Some facts of electricity, observed in spasmodic cholera / by James Mather.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some facts of electricity, observed in spasmodic cholera / by James Mather. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    PREFACE. CHOLERA IS AGAIN AT HAND. In sixteen years it has made the circuit of the globe, scattering desolation in its path; and, once more, is in the heart of Europe. This terrible physical phenomenon, bounding on its western course, will, in a few months, be in the midst of the dense masses of the English population. It is perhaps well for humanity that this fearful enemy of man is invading the civilized world, amongst the abodes of science and genius. The concentration of their powers upon it, in the mortal encounter, is the only human hope—if human means may avail. Their attention is again directed to a meteorological phenomenon, an attendant, if not the cause of the great morbific action. The connexion of Spasmodic Cholera with a disturbed atmospheric Electricity. It was accidentally observed during its first attack. These “ Observations'’ were made in the heSrt'of the Sunderland and Newcastle Cholei’a district, and sent, in 1832, to a relative of the author's, the chief magistrate of Jedburgh, in which direction it was supposed the Cholera atmosphere would range. He had them immediately published, and scarcely had they appeared when the Cholera storm rolled over that district with much violence, pre- vious to its burst upon Glasgow. The “ Observations” quoted, and their views confirmed by Pro- fessor Lizars, and similar opinions entertained by Drs. Clanny, Greenhow, Your.g, Walsh, Orton, William Ainsli-e, and Messrs. Losh and lorster, with their increasing extension in the scientific and medical world, induce this republication on the reappearance of Cholera in the European atmosphere. Ihe point to which they refer cannot be too early or too clearly investigated. South Shields, September, 1848.