[1217] In the earlier period, according to Grainger, Lind and others, numerous cases of measles sometimes occurred on board ships of war.
[1218] Published as an Appendix to his Treatise on the History, Nature and Treatment of Chincough. Glasgow, 1813. Reprinted by John Thomson, Glasgow, 1888. Dr Watt is best known by his Bibliotheca Britannica (Edinburgh, 1819. 4 vols. 4to.), a wonderfully complete bibliography under the dual arrangement of subjects and authors, which is still indispensable for research in every branch of knowledge. Perhaps the many who use it are not all aware that it was the labour of a physician in Glasgow (originally a surgeon at Paisley), who died (in 1819) at the age of forty-five, having reached such professional distinction in his own city as to be elected President of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.
[1219] De Febribus, 1659. Cap. XV.
[1220] Sketch of a Plan to exterminate the Casual Smallpox, &c. London, 1793, p. 152.
[1221] It was believed that smallpox left ill effects in some constitutions. William III. is said to have had the dregs of smallpox in his lungs. Roberton (u. s.) cites Saunders as teaching that smallpox caused scrofula, and he is himself doubtful whether an attack of it ever improved the constitution. Dr Moses Younghusband, of New Lebanon Springs, Med. Phys. Journ. XI. (1804), 317, wrote: “I see no more of the glandular suppurations formerly so frequent and unavoidable” after smallpox.
[1222] Johnstone, Malignant Epidemic Fever of 1756, London, 1757, says of Kidderminster during a season of high mortality from fever and other diseases: “The measles at this time went through our town and neighbourhood. The children commonly got over the usual course of this distemper; but vast numbers died tabid of its consequences. The chincough succeeded the measles.”
[1223] The Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ. XXVI. 177, cites from Cleland, with a reference which I have not succeeded in verifying, the following Glasgow figures for the period 1813-19: all deaths 22,060, smallpox 236 (1·07 per cent.), measles 614 (3·69 per cent.). But see Cowan, Glas. Med. Journ. V. 358, supra, p. 597.
[1224] Cowan, Journ. Statist. Soc. III.
[1225] Griffin, ibid. III.
[1226] Macmichael, in an essay on scarlatina and other contagions, 1822, says: “Parents considering the measles as a disease almost inevitable have wisely chosen to expose their children to the contagion at such auspicious times [summer season]; so that the disorder may be once well over, and all further anxiety at an end.” p. 30.