A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) by Charles Creighton

of these two seasons, much light might be thrown on the obscure cause of intermittents.” Clarke, of Nottingham, (l. c.) says there were some cases of irregular ague among a few privates of the regiment there, who had all come from a marshy quarter, some of them with the fever on them. The paroxysms came at unusually long intervals. Bark increased the fever. [707] Lecture on Agues, in the _Lond. Med. Gaz._ IX. 923-4, 24 March, 1832. [708] _Lancet_, s. d., p. 438. [709] _Lond. Med. Gazette_, 2 July, 1831. [710] John Burne, M.D., _Ibid._ VIII. (1831), p. 430. [711] G. Bennett, _Lond. Med. Gaz._ 23 July, 1831. [712] Bellamy, _Ibid._ [713] “Report of Diseases among the Poor of Glasgow,” _Glas. Med. Journ._ IV. 444. [714] McDerment, _ibid._ V. 230: “In June and July to an extent unequalled” etc. [715] During the last general election before the passing of the Reform Bill, which was held in the month of June, 1831, a number of the Aberdeen radicals went out on a hot and dusty day to meet the candidate of their party who was posting from the south. It was remarked that all those who had been of this company “caught cold,” unaccountably but as if from some common cause. The date would correspond to the prevalence of influenza elsewhere. [716] Mr Kingdon, reported in the _Lancet_, s. d. [717] Venables, _Lancet_, II. May, 1833. [718] Hingeston, _Lond. Med. Gaz._ XII. 199. [719] _Gent. Magaz._, April, 1833, p. 362. [720] Whitmore, _Febris anomala, or the New Disease, etc._, London, 1659, p. 109:--“And for a plethora or fulness of blood, if that appears (though this may seem a paradox yet ’tis certain) that it is so far in this disease from indicating bleeding that it stands absolutely as a contradiction to it and vehemently prohibits it. And whereas they think the heat, by bleeding, may be abated and so the feaver took off, they are mistook, for by that means the fermentation through the motion of the blood is highly increased, so as sad experience hath manifested in a great many: upon the bleeding they have within a day or two fallen delirious and had their tongues as black as soot, with an intolerable thirst and drought upon them.... Petrus a Castro, who rants high for letting blood, at last as if he had been humbled with the sad success, saith etc.” [721] _A System of Clinical Medicine_, Dublin, 1843, pp. 500-501. Lecture delivered in the session 1834-35. [722] Rawlins, _Lond. Med. Gaz._ s. d. [723] _Ed. Med. Surg. Journ._ XLIII. 1835, p. 26. [724] Parsons, “Report of Outcases, Birmingham Infirmary, 1 Jan. to 31 Dec. 1833.” _Trans. Provin. Med. Surg. Assoc._ II. 474. [725] In the report upon the influenza of 1837 by a Committee of the Provincial Medical Association, the preceding epidemic is uniformly referred to the year 1834. Graves, in a clinical lecture upon that of 1837, speaks two or three times of the last as that of 1834, and, in another place, he calls it the epidemic of 1833-34. But these, I think, are mere laxities of dating, of which there are many other instances where the date is recent and not yet historical. [726] As early as 1612 a proposal had been made to James I. for “a grant of the general registrarship of all christenings, marriages and burials within this realm.” _State Papers_, Rolls House, Ja. I. vol. LXIX. No. 54. It was a device for raising money. [727] The account in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for February, 1837, p. 199, is almost identical with the paragraph in the number for April, 1833: “An influenza of a peculiar character has been raging throughout the country, and particularly in the Metropolis. It has been attended by inflammation of the throat and lungs, with violent spasms, sickness and headache. So general have been its effects that business in numerous instances has been entirely suspended. The greater number of clerks at the War Office, Admiralty, Navy Pay Office, Stamp Office, Treasury, Post-Office and other Government Offices have been prevented from attending to their