague is said to have been shaken for forty
days. These great disturbances of the globe have been always looked upon as
indicating other and important influences of a secret or hidden nature;
these impressions on the minds of the people are traceable throughout the
histories of all epidemics, and have been sufficiently distinct among the
people of our own time, preceding and during the period of infliction.
From this short notice of the Plague of 543, I pass to the ninth century,
when Rhazes, the Arabian physician, endeavoured to enlighten the world on
the subject of Small Pox.[19] In quoting his opinions, I am not to be
understood as subscribing to them, but merely endeavouring to point out
some peculiar and interesting observations.
First, then, Rhazes attributes the disease to a condition of the blood,
which he thus describes, to shew how it happens that in infancy and
childhood the disease is most prevalent, and that old age is {52} least
liable to the affection.[20] "The blood of infants and children may be
compared to _must_, in which the coction leading to perfect ripeness has
not yet begun, nor the movement towards fermentation taken place; the blood
of young men may be compared to must which has already fermented and made a
hissing noise, and has thrown out abundant vapours and its superfluous
parts, like wine which is now still and quiet, and arrived at its full
strength, and as to the blood of old men, it may be compared to wine which
has now lost its strength, and is beginning to grow vapid and sour."
"Now the Small Pox arises when the blood putrifies and ferments, so that
the superfluous vapours are thrown out of it, and it is changed from the
blood of infants which is like must, into the blood of young men which is
like wine perfectly ripened: and the Small Pox itself may be compared to
the fermentation and the hissing noise which take place at that time."
But the cause of the disease is simply alluded to by this author, as
depending upon "occult dispositions in the air," and as he speaks here of
Measles with the Small Pox he goes on to say--"which necessarily cause
these diseases and predispose bodies to them." This notion of Rhazes that
there is some peculiar condition of the blood which favours a process
resembling fermentation is not without interest. The circumstance that
individuals are not {53} usually liable to a second attack of the disease,
no doubt directed the attention of this physician to compare the process of
fermentation with disease of such a nature, seeing that when the whole of
the saccharine matter was converted into spirit, the hissing noise, as he
calls it, or the disengagement of carbonic acid gas would cease, and the
capacity for fermentation be entirely gone. So that the occult conditions
of the air, their power of inducing a disease, and multiplying the matter
capable of engendering a similar affection, stood in the mind of Rhazes as
analogous if not identical phenomena.
We pass now without further comment to the epidemics of the Middle Ages;
and here the work of the philosophical Hecker leaves us little else to
desire in the way of information, as far as it is obtainable from published
records. From the manner in which he has grouped the facts which presented
themselves to his mind in the course of a most laborious research, he has
saved the student of this subject much toil in acquiring matter for
reflection; he has here but to read and digest.
I know not how to select from this invaluable work the most striking
passages, to strengthen and support my hypothesis, for not a page is
destitute of facts corroborative of the doctrine that vital germs are the
material agents of pestilential disorders. The opening paragraph to the
Black Death is a most cogent illustration of the assertion; it is, as it
were, the theme of the work. "That {54} Omnipotence, which has called the
world with all _its living creatures into one animated being_, especially
reveals himself in the desolation of great pestilences. The powers of
creation come into violent collision; the sultry dryness of the atmosphere;
the subterranean thunders; the mist of overflowing waters are the
harbingers of destruction. Nature is not satisfied with the ordinary
alternations of life and death, and the destroying angel waves over man and
beast his flaming sword."
I must here apologise for large transcripts from Hecker's work, for neither
could I command the amount of knowledge there displayed, nor use such
appropriate language as the learned translator has employed.
It is not doubted that the Black Death was an Oriental plague, only of more
than usual severity, and wider spread influence of the infectious nature of
this disease, and the active properties of the matter producing it. Hecker
says, "articles of this kind--bedding and clothes--removed from the access
of air, not only retain the matter of contagion for an indefinite period,
_but also increase its activity, and engender it like a living being_,
frightful ill consequences followed for many years after the first fury of
the pestilence was past."[21]
{55}
As extraordinary atmospheric and telluric phenomena preceded the Plague in
the time of Justinian, so do we find similar instances recorded as the
precursor of a similar visitation 700 years later. I am concerned more with
those circumstances which refer more especially to my subject, _viz._ the
development of organic matter, and the peculiar odours of the atmosphere,
the latter being evidence of some foreign and unusual production in our
respiratory media. "On the island of Cyprus, before the earthquake, a
pestiferous wind spread so poisonous an odour, that many being overpowered
by it, fell down suddenly and expired in dreadful agonies. A thick stinking
mist advanced from the east, and spread itself over Italy."
