[1382] M. W. Taylor, M.D., “Diphtheria in connection with Damp and Mould Fungi.” Trans. Epic. Soc. N. S. VI. (1886-7), p. 104. Thorne, u. s. gives instances in which diphtheria seemed to choose out wet and impervious soils.
[1383] L. Traube, Gesammelte Beiträge, &c., Berlin, 1871, II. 11.
[1384] Thorne, u. s. has collected and analysed very fully the instances of diphtherial epidemics traced to cows’ milk. It is commonly assumed that the epidemics are either wholly diphtherial or wholly scarlatinal, but not a mixture of the two diseases.
[1385] W. N. Thursfield, Lancet, 3 Aug. 1878, p. 180, has contended for some such correlation between diphtheria and enteric fever in their respective preferences, at that time, for rural and urban districts.
[1386] William Heberden, M.D. junior. Observations on the Increase and Decrease of Diseases, particularly the Plague. Lond. 1801.
[1387] Among the numerous medical writers who have used it are Macmichael, Watson and Chevers. Among historians Lecky (I. 573) has thought it worthy of mention among the progressive improvements of the 18th century.
[1388] Heberden (l. c. p. 42) accounted for the enormous increase of the article “convulsions” in the Bills by the inclusion under that term of most of the deaths originally entered under “chrisomes and infants,” which were infants under one month. But the latter had been mostly transferred at an early period while convulsions was still a small total; and even at the worst period of the public health in London, about 1730-40, they would not have accounted for a sixth part of the deaths under convulsions. The probability of the deaths from “griping in the guts” having been transferred to “convulsions” was pointed out in a review of Heberden’s essay in the British Critic on its appearance, without reasons given such as I adduce in the sequel.
[1389] Observ. Med. IV. cap. 7, § 2.
[1390] Ibid. III. cap. 2, § 54.
[1391] Pathol. Cerebri. Pordage’s Transl. p. 25.