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constellations as the causes of aerial changes, looked on them afterwards as agents in the production of human disease and misfor

tune.

According to the researches I have been enabled to make from published documents, in India similar opinions are to this day entertained. Moreover, throughout the vastly extended and populous nations of the East the atmosphere is regarded as containing the causes of epidemic illness, and the doctrine of contagion is found to be confined to Europeans.

The ancients typified pestilence by certain imaginary beings who had a connexion with the air and its phenomena; and the gods of the sky were invoked in times of its prevalence, as is yet done in some parts of the East.

But we will leave the writers who conveyed truth in metaphors to those who promulgated its philosophical language. Lucretius combined the latter mode with poetry; and having adverted to the necessity of air to life, he shows the consistency of the counterpart of this opinion, which ascribes pestilence to its occasional bad qualities.

Nunc, ratio quæ sit morbis, aut, unde repente
Mortiferam possit cladem conflare coorta
Morbida vis hominum generi, pecudumque catervis,
Expediam. Primum, multarum semina rerum
Esse supra docui, quæ sint vitalia nobis;

Et contra, quæ sint morbo, mortique, necesse est
Multa volare; ea quom casu sunt forte coorta,
Et perturbarnt cœlum, fit morbidus aër.
Atque ea vis omnis morborum, pestilitasque,
Aut extrinsecus, ut nubes nebulæque, superne
Per cœlum veniunt; aut ipsa sæpe coorta
De terra surgunt, ubi putrorem humida nacta est,
Intempestivis pluviis, et solibus, icta.1

Again, in allusion to its local influence:

Est Elephas morbus, qui propter flumina Nili
Gignitur Ægypto in media, neque præterea usquam.
Atthide tentantur gressus, oculique in Achæis
Finibus, inde aliis alius locus est inimicus

Partibus, ac membris; varius concinnat id aër.2

which Virgil has imitated in his Georgics.

I do not pretend that atmospheric peculiarities alone produce epidemic and other complaints, which must be regarded as having a compound origin, and as resulting from the operation of pecu

Lucr. lib. vi. 1088.

2 Ibid. 1112.

liar qualities of the atmosphere on persons of particular states of constitution; otherwise all persons would be affected, which is contrary to experience. There are, probably, innumerable varieties of temperament, of general habits of life, and of pre-existing diseases, which in different subjects vary the effects of the air: and many persons, perhaps, enjoy a state of health and perfect vital action, which may be capable of resisting its evil influence altogether. It would, probably, be productive of useful results, if physicians of extensive practice would make accurate meteorological registers, during the prevalence of epidemic disorders.

I should propose accurate registers to be constantly kept of the weather, but particularly of the atmospherical electroscope; and that the indications of this and other instruments should be particularly noticed at the following times :

Firstly, and particularly during the prevalence of epidemics and epizootics, ascribable to atmospheric influence-the plague, yellow fever, various influenzas, during murrains of beasts, a history of which is published at Lyons in France ;'-diseases ascribable to Epidemia.

Secondly. In places and among nations where one particular kind of symptom is prevalent, ascribed anciently and technically to Endemia.

Thirdly. On the annual recurrence of diseases, as gout, insanity, &c. and of which we have numerous cases,-ascribed to what is called the periodus annuosa.

Fourthly. At the monthly periodical returns of diseases, or exacerbation of symptoms, as in insanity, head-ach, general irritability, &c. which occur to different persons at different times in the month, called periodus menstrua. Are these periods synchronous with those atmospherical changes happening near and ascribed to the conjunction and opposition of the moon? They have appeared to me to be so in a great many cases; but the observation wants the confirmation of time.

Fifthly. We should notice whether any changes in the instruments of electricity are found at the periodi diurnales, those critical periods of the day or night when the crisis, the returns, or other phenomena of many diseases, are noticed; when flowers open and shut, as the goat-beard does at noon.

The place of the moon, too, should be accurately noted. Far as I am from indulging in the theoretical reveries of the middle ages about lunar influence, yet when I consider the influence of the moon on the tides, on the variations of the barometer, and on the changes of the weather, I can conceive it possible that she may

'Recueil de l'Histoire des Epizooties, 8vo. Lyon, 1797.

affect vital functions through the medium of other secondary agents in the atmosphere.

With regard, however, to the epidemic influence in the air, it must be confessed its remote cause is as yet quite unknown; but, with its existence, as the exciting cause of disease, the beginning, the mode of prevalence, the locality, and, in short, all the phenomena of pestilence, seem (at least to me) reconcilable: while the opinion that these diseases are propagated by infection, like the smallpox, measles, and other contagious disorders, seems to enhance the difficulty of accounting for the origin of the illness, and leads to practices detrimental to health.1

Though my attention to the varying states of the atmosphere has been constant, yet my knowlege of epidemics is necessarily limited. However, so many and such able persons have supported the opinion upheld in the foregoing pages, that I trust I shall be excused for their hasty obtrusion on the public notice in the present important stage of the inquiry.

