A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2): From the Extinction of Plague to the Present TimeCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2): From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
The year 1744 was remarkable for a destructive throat distemper among
children, described elsewhere, and the year 1745 for smallpox dispersed by
swarms of beggars. In 1746 and 1748, the Dublin fever was relapsing in
part, “terminating,” says Rutty, “the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth day
with a critical sweat. A relapse commonly attended, which however was
commonly carried off by a second critical sweat.” In 1748, though the
season was sickly, the diseases were not mortal, several of the fevers
being “happily terminated by a sweat the fifth or sixth day.” But there
were also fevers of the low kind, sometimes with petechiae, sometimes with
miliary pustules, though not essentially with either. In the autumn of
1754 Rutty begins to adopt the language of the time concerning a “putrid”
constitution, identifying the fever with the dangerous remittents which
Fothergill was then writing about in London; “it is probable that ours was
akin to them and owing to the same general causes.” In February, 1755, the
fevers were fatal to many, raising the deaths to double the usual number;
they attacked all ages, were of the low, depressed kind, and commonly
attended with miliary pustules. He again identifies them with the low,
putrid fever in London. From that time on to 1758, Rutty has frequent
references to the same fever, under the names of low, putrid, petechial
and miliary. It was at its worst in 1757, and was marked by the remarkable
tremors described by Johnstone at Kidderminster, as well as by miliary
eruptions and by a gangrenous tendency at the spots where blisters had
been applied. In November, 1757, it was fatal to not a few of the young
and strong in Dublin, “and we received accounts of a like malignity
attending this fever in the country[453].” It was still prevalent in the
North and West of Ireland in the spring of 1758. He describes also an
unusual amount of fever in the end of 1762. Sims, of Tyrone, an
epidemiologist in the same manner as Rutty, does not begin his full annals
until 1765; but he sums up the years from 1751 to 1760 as unhealthy by
agues in spring, dysenteries and cholera morbus in autumn, and “low,
putrid or nervous fevers throughout the year[454].” He adds:
“To the unhealthiness of these years the bad state and dearth of
provisions might not a little contribute; the poor, being incapable to
procure sufficient sustenance, were often obliged to be contented with
things at which nature almost revolted; and even the wealthy could not
by all their art and power render wholesome those fruits of the earth
which had been damaged by an untoward season.”
Much of the distress, however, was owing to the continual spread of
pasture-farming, which made the labour of villagers unnecessary[455].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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