Hydatid disease, with special reference to its prevalence in Australia / by John Davies Thomas.

  • Thomas, J. Davies (John Davies), 1844-1893.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydatid disease, with special reference to its prevalence in Australia / by John Davies Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    I venture to hope that the facts thus elicited may prove of practical value in diminishing the serious prevalence of Hydatid disease in some of the Australian colonies. To know the extent of an evil, and its chief causes, are the most important steps towards its prevention. How very grave the extent of the disease has been—for example in Victoria—is shown by the facts, that during the fourteen years, 1868 to 1881 inclusive, 500 persons were known to have died of it; and that over 1,000 cases were recorded in the returns forwarded to me from the various hospitals of the colony. In my opinion it would be quite reasonable to estimate, that during the last twenty years from 2,500 to 3,000 persons, at least, have suffered from Hydatid disease in this one colony. Such facts not only justify, but urgently invite, inquiry ; and if any apology were needed for the publication of a work upon this subject, it would be found in the fact that if the natural history of this parasite were generally known to the public, and if that knowledge were universally applied in the daily life of the people, in ten years time Hydatid disease would be to all practical purposes extinct. Perhaps there is no other serious disease so completely within the beneficent domain of preventive medicine; but the most important advances in public hygiene must depend upon the in- telligent co-operation of the individual citizen, for it is no more possible to make people healthy than it is to make them good by Act of Parliament. In making these assertions, I by no means wish to underestimate the value of the official machinery charged with the guardianship of the public health ; but I do maintain that the most extensive sanitary reforms must depend upon the educa- tion (in the widest sense) of the general public, and it is by dis- seminating far and wide the knowledge of the causes of disease and premature death that public health officers and the medical profession can hope to reduce the present frightful mortality from preventible diseases. In a small way, and within narrow limits, this has been my aim in writing this work. I have endeavored in Part III. to depict as completely as I can the life-history of Echinococcus, and in order to render this more clear, I have, in Part II., given an elementary general history of the Tapeworm family. In Part IV,, I have recorded, as completely as the data at my disposal permit, the statistical prevalence of the disease in various countries.