daily avocations.... Of the police force there were upwards of 800 incapable of doing duty. On Sunday the 13th the churches which have generally a full congregation presented a mournful scene &c. ... the number of burials on the same day in the different cemeteries was nearly as numerous as during the raging of the cholera in 1832 and 1833. In the workhouses the number of poor who have died far exceed any return that has been made for the last thirty years.” [728] Graves, u. s., p. 545. [729] Robert Cowan, M.D., _Journ. Stat. Soc._ III. 257. [730] Peyton Blakiston, _A Treatise on the Influenza of 1837, containing an analysis of one hundred cases observed at Birmingham between 1 Jan. and 15 Feb._ Lond. 1837. [731] These and some former particulars are from the “Report upon the Influenza or Epidemic Catarrh of the winter of 1836-37,” compiled by Robt. J. N. Streeten, M.D. for the Committee of the Provincial Medical Association. _Trans. Prov. Med. Assoc._ VI. 501. [732] Streeten’s Report, u. s., p. 505. [733] _Statist. Report on Health of Navy_, 1837-43. [734] Jackson, _Dubl. Med. Press_, VIII. 69; Brady, _Dubl. Journ. Med. Sc._ XX. (1842), 76. [735] Laycock, _Dubl. Med. Press_, VII. 234. Several cases of sudden and great enlargement of the liver and of suppression of urine were judged to be part of the epidemic. [736] Ross, _Lancet_, 1845, I. p. 2. [737] Report of Holywood Dispensary for 1842, _Dublin Med. Press_, IX. 204. [738] Hall, _Prov. Med. Journ._ 1844, p. 315. [739] M’Coy, _Med. Press_, XI. 133. [740] Fleetwood Churchill, _Dubl. Quart. Journ._, May, 1847, p. 373. [741] Farr, in _Rep. Reg.-Gen._ [742] Farr, in the _Report of the Registrar-General for 1848_. He cites (p. xxxi) Stark for Scotland, that it “suddenly attacked great masses of the population twice during November”--on the 18th, and again on the 28th. [743] A curious trace of the temporary interest excited by influenza in 1847-8 remains in a great book of the time, Carlyle’s _Letters and Speeches of Cromwell_, the third edition of which, with new letters, was then under hand. One of the new letters related to the death of Colonel Pickering from the camp-sickness among the troops of Fairfax at Ottery St Mary in December, 1645. Carlyle’s comment is: “has caught the epidemic ‘new disease’ as they call it, some ancient _influenza_ very prevalent and fatal during those wet winter operations.” “New disease” was the name given by Greaves to the war-typhus in Oxfordshire and Berkshire in 1643, but neither that nor the sickness at Ottery (which is not called “new disease” in the documents) had anything of the nature of influenza. [744] But Dr Rose Cormack, who had known relapsing fever well in Edinburgh, wrote from Putney, near London, in October, 1849: “For some months past the majority of cases of all diseases in this neighbourhood have ... presented a well-marked tendency to assume the remittent and intermittent types.” “Infantile Remittent Fever,” _Lond. Journ. of Med._, Oct. 1849, reprinted in his _Clinical Studies_, 2 vols., 1876. [745] T. B. Peacock, M.D., _On the Influenza, or Epidemic Catarrhal Fever of 1847-8_. London, 1848. [746] Haviland, _Journ. Pub. Health_, IV. 288, (94 cases in June-Aug. in a village). [747] See F. Clemow, M.D., of St Petersburg, “The Recent Pandemic of Influenza: its place of origin and mode of spread.” _Lancet_, 20 Jan. and 10 Feb. 1894. These papers bring together and discuss the Russian opinions, official and other. The Army Medical Report favoured the view that the birthplace of this pandemic in the autumn of 1889 was an extensive region occupied by nomadic tribes in the northern part of the Kirghiz Steppe. There is evidence of its rapid progress westwards over Tobolsk to the borders of European Russia. Influenza is said to be constantly present in many parts of the Russian Empire; but the circumstances that have, on four or five occasions in the 19th century, set the infection rolling in a great wave westwards from the assumed source are wholly unknown. [748] The collective inquiry on the epidemics was made