Epidemics Examined and Explained Part 4

In 1846, a large vine, the black Hambro-grape, {79} ripened its fruit out of doors, and was as fine as any green-house production; but during nine years that the vine has been under my inspection, this was the only time I have witnessed such a result.

We are apt to attribute an abundant or scarce fruit season to temperature alone, but this is an error--for we have before remarked, that though certain lands may be in the same degree of lat.i.tude, the plants which thrive well on one land, will not do so on the other: in fine, that where reason and a.n.a.logy would lead one to expect a particular form of vegetation, a totally different Flora is presented to the view. These facts are indeed suggestive of new and important deductions. Is it yet explained why the town of Birmingham should be free from Cholera? There is a large manufacturing population, a great number of poor, the usual overcrowding of individuals in small chambers, a considerable amount of dest.i.tution and depravity; irregular habits of living, and unwholesome diet, and doubtless many parts of the town, which on investigation would have yielded all the elements usually considered necessary for the localization of the disease: but no--here was some repelling cause, some opposing agent to the generation and propagation of the pestilential seeds. There are no known laws by which inorganic matter could be supposed to observe such a selection, or such an antagonism. Electricity, magnetism, ozone, gases, exhibit no such elective properties that here they will destroy, and {80} there they will spare; that they can almost depopulate small villages, and scarcely find a victim in Birmingham and Bath. But if we suppose a living, and multiplying matter as the cause of disease, many local causes may conspire to arrest the development of the germs, or perhaps, even utterly destroy them.

4th. As to the time of latency, facts crowd upon us indefinitely, as elements of comparison between vegetation generally, and disease in its early stages and history. The seeds of plants are extraordinarily tenacious of life. What a mysterious arrangement of the ultimate particles of matter must there be, by which the vital force remains apparently inactive for many years, and yet when the conditions arise favourable to its manifestation, as it were by an extraordinary fiat, life appears.

Previous to the year 1715, no broom grew in the King's Park, at Stirling; but in that year a camp was formed there, and the surface of the ground consequently was broken in many places. Wherever it was broken, broom sprang up. The plant was subsequently destroyed; but in 1745 a similar growth appeared after the ground had been again broken for a like purpose.

Some time afterwards the park was ploughed up, and the broom became generally spread over it. "In several places in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh," says Professor Graham, "the breaking of the surface produces an abundant crop of Fumaria parviflora, {81} although the same plant had never before been observed in the neighbourhood. It is impossible to say the lapse of time since these were buried, before they were again excited to the performance of all their vital functions." Dr. Graham also gives another proof of the vital force existing in seeds. "To the westward of Stirling there is a large peat bog, a great part of which has been flooded away by raising water from the River Teith, and discharging it into the Forth,--the under soil of clay being then cultivated. The clergyman of the parish standing by while the workmen were forming a ditch in this clay, which had been covered with fourteen feet of peat earth, saw some seeds in the clay which was thrown out of the ditch; he took some of them up and sowed them: they germinated and produced a crop of Chrysanthemum septum.

What a period of years must have elapsed while the seeds were getting their covering of clay, and while this clay became buried under fourteen feet of peat earth!"[34]

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What limit can there be to the dispersion of seeds when their vital properties may remain so long unimpaired? The seeds of which we have been speaking were, no doubt many of them, washed away with the waters of the Teith, and carried by the stream into the Forth; and who shall then mark their destination; for we have seen that by such means the most distant lands are supplied with vegetation; for whence come the plants which cover the Coral Islands, unless by the air and the water, and that both contribute, has been incontestably proved. Dr. Lindley states that melon seeds have been known to grow when forty-one years old; maize thirty years, rye forty years, the sensitive plant sixty years, kidney-beans a hundred years. But seeds in general have an indefinite period, apparently, at which they can retain their power of germination; for many of the seeds which had been kept in the herbarium of Tournefort for more than a century, were found to have preserved their fertility.

It has now to be shewn that the germs of disease also retain their vital powers in a state of dormancy during a lengthened period.

