Epidemics Examined and Explained Part 10

[11] "Plants highly sensitive to light are those of the leguminous, or Pea kind. They always close up in the evening and clasp their two upper surfaces together, presenting only their backs to the air. Plants of pinnated leaves, as the Tansy, are more sensible than these to the effects of light. They fold up when light is too strong, as in Robinia; it produces the same effect as want of light. Its leaves close up, apparently, because they are receiving too much. So they do if a hot iron be brought near them.

They contract as if to avoid the heat. Sensitive plants, and those of the Oxalis Lent. are so sensitive that the least motion, even a breath of air, will make them close."--_Sir J. Smith._

"The vitality of plants seems to depend upon the existence of an irritability, which although far inferior to that of animals, is nevertheless of an a.n.a.logous character."--_Lindley's Introduction to Botany._

[12] Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. July 10th, 1850. No. xiv. p.

367. "Practical Observations on the Vaccination Question." By E. Oke Spooner, M. R. C. S., Blandford.

"If we examine the Cow Pox and the Small Pox microscopically, as I have done very carefully in every stage, we find that the essential character consists of a number of minute cells, not exceeding the 10,000th part of an inch in diameter, being about one-fourth smaller than the globules of the blood, containing _within their circ.u.mference many still more minute nuclei, and presenting_ beyond their circ.u.mference bud-like cells of the same size and character as those contained within the circle. They exactly resemble in everything except the size, the globules of the yeast plant, the Torula Cerevesiae. Now if we examine more circ.u.mstantially the a.n.a.logies of what I would call the Torula Variolae with the Torula Cerevesiae, we observe the following corresponding facts.

"What do we accomplish by inoculation as it is called? Simply this. We take on the top of a lancet, or an ivory point, a few of these minute cells or germs, and we put them _in their appropriate nidus_, the subcuticular tissue, where, after a few days if they find their appropriate nutrient elements, they grow and multiply."

Simon, Chemistry of Man, vol. i. p. 127. "Macgregor ascertained that the air expired by persons ill of confluent Small Pox, contained as much as _eight_ per cent of carbonic acid, and in proportion as health was restored the percentage was diminished to its natural standard." Carbonic acid is also produced during the process of fermentation and germination.

[13] See History of the Jews, p. 71.

[14] It is said by Whewell, that the murrain is supposed to have fallen only on the animals which were in the open pasture.--_History of the Jews._

"J. S. Michael Leger, published at Vienna, in 1775, a treatise concerning the mildew as the princ.i.p.al cause of the epidemic disease among cattle. The mildew is that which _burns_ and _dries_ the gra.s.s and leaves. It is observed early in the morning, particularly after _thunder-storms_. Its poisonous quality, which does not last above twenty-four hours, never operates but when it is swallowed immediately after its falling."--_Mitch.e.l.l on Fevers._

[15] "The prevalence of the south-east wind was observed to be particularly favourable to the increase of both cholera and influenza: and I cannot but think that this had some connexion with the general tendency exhibited by the former to spread from east to west. Has the morbific property of this wind aught to do with the haziness of the air when it prevails--a haziness seen in the country remote from smoke, and quite distinct from fog? What is this haze? In the west of England a hazy day in spring is called a _blight_."--_Dr. Williams' Principles of Medicine._

[16] We are to understand also that some peculiar operation took place of a nature difficult to comprehend, which seems also to typify reproduction, for the handfuls of ashes which Moses threw into the air _became a dust in all the land of Egypt_, thus signifying an enormous reproduction of atomic matter.

[17] The Chinese affect to trace the origin of Small Pox back to a period of at least 3000 years, or 20 years beyond the era of the Trojan war, 1212, A. C.

The Chinese pretend to discriminate no less than 40 different species of Small Pox.

"They also pretend to discover whether a person has died by violence or from natural causes, not only after the body has been some time interred and decomposition of the softer parts has commenced, but even after the total disappearance of the soft parts, and when the dry skeleton alone is left."--For the process, see _Hamilton's History of Medicine_, vol. i. p.

31.

To give some notion of the state of Medical Science among the Chinese, I may quote the following: "The theory of the circulation of the blood, Du Halde affirms, was known by the Chinese about 400 years after the deluge; be this a.s.sertion veracious or not, no correct knowledge up to the present day, do the nation possess of the circulating system of the human frame."--_China and the Chinese, Henry Charles Sirr, M. A._

According to their anatomy, the trachea extends from the larynx through the lungs to the heart, whilst the oesophagus goes over them to the stomach.

[18] "And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation: and behold the plague was begun among the people; and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed."--_Numbers._

The practice of burning scented herbs has been observed in all times during an invasion of the plague, as a means of protection. Also wearing perfumes and aromatic preparations has been recommended. Whether they have any counteracting influence, it is impossible to say.

Virgil in the third Georgic speaks of a murrain among cattle. He says, if any wore a vestment made of wool from an infected sheep, fiery blains and filthy sweat overspread his body, and ere long a pestilential fire preyed upon his infected limbs.

In his directions for preserving the health of flocks he says--

"Disce et odoratam stabulis accendere cedrum."