{56}
It is probable that the atmosphere contained foreign and sensibly
perceptible admixtures to a great extent, which, at least in the lower
regions, could not be decomposed or rendered ineffective by separation. In
1348 an unexampled earthquake shook Greece, Italy, and the neighbouring
countries. During this earthquake the wine in the casks became turbid, a
proof that changes causing a decomposition of the atmosphere had taken
place. "The insect tribe was wonderfully called into life, as if animated
beings were destined to complete the destruction which astral and telluric
powers had began."
"The corruption of the atmosphere came from the east, but the disease
itself came not upon the wings of the wind, but was only excited and
increased by the atmosphere where it had previously existed."
"The most powerful of all the springs of the disease was contagion; for in
the most distant countries, which had scarcely yet heard the echo of the
first concussion, the people fell a sacrifice to organic poison, the
untimely offspring of vital energies thrown into violent commotion."
"After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in women was
every where remarkable, a grand phenomena, which from its occurrence after
every destructive pestilence, proves to conviction the prevalence of a
higher power in the direction of general organic life." {57}
In the article Contagion, of the Essay, Sweating Sickness: "Most fevers
which are produced by general causes, propagate themselves for a time
spontaneously." "The exhalations of the affected become the germs of a
similar decomposition in those bodies which receive them, and produce in
these a like attack upon the internal organs, _and thus a merely morbid
phenomenon of life, shows that it possesses the fundamental property of all
life, that of propagating itself in an appropriate soil. On this point
there is no doubt, the phenomena which prove it have been observed from
time immemorial, in an endless variety of circumstances, but always with a
uniform manifestation of a fundamental law._"
Mead, in his Essay on the Plague, makes many observations of great interest
and worthy a physician of eminence; and where, in recent times, shall we
look for any more definite information concerning the causes of
pestilences? It is not a little singular that at the time this book was
published, it was read with such avidity that it went through seven
editions in one year.[22] From this circumstance we may gather that the
public generally took a lively and proper interest in a subject that was
not only of domestic, but national importance. Whether this interest was
stimulated by the fact that the work was written expressly by order of the
{58} government, it is now impossible to say, at any rate much credit is
due to the Lords of the Regency for having placed so important a duty upon
one so thoroughly and in every way so duly qualified for the task as Dr.
Mead. It had been well if some of the advice given at that time, as means
of protection against the Plague, had been applied and put in force during
the late visitation of epidemic Cholera, for, however the minds of some may
be convinced of the non-contagiousness of Cholera, there are many who hold
a different opinion, and all will acknowledge, that if not strictly a
contagious affection, it is clearly proved to be capable of being carried
from place to place, or to use Dr. Copland's words, it is "a portable
disease." But this is not the place to discuss the subject of contagion,
allusion will be made to it hereafter. To return, Mead's expressions are
singularly illustrative of the vital power possessed by the germs of
disease; he says, "There are instances of the distemper's being stopt by
the winter cold, and yet the seeds of it not destroyed, but only kept
unactive, _till the warmth of the following spring has given them new life
and force_. His confession as to the hidden cause of the disease, is worthy
transcribing: "We are acquainted too little with the laws, by which the
small parts of matter act upon each other, to be able precisely to
determine the qualities requisite to change animal juices into such
acrimonious humours, or to explain {59} how all the distinguishing symptoms
attending the disease are produced."[23]
On the spread of the Plague is the following:--"The plague is a _real
poison_, which being bred in the southern parts of the world, maintains
itself there by circulating from infected persons to goods, that when the
constitution of the air happens to favour infection, it rages with great
violence." Contagious matter is lodged in goods of a loose and soft
texture, which being packed up, and carried into other countries, let out,
when opened, the imprisoned seeds of contagion, and produce the disease
whenever the air is disposed to give them force, "otherwise they may be
dispersed without any considerable ill effects." Gibbon thus speaks of the
above quoted work: "I have read with pleasure Mead's short but elegant
Treatise concerning Pestilential Disorders;" many also might read it at the
present day with infinite advantage. Mead most satisfactorily combats the
opinions of the French physicians who maintained the non-contagiousness of
the Plague. Experience proves beyond doubt, that certain conditions of
atmosphere, of {60} which we are ignorant, favour the growth and increase
of pestilences as they do of all vegetation.