by the medical department of the Local Government Board, the result being given in two reports: _Report on the Influenza Epidemic of 1889-90, Parl. Papers_, 1891, and _Further Report and Papers on Epidemic Influenza, 1889-92, Parl. Papers_, Sept. 1893. By H. Franklin Parsons, M.D. Statistical tables comparing the epidemics in London with those in some other capitals were published by F. A. Dixey, M.D., _Epidemic Influenza_, Oxford, 1892. [749] The notable difference between the type of this epidemic and that of the epidemics of 1833, 1837 and 1847, from which the conventional notion of “influenza cold” was derived, is perhaps the explanation of the following apt and erudite remark by Buchanan, on “influenza proper,” in his introduction to the first departmental report, 1891: “It would be no small gain to get more authentic methods of identifying influenza proper from among the various grippes, catarrhs, colds and the like--in man, horse, and other animals--that take to themselves the same popular title” (p. xi). [750] The volume by Julius Althaus, M.D., _Influenza: its Pathology, Complications and Sequelae_, 2nd ed., Lond. 1892, includes a summary and bibliography of recent observations. [751] Noah Webster, _Brief History of Epidemick Diseases_, I. 288; Warren, of Boston, to Lettsom, 30 May, 1790, _Lettsom’s Memoirs_, III. 238: “whether this [the second] is a variety of influenza, or a new disease with us, I am at a loss to determine.” [752] In Twysden’s _Decem Scriptores_, col. 579. [753] Boyle’s _Works_, 6 vols., London, 1772, V. 52. [754] Seneca, _Nat. Quaest._ § 27, cited by Webster. After earthquakes, “subitae continuaeque mortes, et monstrosa genera morborum ut ex novis orta causis.” The passage cited from Baglivi (p. 530) looks like a repetition of this: “imo nova et inaudita morborum genera ... post terraemotus.” [755] Cited by Horace E. Scudder, in _Noah Webster_. New York and London, 1881, p. 105. [756] _Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases_, 2 vols., Hartford, 1799. [757] _Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases_, II. 15. [758] _Id._ II. 34, 84. Dr Robert Williams, in his work on _Morbid Poisons_ (II. 670) argues for Webster’s electrical theory of influenza without knowing, or at least without saying, that it was Webster’s. The much-advertised writings of Mr John Parkin on _The Volcanic Theory of Epidemics_ (or other title) follow Webster very closely both in the main idea and in its ramifications, but without acknowledgment to the American _philosophe_. Milton’s rule was that one might take from an old author if one improved upon him; but neither Williams nor Parkin has improved upon Webster. [759] _Ibid._ II. 30. [760] “Catalogue of Recorded Earthquakes from 1606 B.C. to A.D. 1850.” _British Assocn. Reports_, 1852-54. [761] Abraham Mason, _Phil. Trans._ LII. Part 2, p. 477. [762] Webster, I. 150. [763] Hillary, _Changes of the Air, etc._, p. 82. [764] Hillary, _Changes of the Air, etc._, p. 80. [765] Webster, I. 250. [766] Hamilton, _Phil. Trans._ LXXIII. 176. [767] Mallet’s Catalogue, u. s. [768] Holm, _Vom Erdbrande auf Island im Jahre 1783_, Kopenhagen, 1784, says: “Since the outbreak began, the atmosphere of the whole country has been full of vapour, smoke and dust, so much so that the sun looked brownish-red, and the fishermen could not find the banks.... Old people, especially those with weak chests, suffered much from the smell of sulphur and the volcanic vapours, being afflicted with dyspnoea. Various persons in good health fell ill, and more would have suffered had not the air been cooled and refreshed from time to time by rains,” pp. 57, 60. The real sickness of Iceland in those years had been before the volcanic eruptions, in 1781 and 1782, when some parts of the island were almost depopulated by the famine and pestilential fevers that followed the unusual seasons. [769] _Phil. Trans._ II. (1667), p. 499. [770] _Ibid._ March-Apr. 1694, p. 81. Sloane had himself felt several shocks at Port Royal on the 20th October, 1687, between four and six