[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.”