Cxl THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



although the spread of influenza is undoubtedly promoted 

 by unknown '■ epidemic influences.' Sir Thomas Watson 

 says : ' The visitation is a great deal too sudden and too 

 widely spread to be capable of explanation ' by mere con- 

 tagion. He adds: ' It has been observed to occur also at the 

 same time on land, and on board different ships, which have 

 had no communication with the shore nor with each other\' 

 If, however, we direct our attention to such affections as 

 typhoid fever, relapsing fever, typhus, the plague, and cerebro- 

 spinal meningitis, we meet with a group in which different 

 degrees of contagiousness are presented, but concerning the 

 origin of which de novo, or independently of contagion, there 

 can now be little doubt. Although this is a doctrine which 

 has long been supported by many who have paid most atten- 

 tion to these diseases, it has been much enforced and strength- 

 ened, of late years, by the investigations of Dr. Murchison. 

 The contagiousness of typhoid or enteric fever is very low ; 

 and, as Dr. Murchison says, ' although enteric fever is, under 

 certain circumstances, communicable, a large number of cases 

 commence under circumstances which appear to exclude 

 every possible source of contagion. The truth of this obser- 

 vation is almost universally admitted ; and it is, therefore, 

 necessary to search for some other cause of the disease than 

 contagion.' An enormous amount of evidence tends to show 



p. 70) : — ' A curious contagious disease is recorded by Huxley to have 

 arisen on board the surveying vessel Rattlesnake, characterised by glan- 

 dular and diffuse cellular inflammation, by common and phlegmonous 

 erysipelas, and by mumps.'' 



^ ' Principles and Practice of Physic,' vol. ii. p 43 ; where examples are 

 given. On this subject, also, Dr. Gavin Milroy says : ' It has been confi- 

 dently stated that every known visitation of the epidemic in the Faroe 

 Islands has been preceded by the arrival of a vessel or vessels from 

 Denmark, when it was prevailing there. But such a statement must 

 not be too readily received; as it is well known that other islands, 

 equally distant from any continent, have been visited, quite indepen- 

 dently of arrivals therefrom.' — (See also the article on ' Influenza ' by 

 Dr. Parkes in Reynolds's ' System of Medicine,' vol. i.) 