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Mead has very judiciously observed, "to breed a distemper, and to give force to it when bred, are two different things." He further remarks, that the seeds of the Plague may confine themselves to a house or two during a hard frosty winter, and be preserved, and again put forth their malignant quality as soon as the warmth of the spring gives them force. It is certainly very remarkable that the Plague of London, which commenced at the latter end of the year 1664, should "lie asleep," as Mead says, from Christmas to the middle of February, and then break out in the same parish.

It has been also known that an infected bed laid by for seven years had done infinite mischief on being again brought into use. Indeed, it is quite uncertain for how long a period woollen, fur, linen, cotton, and other articles may retain infectious matter in a dormant state. It has been supposed by some that in closely packed bed and body clothes a multiplication of the germs may and does take place, nor do I see any reason why this should not be the case, for these articles contain within their structure the effluvia of the animal body, and they may possibly there find sufficient nutriment for their development. Nees von Esenbeck believed that some of the minute Cryptogamia were re-produced in the air, we are not therefore exceeding philosophical conjecture when we imagine a basis and substratum, though an unusual one, for the germs of vegetation.

Exclusion from air and light, {84} however, as would be the case in packed-up clothes, would _a priori_ give a better colour to the conjecture, as these are the usual conditions necessary for the growth of seeds.

Small Pox and Cow Pox matter, which are now proved to be the same virus, the former modified by having been through a process of growth and maturation in the cow, are both remarkable for exhibiting their active properties after having lain dormant for a considerable time. And each, though so closely allied, retaining its specific properties.

This peculiarity in the history of Small Pox virus suggests a comparison with some phenomena of vegetation, _viz._ that of grafting or budding. The lower Cryptogamia in their fructifications resemble rather multiplication by buds than by seeds. M. Moyen's idea is that every spore or little globule, independently of its neighbouring one, lives, absorbs, a.s.similates, grows, and re-produces on its own account; this is certainly the characteristic of the Torula and the Uredo, and doubtless is so of many other of the Cryptogamia, the Protococcus nivalis is another instance.

Other modes of cultivation produce also great varieties of results of an unexpected kind.

Would any one, says Dr. Walker, imagine that cabbage, cauliflower, savoy, kale, brocoli, and turnip-rooted cabbage, were the same species? yet nothing is more certain than that they are only varieties produced by the cultivation of the Bra.s.sica oleracea, {85} a plant which grows wild on the sea-sh.o.r.es of Europe.

These varieties in vegetables have now become permanent, and though it is supposed that each is liable to return to its original condition, I am not yet certain that such is the tendency. A deterioration is not unlikely to ensue in the course of time, because the propagation by seeds must necessarily very much approach the system of intermarriage, on which Mr.

Walker has so ably written and clearly shewn that as a result we may invariably expect a deterioration of the species. Dr. Darwin has also poetically described what his experience taught him.

"So grafted trees with shadowy summits rise, Spread their fair blossoms and perfume the skies, _Till canker taints the vegetable blood_, Mines round the bark and feeds upon the wood; So years successive from perennial roots, The wire or bulb with lessened vigour shoots, Till curled leaves or barren flowers betray A waning lineage verging to decay; Or till amended by connubial powers, Rise seedling progenies from s.e.xual flowers."

The minute nature of the germs of disease preclude all possibility of their being submitted, as far as we know at present, to the inspection of the physiologist, but we may infer many facts from results. In the same way, though with humbler {86} ideas, as Cuvier could build up an animal from a single bone, can we by a combination of facts infer the existence of living beings and conjecture their forms. "The re-production or generation of living organized bodies is the great criterion or characteristic which distinguishes animation from mechanism." We find the virus of Small Pox, according to Mr. Ceely's experiments, developing itself as a const.i.tutional disease upon the cow, and becoming modified into a form known as the Cow Pox; this resembles the process of cultivation by which a species is converted into a variety, this variety remains for a certain time persistent; the time is not yet known, but it is known that by degrees, as stated above, a deterioration occurs, and fertility becomes impaired, "a waning lineage verging to decay," and this has been observed as a feature in the result of vaccination. I believe Dr. Gregory was one of the first to notice this fact, and deemed it necessary to obtain fresh lymph from the cow; this has been done, and it is not improbable, if the a.n.a.logy we have drawn be correct, that the slowly spreading scepticism regarding vaccination may be arrested in its progress. If we can explain the deterioration of cow pox virus on this principle we have a hold at once upon the public, and can a.s.sure them that the efficacy of the proceeding is as certain as in the time of Jenner. The people, I contend, have a right to demand of us the reason why vaccination is not so efficacious as formerly, and I {87} affirm as unhesitatingly that we are bound to give the subject our most earnest attention.[35]

