The following illustrations are extracted from Dr Wynter Blyth’s valuable ‘Dictionary of Hygiene and Public Health.’
1. “Mr Alfred Mayo, Mildenhall, Suffolk, in a private letter to the author, gives a series of cases in which the infectious character of the malady was well marked. The first case was that of a bricklayer, about thirty-five years of age, who was taken ill with pleuro-pneumonia. His mother, who nursed him, very shortly afterwards took the same disease and died. A neighbour, a healthy young woman over thirty, who came in to nurse the last patient, was also taken similarly ill, and died with all the physical and other signs and symptoms well developed; and lastly, her child contracted the disease, but eventually recovered. There were other cases in the neighbourhood at the same time, and all of them were remarkable for their fatality.”
2. “Dr Richard Budd, of Barnstaple, has communicated to the author the following remarkable cases:—1. A clergyman, after attending a public meeting, became affected with acute pneumonia. 2. The nurse in attendance became ill of the same disease about a week afterwards. 3. The clergyman’s sister, taking the place of the nurse, was in her turn also seized with pneumonia. 4. A brother of the clergyman, who now undertook the duty of nurse, was in a very short time laid up with the same malady. The nurse and sister died, the two brothers recovered. Dr Budd concludes his communications as follows: ‘Since that time I have witnessed innumerable instances of the occurrence of this disorder in several members of the same family in succession, and I am thoroughly convinced that it spreads by infection, as the facts I have observed admit of no other explanation.’”
The following table, from the Registrar-General’s Report for 1875, gives the yearly number of deaths from pneumonia in England from 1848 to 1875:—
| 1848 | 21,868 |
| 1849 | 21,194 |
| 1850 | 20,303 |
| 1851 | 22,001 |
| 1852 | 21,421 |
| 1853 | 24,098 |
| 1854 | 23,523 |
| 1855 | 26,052 |
| 1856 | 22,653 |
| 1857 | 23,452 |
| 1858 | 26,486 |
| 1859 | 24,514 |
| 1860 | 25,264 |
| 1861 | 22,914 |
| 1862 | 23,713 |
| 1863 | 24,181 |
| 1864 | 24,470 |
| 1865 | 22,489 |
| 1866 | 25,155 |
| 1867 | 21,118 |
| 1868 | 19,908 |
| 1869 | 25,246 |
| 1870 | 23,729 |
| 1871 | 22,768 |
| 1872 | 20,282 |
| 1873 | 22,904 |
| 1874 | 25,927 |
| 1875 | 27,161 |
As a commentary upon the high death-rate from pneumonia for 1875, we may quote the Report for 1877 of the Registrar-General to the President of the Local Government Board. He writes, “The winter of 1875 was unusually severe; extremes of temperature, with a long continuance of east winds, were fatal to infants and to elderly people, and no less than 162,156 deaths were registered in England for the first quarter of the year; the mortality was at the annual rate of 27·5 per 1000, or 2·6 per 1000 above the average of the thirty-eight years—1838-75.”
In animals. For pneumonia and ordinary pleuro-pneumonia, the treatment prescribed for pleurisy may be followed.
Epidemic pleuro-pneumonia of cattle. It is now universally admitted that this disease is very often traceable to contagion, and hence that its propagation has been largely due to the practice of purchasing infected animals in open market, and afterwards allowing them to herd with healthy ones. When a cow is attacked with this epizootic disease, the first noticeable symptoms are generally tenderness and flabbiness of the udder, and a frothy condition of the milk.
These symptoms are accompanied with a dry cough and irregularity of appetite; at the same time the mouth, horns, and legs become hot, the pulse becomes more rapid, and the breathing also. When on its feet the animal arches its back, and when lying down rests itself upon its breast bone. Generally, however, when in the recumbent posture, it lies on that side where the affected lung is.
The treatment, omitting the bleeding, is very similar to that recommended for pleurisy, except that it should be supplemented by the application to the sides of fomentations of hot water, followed by the rubbing in of mustard or of some vesicant. “If no improvement occur after the third or fourth day, give three times daily an ounce each of ginger and gentian, with four drachms of sulphate of iron. Where there is debility, arrested secretion, and cold extremities, give several times a day a quart of warm ale, with an ounce each of ginger, cardamoms, fenugreek, or other aromatics.”[116]