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FEVER ? IN ITS SOCIAL ASPECTS. 7
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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» ^ Between The Subject Medical Of Fever...
Dr . Murehison says respecting it , tliat there are grounds for supposing , with . LtiehigSimonRichardsonand othersthat it is a
_compound of ammonia , . Minute , traces of , ammonia are , constantly exhaled in healthy respiration . " Although the quantity be much
smaller than in typhus , it is probable that when a large number of human beings are crowded into a small unrentilated space , the
ammoniacal exhalations are increased and concentrated , and by their putrefaction generate the poison of typhus . The first effect of
over-crowding , with no ventilation , is to cause the respiration of an atmosphere charged with carbonic acid ; but it has been shown by
experiment that even a small percentage of carbonic acid in the respired air is sufficient to cause a serious diminution in the amount
of carbonic acid thrown off , and of oxygen absorbed . It follows that the oxidating processes which minister to the elimination of
effete matter from the system must be _imiDerfectly performed , and that an accumulation of substances tending to putrescence must take
place in the blood . Hence there will probably be a considerable increase in the amount of such matters in the pulmonary and
cutaneous exhalations , and the unrenewed air will become charged not only with carbonic acidbut also with organic matters in a state of
, decomposition , of which the chief product is ammonia . " The circumstances under which it has appeared in military
history have been invariably those of over-crowding , with mental and bodily depression . The fearful extent to which it ravaged first
the English and then the Russian and French armies in the Crimea is fresh in the memory of all . " The disease was not endemic in
the Crimea , and no evidence has been adduced to show that it was imported but its oriin was universally attributed to
over-crowding and want , of food . g In the winter of 1854-5 the commissariat and lodgment of the English troops were very , inferior to the
French , and the English suffered most from typhus . But in the next epidemic of 1856 the tables were turned . The English army
, t now hus provided but of with the l Fren arge ch and 1 12 airy 000 huts were , were attacked almost of exempt whom 6 from 000 yp ;
died . . . . Herethenwere , two , armies in the immediate , vicinity , of one anotherwith , typ , hus prevailingfirst in one and then in the
other , in a direct , ratio to the extent of privation , and over-crowding . The French surgeons could arrive at but one conclusion . Adolphe
Amand stated : " Dans cette epidemie , la cause premiere _, Fencombrement , est une chose 6 vidente . " Jacquot observed : " Pas une
contestation ne s'est elevee au sujet de la cause du typhus ; les faits hum sont ains clairs qui et s _' parlants exhalent , au le milieu typhus de spontane I lomeration est du aux de miasmes l '
encombrement , & c . On peut faire naltre le tyx agg _3 hus , a volonte , , pour _ainsi dire / ' From these and a great number of similar instances , Dr .
clothes rall Murehison y communicated , is also concludes generate by that c d ontag the de novo specific ion by through over j > oison -crowding of the typ atmosp hus and , thoug here bad h or venti gene by - -
Fever ? In Its Social Aspects. 7
_FEVER ? IN ITS SOCIAL ASPECTS . 7
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 2, 1863, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_02031863/page/7/
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