Now concerning the re-production of Cow Pox matter, and a.s.suming it to resemble that of the lower Cryptogamia, we can easily understand how degeneration in a course of years should ensue, for we find that though the Small Pox is a const.i.tutional disease, that produced by vaccine lymph is a local affection, so that it bears the relation that grafting does to vegetation, and it is not improbable that such a modification takes place in the germs by pa.s.sing through or becoming generated in the blood of the cow, that they entirely lose their original and characteristic form of reproduction: the seeds of the disease were originally capable of vegetating, if I may be allowed to use the term, by diffusion through the atmosphere; they now, however, have lost that property, and require to be grafted to exhibit any manifestation of vitality.

How often will the seeds of a cultivated fruit grow? If you bud it upon another plant, you obtain a being exactly like the parent, but this, as we have seen, deteriorates in a course of years, we have also seen that the virus deteriorates; but not to stretch this point to an unseemly length, I cannot avoid expressing my conviction, that these are elements of comparison, possessing an interest and a practical utility of no small value.

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I have before said, that the reproduction in the Cryptogamia, rather resembles budding than seeding. If we observe the Torula, or take the process of all formation, generally it will be found to accord more exactly with the budding than the seeding process, and this peculiarity is not confined to vegetation, it is also a marked feature in the reproduction of infusoria, sponges, polypes, &c.

"New buds surround the microscopic plant."

The reproduction of plants and animals appears to be of two kinds, solitary and s.e.xual; the former occurs in the formation of the buds of trees, and the bulbs of tulips.

The microscopic productions of spontaneous vitality propagate by solitary generation only.

We have but reached the threshold of this vast and interesting subject, the experiments which suggest themselves to the mind while reflecting upon it, would alone occupy a whole life of leisure, and I can but feel how forcibly Mr. Sewell's words apply to us: "The grand field of investigation lies immediately before us, we are trampling every hour upon things which to the ignorant seem nothing but dirt, but to the curious are precious as gold."

It is difficult, perhaps, to bring many instances, in which the germs of disease have lain dormant for a lengthened period, because many may take exception to them, from the fact, that sporadic cases of {89} most epidemic and infectious diseases, are rarely absent from any country in which those diseases have become indigenous, and these cases may be said to be the foci whence originates the epidemic const.i.tution of the air; this, however, would not invalidate the supposition, because one of two inferences must be drawn, either that the germs of disease always exist in a dormant state, requiring circ.u.mstances and conditions only for their development, or that the germs are imported from some distant locality, where the disease has occurred, and finding a nidus there, grow and multiply.[36] Whichever notion we take, however, matters very little to the fact of the dormancy of the germs, for in both, a certain period elapses between their transmission and their propagation. It may fairly be presumed, that sometimes one method may apply {90} and sometimes the other, perhaps both during general epidemic conditions of the atmosphere.

The Oidium vitis attacked the vines partially last year, and I believe generally spared other forms of vegetation; but this year in my vicinity, cuc.u.mbers, melons, and vegetable marrows, are all suffering more or less under the disease.[37] How shall we say, whether are the seeds of last year the cause of the general diffusion at the present time, or were there a sufficient number of old and dormant seeds, universally diffused, and only waiting opportunities for multiplying themselves? We are here on the horns of a dilemma; and spontaneous generation, from which one naturally shrinks, can alone extricate us, if we do not admit diffusion and dormancy. I think I may, without undue a.s.sumption, affirm that a period of latency of indefinite duration, applies as cogently to the germs of disease as to those of plants.