Dr. Bancroft was of opinion that specific contagions are each and severally
creatures of Divine Wisdom, as distinctly and designedly exerted for their
production, as it was to create the several species of animals and
vegetables around us.
The indigenous fever of Ireland, which has several times shewn itself in an
epidemic form, appears to have been as fatal, as the Plague in the South of
Europe. Its devastations have generally been associated or preceded by
famine and general distress. Dr. Harty, writing in 1820, says that thrice
within the last eighty years has the same fever appeared in its epidemic
character. In the year 1741 Ireland lost 80,000 of her inhabitants from
this cause. It is a maculated typhus, and considered to be a special
product of the Emerald Isle. It has been shewn that fever began to exceed
its ordinary rate in those places first where famine and want of employment
were most severely felt,[24] and that in such places and under such
circumstances, it was most prevalent and fatal. The physicians generally
believed it to have been spontaneously produced and not to have been
imported. In the last Famine Fever of Ireland, Liverpool and several other
places suffered severely from the {61} importation of their Channel
neighbours with the disease in some instances, and the infection in others
about their persons. Hitherto these have to all appearance been the limits
of the affection; we know not, however, how soon the time may come when the
invisible bonds which have thus chained the disease to certain localities
may be severed, and spreading itself like other pestilences in an
aggravated form, attack this country as a last and crowning act of
retributive justice. At present it has but cost us money and regrets, but
if the history of pestilences is to be heeded, there are many tokens which
seem to indicate that a few slight concurrent circumstances only are
wanting, to bring the full force of this disease upon us; then will there
be a sacrifice of life. Edinburgh and other towns of Scotland have had some
visitations already, ourselves but slightly, but let our labouring
population suffer to any large extent for want of work, and we shall
inevitably be the sufferers from that fever which in consequence of general
destitution is now always more or less prevalent in Ireland.
The Sweating Sickness prevailed in England alone at first, but at length
sought foreign victims. The Cholera is an exotic disease, as well as the
Plague, but they occasionally have visited our shores, and their seeds
remain among us. The Small Pox is now even not known in some parts of the
world, but when once it is established, who can predict the period of its
first appearance in an {62} epidemic form. The history of the disease
informs us that in all the countries where it has been introduced, sooner
or later an epidemic has seized the inhabitants.
A disease previously unknown in India appeared at Rangoon in the year 1824,
which obtained the name of Scarlatina Rheumatica. Four years afterwards it
attacked the Southern States of North America, and though the disease was
so impartial as scarcely to spare a single individual of any town to which
it extended its influence, it was not accompanied with that mortality which
has usually been the characteristic of wide spread epidemics.
There is one peculiar feature of all epidemics which may be here mentioned
as indicative of some definite, though at present unaccountable cause,
operating in the sudden suppression of the disease after a certain period
of duration. This distinctive character may almost be considered as a law
in reference to these affections; if we take three distinct diseases, the
Plague, the Irish Fever and the Cholera, we find the rule apply to all. Of
the latter disease we have so recently been witnesses, that I need not
quote authorities on this point concerning it. In Dr. Patrick Russell's
work on the Plague at Aleppo I find the following remarkable passage. After
alluding to the great increase of pestilential effluvia that there must be
towards the close of an epidemic, compared with the amount at the onset of
the disease, and expressing his {63} astonishment that so many escape
infection, he says: "The fact, however unaccountable, is unquestionably
certain; the distemper seems to be extinguished by some cause or causes
equally unknown, as those which concurred to render it more or less
epidemical in its advance and at its height." He then mentions that in
Europe the sudden cessation may be partly attributable to the measures
adopted for preventing its extension; but "at Aleppo, where the disease is
left to run its natural course, and few or no means of purification are
employed, it pursues nearly the same progress in different years; it
declines and revives in certain seasons, and at length, without the
interference of human aid, ceases entirely."
The expressions of Dr. Harty on this subject, in connexion with the Irish
Fever, would apply as well to all other epidemics: "It is a fact, that
though every diversity of management was resorted to for effecting the
suppression of the disease, yet, nevertheless, there was an almost
simultaneous and apparently spontaneous decline of the epidemic in the
various and most remote parts of Ireland. It is not an easy matter to offer
a satisfactory explanation of this circumstance, _some general cause must_
no doubt have influenced the subsidence of the disease, yet that cause
could not be atmospheric, inasmuch as the decline, though it might be said
to be simultaneous, was not sufficiently so to admit of that explanation."
* * * * *
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