The motive for burning the fragrant cedar is not mentioned; we cannot doubt but it was a good one, and having some great practical utility, from the following line--

"Galbaneoque agitare graves nidore chelydros."

[19] The earliest mention of this complaint upon which reliance can be placed, is an ancient Arabic MS. preserved in the public library at Leyden.

"This year, in fine, the Small Pox and Measles made their first appearance in Arabia." The year alluded to being that of the birth of Mahomet, or the year 572 of the Christian aera.--_Hamilton's History of Medicine_, vol. i.

p. 215.

[20] Dr. W. A. Greenhill's translation.

[21] The Black a.s.size at Oxford, 1572, is an instance in which a pestilential vapour suddenly appeared in the court, "whereby the judge, several n.o.blemen, and more than 300 others, died within three days."

"Of an unaccountable vapour suddenly coming, I have this relation from Richard Humphrey, my neighbour, and a man of veracity, that on Wednesday, April 27, 1727, as he and one Walter, were travelling a-foot from Canterbury; when they came to Rainham, they were a.s.saulted with such a strong loathsome stink, as he thought was like the stench from a corrupted human corpse. They were so offended at it, as thinking it was from carrion in that town, that they would not stay there to rest and refresh themselves, but travelled on for about two hours, mostly in the stench, but sometimes out of it, till they came to the hill that leads down to Chatham: and there they went clear out of it and smelt it no more."--_Dr. Fuller_.

It appears that these persons did not fall sick of any disease, but the fact of itself is remarkable enough.

[22] Hamilton's History of Medicine.

[23] It has been said, that "an induction once carefully drawn, is as perfect from a single instance as it is from ten thousand, and that it is only an uncultivated mind which requires a load and acc.u.mulation of knowledge to a.s.sist his thoughts."--_Sewell_ "on the Cultivation of the Intellect."

[24] See Dr. Alison's Pamphlet on the Fever in Edinburgh.

[25] Earthquakes have in all times been considered to have some connexion with pestilences. "A most grievous pestilence broke out in Seleucia, which from thence to Parthia, Greece, and Italy, spread itself through a great part of the world, from the opening of an ancient vault in the temple of Apollo, and that it raged with so much fury as to sweep away a third part of the inhabitants of those countries it visited."--_Dr. Quincy, on the Causes of Pestilential Disease._

"Upon an earthquake the earth sends forth noisome vapours which infect the air; so it was observed to be at Hull in Yorkshire, by the Rev. Mr. Banks, of that place, after a small earthquake there in 1703, it was a most sickly time for a considerable while afterwards, and the greatest mortality that had been known for fifteen years."--_Anonymous_, 1769.

[26] See Sharon Turner's Sacred History, text and notes, vol. i. p. 161 & 162.

[27]

"Each seed includes a plant; that plant, again, Has other seeds, which other plants contain, Those other plants have all their seeds; and those More plants, again, successively enclose.

Thus ev'ry single berry that we find, Has really in itself whole forests of its kind.

Empire and wealth one acorn may dispense, By fleets to sail a thousand ages hence; Each myrtle-seed includes a thousand groves, Where future bards may warble forth their loves."

[28] "On June 5th, 1849, a man and his son, a lad aged 14 years, left Noss to fish, and when five miles out at sea, no vessel being in sight, they both simultaneously became aware of a hot _offensive_ stream of air pa.s.sing over them. It was so decided, that the crab pots were examined to discover if it were from them, but it did not, and five minutes after the father's attention was directed to the boy, who was vomiting and purging."--_Dr. Roe on the Cholera at Plymouth, Med. Gaz. Aug. 24th, 1850._

[29] Linnaeus remarked that Erigeron Canadense was introduced into gardens near Paris from North America. The seeds had been carried by the wind, and this plant was in the course of a century spread over all France, Italy, Sicily and Belgium.

[30] Hecker.

[31] This is found most generally to be the case where rivers flow through uncultivated tracts of country. The Californian emigrants suffer much from diarrhoea and dysentery, if they drink of the river and certain well waters of that gold district.

[32] "Purification from leprosy. As this fearful disease was contagious and hereditary to the third and fourth generation, the separation of lepers from the camp and congregation, and the destruction of infected houses and clothes, was of the utmost importance to the preservation of public health.

"Leprosy was of three kinds: 1st, Leprosy in man. 2nd, Leprosy in houses.

3rd, Leprosy in clothes.

"Contagious or malignant leprosy was of two kinds, viz.

"1st. The white leprosy, or bright berat, which was the most serious and obstinate form which leprosy a.s.sumes. It exhibited itself as a bright white and spreading scale, on an elevated base; turning the hair white in patches, which were continually spreading.

"2nd. The black leprosy, or dusky berat, which was less serious than the foregoing. It did not change the colour of the hair, nor was there any depression in the dusky spot; but the patches were perpetually spreading, as in the white leprosy."--_a.n.a.lysis and Summary of Old Testament History._ _Oxford._

[33] The Mexican Aloe blows when nine years old, and then dies. At least this is its usual course in the island of Cuba.