There is yet one other point in connection with this subject, and that is the apparent extinction of some diseases, at any rate their non-appearance in certain localities, which had been at one time congenial to them, and in which they flourished. We have seen, in ill.u.s.trating the dormancy of seeds, that the broom must have been a common plant at {91} some considerable period back, in the King's Park at Stirling, or on that site.

Then again, the appearance of Fumaria parviflora in the vicinity of Edinburgh, in several places where the ground is broken, is sufficiently convincing that this plant must once have been a common form of vegetation there; and as it had never before been observed in the neighbourhood, there must have been a combination of peculiar circ.u.mstances capable of rendering germination impossible, otherwise a continued multiplication, as in other forms of vegetation, would have followed of necessity.

But besides these instances, how many are pa.s.sing under our own eyes of the disappearance of plants under the influence of cultivation, and the generation of the noxious fumes arising from different and innumerable manufactories. In the vicinity of large cities and manufacturing towns, how rarely do we see healthy vegetation; shrubs and animals drag on a sickly and almost unprolific existence, and their term of natural life is much shortened.

And if we compare diseases with this peculiar feature of vegetation, how very close do we find the a.n.a.logies. The Sweating Sickness which appeared in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and at certain intervals multiplied and extended itself at first only in this country, but ultimately more or less over the continent of Europe, has {92} never since the year 1551 shewn any symptom of productiveness, indeed for all we know the disease may be extinct; on the other hand, it is impossible to say whether or not circ.u.mstances may arise, under which it may commence again, to put forth its energies and again desolate the land.[38]

Since 1665, the Bubo-plague has not found a congenial soil in this country, or if the seeds be here, which is more than probable, the necessary conditions to excite them to activity do not exist.

It cannot be imagined that with all the merchandize which comes into this country from the Mediterranean, but that an abundance of the germs of the disease are annually brought into our ports, and disseminated throughout the land. The law by which we have seen that they possess a power of vitality and reproduction, holds now as it did in former times;--the properties of matter never alter, but the conditions under which they exist may be so modified, as to influence their properties, and the usual course of their operations. It is therefore to {93} an alteration or modification of conditions that we are to look for the exemption, during the last two centuries, from an invasion of the Plague. To say what those conditions may be in their totality is difficult, perhaps impossible. We may generalize on the subject, and imagine the reason discovered, but all those causes which were said to have conspired to favour the spread and contamination with Plague, were as distinctly specified and attributed, as the cause of our late infliction with Epidemic Cholera. Why then did we have the Cholera and not the Plague? To what particular element was it--in the mode of living, of dest.i.tution, of filth and want of drainage--can it be ascribed that we suffer under one disease, and not under the other?

We have made some few observations and comparisons on the mode of dispersion of plants and diseases,--but there is yet one more point which invites notice. Not only do seasons vary in their effects on vegetation in a remarkable and unexplained manner, but there are many localities to which some special form of vegetation attaches, and which appear to have a power of exclusion of other forms; and as yet I have not been able to trace the connexion, nor can I discover it in the writings of botanists and travellers, who would be most likely to have sought an explanation of so interesting and curious a fact. Dr. Prichard has on this subject some very apposite ill.u.s.trations. "Still further southward, the austral temperated zone completely {94} changes the physiognomy of vegetation, and the Isle of Norfolk has, in common with New Holland, the Auracania found also in the harbour of Balade, and with New Zealand, the Phormium tenax. It is however remarkable, that this vast island, composed of two lands, separated by a channel, though so near New Holland, and lying under the same lat.i.tude, differs from it so completely, that they display no resemblance in their vegetation. Yet New Zealand, so rich in genera peculiar to its soil, and little known, has some Indian plants: such as Pepper, the Olea, and a reniform Fern, which is said to exist in the Isle of Maurice."

I must quote one more pa.s.sage from Dr. Prichard's excellent work. "We have one instance of an island at no great distance from a continent, having a peculiar vegetation. Mr. R. Brown has remarked, that there is not even a single indigenous species characterising the vegetation of St. Helena, that has been found either on the banks of the Congo, or on any other part of the Western coast of Africa. Does the diversity of marine and atmospheric currents more completely separate this island from the continent, than its situation would imply; or are the nature of soil and other local circ.u.mstances, the cause of so marked a diversity? The last supposition seems the most probable; because not only the species of plants, but likewise the genera in St. Helena, are different from those of the African coast." {95}

We are not without instances of diseases, observing this peculiarity which attaches to plants; but their specific characters have hardly been sufficiently considered in reference to climate and situation, together with diet and local influences, to afford us accurate data for comparison.

