Notice concerning the fever that occurred in the Magdalene Asylum of Edinburgh, in the spring of 1821, as illustrating the influence of panic in propagating contagious diseases / by Robert Hamilton.

  • Hamilton, Robert T.
Date:
[1821]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice concerning the fever that occurred in the Magdalene Asylum of Edinburgh, in the spring of 1821, as illustrating the influence of panic in propagating contagious diseases / by Robert Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    At my evening visit a few hours afterwards (at 9 P. M.), I found eight more cases already in the sick-room. These appeared quite as ill as those I had seen in the morning. Some were leaning their heads against the cold wall from the violence of the headache ; some were retching and vomiting, unable to lie down; some were shivering from cold, with the cutis anserina, and others flushed and burning with heat. Here, then, in the course of four days, out of a community of less than fifty individuals, there were twenty-two apparently labouring under fe- ver. Some had been ill for several days, and their cases were putting on all the decided features of synochus; and the latter cases appeared even more distressing than the former. The minds of the most stout hearted in the house, not except- ing the superintendants, participated in the alarm; and some of the most active and intelligent of the community were prevented from succumbing under their apprehensions and fatigue, solely from the ne- cessity they felt to exert themselves to the utmost. It now struck me that there was certainly much delusion in all this, and that much must be owing to panic and imitation. Determining, at all events, to act upon this belief, I went to the sick-room, and, in very decided language, stated my opinion. I told them that such rapid spread of disease was never heard of, and insisted that the fumigation must have fortified them against the most virulent contagion:—that though I had no reason to sup-