On dengue : its history, pathology, and treatment / by S. Henry Dickson, M.D.

  • Dickson, Samuel Henry, 1798-1872.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On dengue : its history, pathology, and treatment / by S. Henry Dickson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    assailed. So high, says Stedman, is its reputation for salubrity, that it has of late years become a favourite resort for invalids from the United States of America, where it is considered the Montpelier of the West Indies. The writers on this singular disease may be divided into two classes, one of whom confounding it with other mal'aria fevers, re- gard all investigation into any special or particular cause of its pro- duction as superfluous ; while their antagonists, considering it as of novel and specific character, conceive it necessary to follow up the inquiry, and trace it to its peculiar source or origin. From what has been said above of its history and characteristic phenomena, it will be readily inferred that the author of this article belongs to the latter class of physicians, and believes it to be capable of proof, that dengue is a malady of contagious nature. We hear of it in Bengal in 1825. After the silent progress of a year and more, it shows itself in 1827 in a free port, in the Caribbean Sea, where ships from every quarter of the world find ready entrance. Stedman says, it was alleged to have been brought there by a vessel from Africa. He thence traces it satisfactorily to St. Croix. Successively affecting the remaining islands, it reaches Cuba in the spring of 1828, whence, in June, it obtains easy access to Charleston, New Orleans, Vera Cruz, and Carthagena. In each of these cities it is attributed to contagion as an obvious source, and is regarded as having been imported from some point at which it was known pre- viously to exist. It is, however, a matter of acknowledged difficulty to prove to absolute demonstration, the contagiousness of any form of disease which is not capable of being communicated by inoculation.* In the instance of such maladies, an attentive observation of all the circumstances of their origin, history, and progress offers us the only means of arriving at a probable conclusion concerning their * This is the experimentum cruris, which, when it can be applied, puts the question fairly to rest. In cases which do not admit of it, the discussion seems likely to be interminable. The contagious nature of several shapes of pestilence, of plague, of typhus, and even of rubeola and pertussis, has been and still is denied by certain medical sceptics. The majority of physicians are, neverthe- less, disposed to admit that, in these and perhaps other analogous instances, an impalpable virus is generated, which, when thus eliminated, is diffused at once through the atmosphere and becomes only cognizable by its effects in the repro- duction of similar disease to that from which it emanated.