EPIDEMICS, AND THEIR CAUSES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 44, 1 May 1862, Page 5 (Supplement)

EPIDEMICS, AND THEIR CAUSES.

To the Editor of the Canterbury Press. Sir, —In your article of last Saturday upon fever, you speak somewhat doubtfully as to the causes of the spread of disease, and use language which would seem to imply that science has penetrated less deeply into the mysteries of infection than is actually the ease. Scientific speculation advances beyond actual knowledge, and often instinctively predicates more than it can accurately prove at the time, and the theory of infection or contagion (for there is no scientific difference) seems approaching towards its solution. It is thought, then, that many diseases—perhaps all diseases, are of the nature of plants growing in the blood. It has been proved that yeast is a plant, which spreads with great rapidity in fluids in a particular state; and there are reasons for supposing that disease is caused by vegetation of a similar kind in the blood. Now for vegetation to take place, three conditions are necessary : first, there must be the seed of tbc plant; secondly, there must bo a soil capable of supplying to it the ehnents of growth; and thirdly, there must be such a statcof the atmosphere as shall be favorable to germination. Let us t ake an illustration from the lowest.order of vegetation—from what wo call green mould. If we place a piece of old mortar and a piece of polished steel in a bright dry atmosphere, no mould will appear upon cither the mortar or the steel. If we remove them into a damp place devoid of sunshine, mould will probably appear on the mortar, but not on the steel. The seeds of the plant are probably contained everywhere in the air, and arc deposited on all substances and in all atmospheres alike ; but in the bright dry air the condition of atmosphere required for the germination of the seed is wanting, and therefore the seed is undeveloped on both substances; whilst in the damp place the requisite atmospheric condition is obtained, and accordingly on tho mortar —that is on the soil favorable to the growth of the plant —the plant grows ; whilst on the steel, though tho atmosphere exists, the soil is wanting, and consequently the seed remains without germination. There is something in this theory which seems to satisfy the phenomena of epedemie and endemic disorders. In the first place as seeds are produced by plants, it is probable that the seeds of disease arc in tho first place discharged with the air from a body already diseased. As a general rule the seed is no doubt grown in one body and sown in another. This is why I said there is no scientific distinction between contagion and infection whether the seeds passed into tho blood from the immediate contact with the diseased person, or whether it passes through a greater or lesser space of air, is of no consequence. But supposing the body inoculated with Hie virus ; then we must have first the condition of body, in other words a state of health, in which tho plants will germinate, and secondly a state of atmosphere which will produce growth. We see at once, (hen, why particular

diseases spread in some localities where it does spread sonic persons catch it, not others. The seeds arc probably deposited on all alike, but one man is in a condition which resists disease, another in a state to develope it. Now the miasma which is produced by putrefaction of vegetable and animal matter does two things ; long inhaled, it puts the body into a position favorable to the growth of the seed of disease ; hence in low undrained places, and in close noisome atmosphere, disease spreads rapidly. But the miasma not only puts the body into a state adapted lor catching fever, it also supplies the atmospheric conditions requisite for developing the disease. This theory is also consistent with the phenomenon that, even in unhealthy localities, certain trades and manufactures appear to supply elements to the air which are antidotes to n prevailing cpidemicso that whilst persons are struck down on all sides, those who work in a particular factory are untouched. In Koine, the malaria fever will sometimes pass down one side of a street, leaving the other side injured. Also the fact, well known to medical men, is explained, bow a person will apparently resist infection for weeks and even for months, and will develope the disease long after the opportuuty for infection bad passed away. For example a man has been in a town where fever of a peculiar type is prevalent; and'months afterwards, in a different part ol the world, will fall ill in a fever of precisely the same type; there having been no similar ease within a thousand miles of him at the time. Under the vegetation theory, the seed has been introduced into tlie body, but has lain undeveloped until cither a changed condition of blood, or u new atmosphere, has supplied the elements required for germination. In the light of this doctrine let us turn to the Jewish laws on the subject of leprosy. Most candid minds must have been struck with the wholly unintelligible phenomena there stated, and the regulations consequently enforced. We read in the 11th chapter of Leviticus that when the owner of a house went and told the priest that he thought there was a plague in it, the priest was to go and examine the house, “ and if the plague be in the walls of the house, with hollow shades, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lover than the wall,” (I take this expression to mean—‘‘which appear to be deeper than the surface of the wall”) then the priest was to shut up the house for seven days ; and then if the plague had spread in the walls, the infected stones were to be taken out, and the whole house was to bo cleaned, and scraped, and fresh plastered. It was then to be shut up another seven days ; and at the end of that time “if the plague lias spread in the house it is a fretting leprosy in the house, it is unclean.” The house was to he destroyed altogether. Under the supposition made above nil this becomes simple and intelligible. The leprosy of the Jews was, no doubt, a plant which germinated not only in the blood of man, but also upon plaster, like common green mould. The case oi inoculation from small pox, and of diseases like measles, which are rarely caught twice, can only be explained by the idea that the blood has undergone such a change after the first fermentation that no second fermentation can take place. The soil will not develope the seed a second time. And hero I would incidentally remark, as one ot tho strangest freaks of science, that, having discovered so marvellous a process as that of vaccination or inoculation, medical philosophy should have made no further advance in the same direction for so long a period. Is it at all likely that small pox stands alone amongst the list of diseases F and is the only one for which a specific remedy exists / The homecopathists assert that belladonna is the antidote to scarlet fever if taken in small doses. Certain I am that there is an antidote for every specific disorder if wc only knew it; and that as some change in the blood by vaccination renders it incapable of developing the small pox, so a cognate change might be induced which would render it equally impervious to scarlet or typhus fever, to measles or hooping cough, or any of those disorders which exhibit invariable and specific symptoms. This is a matter which does not appear to have received the attention it deserves from medical men. And it is closely connected with the subject of this letter. For if it be possible to put the blood in such a state as that it shall resist the attacks of certain diseases, this is only the converse of that proposition with which wo started, namely that it is equally possible to put the blood in such a state that it shall be peculiarly predisposed to such attacks. Every man is giving a great service to the human race who spreads abroad the policy, which is now established with the certainty of a revelation, that the miasma arising from dirt and decaying matter does predispose the body to receive diseases of a certain class. If the public only believed this fact —thoroughly believed it—they would no more think of settling down in an nndrained town than they would build a city under the shade of a upas tree; or pour ‘ aqua-tofana into their water mains. Wo cannot prevent men and women from dying. But some of us have seen persons, especially women, who have led quiet, easy, temperate lives, live to a great age without illness of any kind, and die simply by the wearing out of the whole machine—from imbecility and inanition—without any special disease ; and entirely without suffering. That is how all persons ought to die, and that is the result to he aimed at by lessening, and finally destroying the great epidemic disorders. Almost all other diseases may bo traced directly to vicious or imprudent living, and suggest their own dyI am, Sir, Yours obediently, lIOSI’ES.