It has, however, been remarked, in every country where Epidemics have prevailed, that some districts or tracts of country, though supposed to possess all the qualities favourable to the development of the diseases, have nevertheless been entirely or nearly free from them. The following pa.s.sage on the course of the Cholera gives an example of this peculiarity.

"Whenever the malady deviated, so to speak, from its normal direction, and pa.s.sed towards the west, it seemed incapable of propagating itself; and _died away spontaneously, even in places which appeared to be well fitted for its reception_.--The rich fertile and densely peopled countries to the right of the Dneiper, enjoyed an equal freedom from attack, which can only be explained by the fact that they were situated _beyond the line of the disease_." With this I close the subject of the diffusion of plants and diseases, though it would require a volume of itself, to record all that has been noticed. I have endeavoured to select such instances as shall mark distinctly the features which point to comparison without overloading the enquiry.

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SECTION IV.

THE RELATION BETWEEN EPIDEMIC AND ENDEMIC DISEASES.

Epidemic diseases, which multiply their germs in any climate, and under apparently the most varying conditions of temperature and hygrometric and electrical states of atmosphere, offer many points of contrast with Endemic affections, and many of relationship. The latter are traceable to a certain extent, to geological and geographical positions of the localities where they are observed to prevail, in combination with atmospheric vicissitudes and peculiarities, as well as to extent of cultivation of the soil: it has been remarked that the sickly island (as it is called) of St. Lucia has certain salubrious parts, but these are where sulphur abounds; this geological peculiarity has been deemed sufficient to account for the absence of endemic affections in these parts, and with much force of reason; for in the neighbourhoods where sulphur or sulphurous acid, a compound of sulphur, is an element prevalent in the soil or atmosphere, vegetation and the ague disappear together.

Now ague, and other endemic fevers, doubtless originate from some allied, if not identical cause; for the localities in which they appear have so many {97} features in common, that we are constrained to acknowledge that endemic fevers have some relations and a.n.a.logies, though not yet unravelled.

Geographical situation, together with certain vegetation, particularly of grounds which grow rice, is one remarkable for the production of endemic affections. But the soil which generates or gives force to the contaminating matter, is not alone the part where human beings feel its influence most severely. A low marshy ground, prolific of malaria, may be comparatively free; while some neighbouring elevated land, to which prevailing currents of air waft the volatile elements of disease, may be desolated by their virulent and concentrated action. "Malaria may be conveyed a considerable distance from its source, _and be condensed_ in the exhaled vapour, when attracted by hills or acclivities in the vicinity, and when there are no high trees or woods to confine it, or to intercept it in its pa.s.sage."

The inhabitants of the city of Abydos were at one time subject to disease, arising from malaria, generated in some neighbouring marshes; by draining these marshes, which suspended the growth of rank vegetation, the city became healthy.

Rome is in like manner even now subject to fevers, having a similar origin.

Sir James Clark says, "Among the more prevalent diseases of Rome, malaria fevers are the most remarkable, and claim our first notice." He considers the fevers to be of exactly the same nature as those of Lincolnshire {98} and Ess.e.x in this country, of Holland, and certain districts over the greater part of the globe. To the climate, the season, or the concentration of the cause of these fevers, he attributes their varieties. It is the same disease, he says, whether from the swamps of Walcheren, or the pestilential sh.o.r.es of Africa.

From July to October the inhabitants of Rome are most subject to these affections.

Sir James Clark further says: "It may be stated as a general rule, that houses in confined shaded situations, with damp courts or gardens, or standing water close to them, are unhealthy in every climate and season; but especially in a country subject to intermittent fevers, and during summer and autumn. The exemption of the central parts of a large town from these fevers, is explained by the dryness of the atmosphere, and by the comparative equality of temperature which prevails there."