o’clock in the morning, which were due to the same earthquake that destroyed Lima in Peru. [771] _Phil. Trans._ XVIII. p. 83 (March-April, 1794). Series of reports from Jamaica collected by Sloane. [772] A few cases have been exceptionally seen at Spanish Town, six miles from the head of the bay, the infection of which was supposed to have been brought from the shore by sailors, and it has also prevailed in the barracks on the high ground of Newcastle not far from the shore. [773] Without seeking to argue for the connexion between particular earthquakes and influenzas, but merely to illustrate the possibilities, I append here an instance that ought not to be overlooked. On the 1st of November, 1835, there was a great earthquake in the Moluccas, which so completely changed the soil of the island of Amboina, that it became notably subject to deadly miasmatic or malarious fevers from that time forth. For three weeks before the earthquake the atmosphere had been full of a heavy sulphurous fog, so that miasmata were rising from the soil by some unwonted pressure before the actual cataclysm. There is no doubt at all that Amboina became “malarious” in a most marked degree from the date of the earthquake; it is a classical instance of the sudden effect of great changes in the earth’s crust upon the frequency and malignity of remittent and intermittent fevers, according to the testimony of physicians in the Dutch East Indian service. The influenza nearest to the earthquake was about a year after, at Sydney, Cape Town, and in the East Indies, during October and November, 1836. The epidemic appeared about the same time in the north-east of Europe, spread all over the continent, and reached London in January, 1837. There was again influenza in Australia and New Zealand in November, 1838, two years after the last outbreak in that region. [774] _Phil. Trans._ for the year 1694, p. 5. [775] Mallet, “First Report on the Facts of Earthquake Phenomena.” _Trans. Brit. Assoc. for 1850_, Lond. 1851. Cited from von Hoff. [776] Archibald Smith, M.D., “Notices of the Epidemics of 1719-20 and 1759 in Peru,” etc. _Trans. Epid. Soc._ II. pt. 1, p. 134. From the _Medical Gazette of Lima_, 15 March, 1862. [777] Bell’s Travels, in Pinkerton, VII. 377. [778] See an article “Railways--their Future in China,” by W. B. Dunlop, in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, March, 1889, pp. 395-6. A letter in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, dated 23 May, 1891, and signed “Shanghai,” recalled the outbreak of Hongkong fever, “the symptoms of which bore a curious resemblance to the influenza epidemic,” at the time when much building was going on upon the slope of Victoria Peak: “It was said at the time--I do not know with what truth--that in this turning-up of the soil, several old Chinese burying-places were included.” [779] _Essay on the Most Effective Means of preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy._ London, 1757, p. 83. [780] See _The Eruption of Krakatoa and subsequent phenomena_. Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society.... Edited by G. J. Symons, London, 1888. [781] _Edin. Med. Essays and Obs._ II. 32. [782] _Trans. Col. Phys._ III. 62. [783] _Gent. Magaz._ 1782, p. 306. [784] R. Robertson, M.D., _Observations on Jail, Hospital or Ship Fever from the 4th April, 1776, to the 30th April, 1789_. Lond. 1789, New ed., p. 411. [785] Trotter, _Medicina Nautica_, I. 1797, p. 367. [786] Notes of a lecture on Influenza, by Gregory, taken by Christison about the year 1817, in the _Life of Sir Robert Christison_, I. 82. [787] College of Physicians’ Report, _Trans. Col. Phys._ III. 63. [788] This is inferred from the varying number of ships in the two fleets in the several notices of their movements in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, for May and June, 1782. [789] Brian Tuke to Peter Vannes, 14 July, 1528: “For when a whole man comes from London and talks of the sweat, the same night all the town is full of it, and thus it spreads as the fame runs.” _Cal. State