The geographical distribution of disease in Great Britain.

  • Haviland, Alfred, 1825-1903.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The geographical distribution of disease in Great Britain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    have moved in herds across the plains over which the North Sea now rolls. Their bones have been dredged up in hun- dreds by the fishermen from the surface of the Dogger Bank. Such were the denizens of Southern England when man made his first appearance there. It seems not unlikely that he came some time before the close of the long Ice Age. He may have been temporarily driven out of the country by the returning cold periods, but would find his way back as the climate ameliorated. Much ingenuity has been expended in tracing a succession in this primeval human population of Britain. Among the records of its presence there have been supposed to be traces of an earlier race of hunters of a low order, furnished with the rudest possible stone implements ; and a later people, who, out of the bones of the animals they captured, supplied themselves with deftly-made and even artisticallj^-decorated weapons. All that seems safely dedu- cible from the evidence, however, may be summed up in saying that the 'pcdmoliiliic men, or men of the older stone period, who hunted over the plains, and fished in the rivers, and lived in the caves of this country, have left behind them implements, rude indeed, but no doubt quite suitable for their purpose; and likewise other weapons and tools of a more finished kind, which bear a close relationship to the implements still in use among modern Eskimos. It has been suggested that the Eskimos are their direct descendants, driven into the inhospitable North by the presence of more warlike races. The rude hunter and dweller in caves passed away before the advent of the farmer and herdsman of the neoiWiic or later stone period. We know much more of hitn than of his predecessors. He was short of stature, with an oblong head, and probably a dark skin and dark curly hair. His imple- ments of stone were often artistically fashioned and polished. Though still a hunter and fisher, he knew also how to farm. He had flocks and herds of domestic animals ; he was ac- quainted with the arts of spinning and weaving, could make