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 1 .' 

 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.) 



