Facts and enquiries respecting the source of epidemia, with an historical catalogue of the numerous visitations of plague, pestilence, and famine, from the earliest period of the world to the present day. To which are added, observations on quarantine and sanitary rules / by T. Forster.

  • Forster, T. (Thomas), 1789-1860.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts and enquiries respecting the source of epidemia, with an historical catalogue of the numerous visitations of plague, pestilence, and famine, from the earliest period of the world to the present day. To which are added, observations on quarantine and sanitary rules / by T. Forster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. A QUESTION of great importance has for some years divided the opinion of medical as well as commercial men, respect¬ ing the source of Pestilence and the utility of Quarantine. The point at issue seems to be this—Whether pestilential diseases, such as Cholera Morbus, Plague, and others, be of such a nature that Quarantine and Sanitary Cordons can con¬ stitute a defence against their introduction into any country; or whether, on the contrary, they depend on morbific conditions of the air, which, during particular seasons, and for certain limited portions of time, visit various countries, like other atmospheric phenomena, and are incapable of being arrested by any human means ? I am strongly of the latter opinion, and though under certain circumstances diseases may be extended to predisposed persons, by con¬ finement in close apartments with those who are already infected ; yet it seems to me, that facts do not warrant the belief that travellers, ships, or bales of goods, can convey such diseases into ports or countries where the specific malaria does not exist. When we consider how important, in a commercial point of view, is the decision of this question, I trust I shall be excused for repeating my claims on the public attention ; while T offer to the notice of the reader such evidence as may exist on the subject, together with some curious reflections thereon. The following observations will clearly show that the source of pestilence is in the malaria of particular periods, and that it is accompanied by corresponding atmospherical phenomena. Perhaps no epidemic period, in the memory of any man living, has presented such an assemblage of remarkable phenomena on the surface of our terraqueous globe and in its atmosphere, as the one which may be said to have com¬ menced in Europe in the Autumn of 1828, and of which.