Papers, Henry VIII._ IV. 1971. [790] Webster, II. 63. [791] College of Physicians’ Report. _Trans. Col. Phys._ III. (1785), p. 60-61. “Information has been received” of the incident. [792] _Statist. Report of Health of Navy, 1837-43._ Parl. papers, 1 June, 1853, p. 8. [793] _Ibid._ p. 14. [794] _Ibid._ s. d. [795] _Report on Health of Navy, 1857_, p. 69. [796] _Ibid._ p. 41. [797] _Ibid._ p. 131. [798] _Ibid._ p. 112. [799] _Report for 1856_, p. 100. [800] Chaumezière, _Fievre catarrhals épidemique, observée à bord du vaisseau ‘Le Duguay-Trouin’ aux mois de Fevr. et Mars, 1863_. Paris, 1865. Cited by Hirsch. [801] Dr Guthrie, of Lyttelton. [802] Macdonald, _Brit. Med. Journ._, 14 July, 1886. [803] _Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Galatea’ in 1867-8._ [804] R. A. Chudleigh, in _Brit. Med. Journal_, 4 Sept. 1886. The experiences are not altogether recent, for they were noted for “the Chatham Islands and parts of New Zealand” by Dieffenbach, in his German translation of Darwin’s _Naturalist’s Voyage round the World_. See English ed. 1876, p. 435 _note_. [805] _Pall Mall Gazette_, 11 Dec. 1889. [806] Hirsch, _Geograph. and Histor. Pathol._ I. 29. Engl. Transl. [807] See the chapter on Sweating Sickness in the first volume of this History, p. 269, and the author’s other writings there cited. [808] See the first volume, pp. 456-461. I shall add here a reference to smallpox among young people in Henry VIII.’s palace at Greenwich in 1528. Fox, newly arrived from a mission to France, writes to Gardiner, 11 May, 1528 (Harl. MS. 419, fol. 103): The king “commanded me to goe unto Maystress Annes chamber, who at that tyme, for that my Lady prynces and dyvers other the quenes maydenes were sicke of the small pocks, lay in the gallerey in the tilt yarde.” [809] _Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery and Synod of Aberdeen._ Edited by John Stuart, for the Spalding Club, Aberd. 1846, I. 427. [810] Mead to Stutteville, in _Court and Times of Charles I._, I. 359. Joan, Lady Coke to Sir J. Coke, 26 June, 1628. _Cal. Coke MSS._ [811] Lord Dorchester to the Earl of Carlisle, 30 Aug. 1628, in _C. and T. Charles I._: “Your dear lady hath suffered by the popular disease, but without danger, as I understand from her doctor, either of death or deformity.” [812] Gilbert Thacker to Sir J. Coke at Portsmouth, 9 June, 1628; Thomas Alured to the same, 21 June; Richard Poole to the same, 23 June. _Cal. Coke MSS._, I. Thomas Alured’s house “hath been visited in the same kind, once with the measles and twice with the smallpox, though I thank God we are now free; and I know not how many households have run the same hazard.” [813] Harl. MS., No. 2177. [814] The original heading in the Bills of Mortality was “flox and smallpox.” “Flox” meant flux, or confluent smallpox, which was so distinguished, as if in kind, from the ordinary discrete form, seldom fatal. Huxham, in 1725, _Phil. Trans._ XXXIII. 379, still used these terms: “When the pustules broke out in less than twenty-four hours from the seizure, they were always of the flux kind, as is commonly observed.... Pocks which at first were distinct would flux together during suppuration.” Dover, _Physician’s Legacy_, 1732, p. 101, has “the flux smallpox, or variolae confluentes,” as one of the varieties: and again, pustules “fluxing in some parts, in others distinct.” [815] Having been omitted by Graunt in his table. _Op. cit._ 1662. [816] _Cal. State Papers_, under the dates. The epidemic seems to have revived in 1642. An affidavit among the papers of the House of Lords, excusing the attendance of a witness, states that Thomas Tallcott has recently lost his wife and one child by smallpox, and that he himself, six of his children and three of his servants are now visited with the same disease. 13 July, 1642, _Hist. MSS. Com._ V. 38. The Mercurius Rusticus, 1643, says that Bath was much infected both with the plague and the smallpox. Cited in Hutchins, _Dorsetshire_, III. 10. [817] _Remaining Works._ Transl. by Pordage. Lond. 1681. “Of Feavers,” p.