Pneumonia : its supposed connection, pathological and etiological, with autumnal fevers, including an enquiry into the existence and morbid agency of malaria / by R. La Roche.

  • La Roche, R. (René), 1795-1872.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pneumonia : its supposed connection, pathological and etiological, with autumnal fevers, including an enquiry into the existence and morbid agency of malaria / by R. La Roche. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    prevail there before the average temperature of the early montlis reaches to twenty-four degrees of centigrade thermometer (75.2 degrees of Fahr.); that in December, January, and February, when the heat remains below that limit, and the cold is often very sharp, the disease usually disappears completely; that the latter declines sometimes very suddenly, through the effects of the north winds (los nortes), an observation also made in more southern climates;' that the later these continue to blow in the spring, the later the fever makes its appearance; and the sooner they commence in the autumn, thedess apprehension is felt respecting its continuance;'^ all this, I say, should suffice to carry conviction to all unprejudiced minds. Nay, more, it may be mentioned, in farther corroboration of what precedes, that the history of the Oriental Plague, whatever may have been its course in some places, and under special circum- stances—as, for example, at Aleppo—whatever may be the usual order of events in Egypt and Smyrna, and however the disease may have comported itself during casual epidemics in other cities of Europe and Asia, furnishes additional illustrations of the power of cold and frost, in checking the progress of malarial complaints, among which that disease must undeniably be classed. The epidemic of London, in 1665, was arrested in December by frost.^ Like everything else, too, in nature, says Sydenham, in speaking of the plague, it has its proper periods of increase and decline; it takes birth at the period given above (when spring passes into summer), and it rises towards maturity as the year ad- vances ; with the decline of the year it declines also. Finally, the frosts of winter transform the atmosphere into a state unpropitious to its existence.^ The epidemic of Marseilles, in 1720, ceased on the approach of Avinter.* At Erzeroum, the capital of Armenia, the disease, in 1840, broke out in June, and in 1841, in August. In both instances, it was put a stop to by the severe cold of winter.^ The plague epidemics of Constantinople invariably commence in the summer season, and are effectually cut short by frost.'' Volney, ' Catel, 8, 9; Pym, 2, 8, 216; Caillot, 106; Dariste, 31. 2 Humboldt, 4th ed. 765. , 3 Hancock, Laws of Contagion, 91; Hodges, Loimologia, 5, 27. Vol. i. 100, cd. of Syd. Soc. ' Bertrand, Pcste de Marseilles, 255. 8 Report of Academy of Medicine, 31. ^ Brayer, Neuf ans il Constantinople, ii. 77; Clot Bey, Traite de la Paste, 225; Rapport fait a I'Acad. Rny. de Med. 330.