Elements of the practice of medicine / by Richard Bright and Thomas Addison.

  • Bright, Richard, 1789-1858.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of the practice of medicine / by Richard Bright and Thomas Addison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    34/636 (page 20)
    from fresh- or salt-water marshes, it would he very erro- neous to suppose that they are engendered in such marshes alone; for, ordinary vegetable decomposition in any situ- ation, appears to be capable of producing them. Indeed, as more or less vegetable decay is necessarily going on at all times and in all places, it is probable, that the atmo- sphere on land is never entirely free from miasmata, the absolute quantity varying according to the season of the year and other circumstances influencing their production. This supposition will go some way to explain the greater salubrity in general of sea than of land breezes ; whilst, the various conditions pointed out as those, which are essential or at least favourable to the evolution of miasmata, will prepare us to expect their presence and noxious influence, wheresoever vegetable decay is found in operation, whether the process take place in the neighbourhood of public wharfs, public markets, or in sewers, cesspools, holds of skips, stagnant waters, or in filthy and neglected streets. The influence of miasmata commonly extends but a very short distance from the source of their development; neither can they, like contagion, be conveyed by clothes and other articles, usually called fomites, to a distance so as to produce disease. Their influence and distribution nevertheless, appear to be greatly modified by certain col- lateral circumstances. The wind, for example, may con- vey them to a distance more or less considerable in the di- rection in which it blows, and may thereby bring within their influence, persons who would otherwise remain per- fectly secure, whilst those situated to windward may en- joy comparative immunity; and hence it is, that individuals exposed to the wind blowing over a marsh, or other source of miasmata, are at all times observed to suffer more than those who are not so exposed, or who, by the inter-