I cannot leave the subject of epidemic diseases without adverting to a curious circumstance, namely, that facts have been continually discovered, and were published upwards of a hundred years ago, which pointed out the atmospherical cause of many important phenomena in the animal system, but which nevertheless were overlooked by the majority of practitioners. Treatises exhibiting a full account of the recurrence of particular diseases in particular kinds of weather, have in various parts of Europe been published, with all the accuracy of detail. All the accounts of these disorders, which from the numerous writers I have been able to collect, speak of the decided connexion between the malady and the peculiar state of the air. But it seems that many have mistaken some prominent phenomena in the heavens for the cause; whereas it might be in reality only a concomitant of that peculiar state of the air, which had, among other qualities, possessed a power of inducing disorders of health. Moreover, the means adopted as a remedy by different practitioners were so various, and at the same time attended with such an apparent similarity of effects, that we cannot avoid attributing the amendment in the health of the patients, under regimen and treatment so different, to some common cause, and we may rationally ascribe their recovery to a change in the atmosphere.

De Darguiville published at Paris, in 1693, an account of the epidemic of that year, and of the success of emetics and phlebotomy. Numerous observations to the same effect may be found in the Ephemerides Nat. Cur. Krüger published about the same

Even the contagious diseases seem to prevail more in particular kinds of weather.

time an account of a particular epidemic, which was connected with a morbid quality of the air in 1692.

Löscher, in a treatise published at Whiteb. in 1721, connects the grand luminous phenomenon, or northern light of the year, with the epidemic of the next year. I will not swell the catalogue of writers: I could enumerate about fifty. But I shall content myself with referring the reader to the works of Hippocrates, Aretæus, Celsus, Galen, and other ancient writers; to Hoffman, Sydenham, and others of more modern times, particularly to two treatises, one by a writer in Germany, "De Speciebus Morborum Epidemicorum," in 1758; and the other, Petlius, at Leipsick, in 1749, "De Morbis Epidemicis ab aëre Atmospherico. To me it seemed at first very curious, that with all these documents before them, medical men had almost entirely neglected the investigation of those qualities of the air, which had such an important influence on the human health. But the obscure nature of these morbid qualities, and the imperfections of the generally known instruments of meteorology to demonstrate them, must be the cause why the subject is so little advanced. Persons, too, having ascribed illness to some particular circumstance connected with the general state of the atmosphere, and afterwards finding it occur again without producing the epidemic which once accompanied it, have been disheartened in the inquiry. Thus, for example, M. Berryat, in a paper presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1754, exhibited a great number of cases of diseases which occurred with a high barometer. He also showed that in certain weather, as in some rainy weather, purgative medicines acted better; that in other weather convulsions were more frequent, &c. In this treatise he actually ascribes all these effects to the barometrical pressure alone.

To me it seems that the electric state of the atmosphere is principally concerned in producing alterations in the animal functions; and that there are periodical returns of these states of the electricity: but my own Journals of the Weather, and of the prevalence of epidemics at the same time, is not yet extensive enough to be of any utility in establishing a decided connexion between any one particular variety of its actions, and any one particular disease. 1 have merely thrown out this hint to induce further inquiry, and to arrest, in the meanwhile, certain very useless and, I believe, very injurious precautions, taken against the propagation of pestilential diseases, under the false impression that they are entirely contagious.

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If, after the perusal of the foregoing remarks, it should be

For a catalogue of writers on atmospherical and periodical diseases, see my tract on those diseases, (p. 82.) Underwood, London, 1817.

asked, under the idea that pestilential fever is atmospherical, what is proposed for its mitigation and prevention, I must reply, that this question involves another of a more extensive nature, namely, what kinds of constitution are most susceptible of pestilential influence? This must depend, in a great measure, on the nature of the epidemic. In cases of low, and what are called typhus fevers, I believe persons who are weak, and irritable, and whose constitutions have been debilitated by too low diet, bad food, and the depressing passions, are most liable, and that, consequently, the opposite state of constitution should be maintained as a preven tative but here I must remark an important distinction to be made between a low and enfeebling diet, and a spare one; and likewise between a vigorous and healthy circulation upheld by exercise, pleasurable ideas, and good food; and a state of high vascular action, maintained by the habitual use of spiritous and other stimulants. A low diet, particularly of bad meat, and putrid substances, has a most decided tendency to induce that sort of weakness most to be dreaded, particularly when such a diet is accompanied by close confinement in jails, manufactories, &c. But a spare diet, that is to say, one in which no more food is taken than be necessary to nourish the body, is the greatest preservative against disease such a diet is compatible with healthy nourishment, and combined with good exercise will lead to vigorous health, and a state of the circulation capable to resist many epidemics, which would destroy the low and enfeebled. But the practice of upholding apparent health, by the use of wine, spirits, and other great stimulants, seems to produce a specious and only temporary appearance of healthiness, and to induce an exhausted state of the bodily powers, which renders the occurrence of distempers more dangerous, from the intractable nature of many diseases it is liable to bring on. Hence, in general, the mortality from pestilence will be greatest among the weak, and greatest of all among those whose weakness has supervened on habitual spiritous stimulation. A person who lives habitually rather low, may be more easily brought up by a little additional nourishment, when occasion requires, than one who, by habitually living high, has worn out the susceptibility to stimulus, and is sinking without the means of recovery: just as a man, to use a metaphor, who keeps about the base of a mountain, and reserves his strength, can easier ascend, when the air gets foul below, than one who has topped the hill, and is already descending, with overstrained and diminished powers.

Thus do we learn how weakness may be, more or less, a predisposing cause of some fevers, in proportion as it is derived from one or other of the above sources. We learn, also, how, an excited state of the animal machine may be mistaken for one really strong

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