INLETS FOR INFECTION. 73 



learned so much, but for equal surprise that so many persons appear 

 to think it a complete and full-grown science, and that it is entitled to 

 speak with confidence on all the great mysteries of the earth that have 

 been hidden from the generations before us. Such being the newness 

 of man and of his science of the earth, it is not too much to say that 

 humility, hard work in collecting facts, and abstinence from hasty 

 generalization, should characterize geologists, at least for a few gen- 

 erations to come. 



In conclusion, science is light, and light is good ; but it must be 

 carried high, else it will fail to enlighten the world. Let us strive to 

 raise it high enough to shine over every obstruction which casts any 

 shadow on the true interests of humanity. Above all, let us hold up 

 the light, and not stand in it ourselves. 



IKLETS FOR INFECTION.* 



Br E. THOENE THOENE, F. E. C. P. 



IN selecting a subject to bring before you, I felt that I should not 

 be trespassing beyond the lines indicated by the committee who 

 have organized this series of lectures if I addressed my remarks to 

 some points connected with those specific fevers the prevention of 

 which must be regarded as coming within the scope of sanitaiy ad- 

 ministration. I may, perhaps, indicate the importance of such a sub- 

 ject by quoting a few figures from the reports of the Registrar- General 

 of England. Limiting myself to those diseases the spread of which 

 is admittedly to be controlled by the adoption either of efiicient sani- 

 tary works, or of such sanitary measures as isolation and disinfection, 

 I find that during 1871-'80 the following deaths were registered in 

 England and Wales : From typhus fever, 13,975 ; from enteric or ty- 

 phoid fever, 78,421 ; from simple continued fever, which when fatal 

 is probably nothing less than an ill-defined form of enteric fever, 25,- 

 643 ; from diphtheria, 29,425 ; and from scarlet fever, otherwise called 

 scarlatina, 174,232. These deaths are essentially due to diseases which 

 may be called preventable, and they amount in all to 321,696 in the 

 ten years. But the influence of these diseases upon the population can 

 not be judged of by the death-roll alone. For every fatal case there 

 have probably occurred at least ten non-fatal attacks, and thus we 

 come to be confronted with a total of 3,538,656 attacks from the pre- 

 ventable specific fevers. Mr. Simon, C. B., F. R. S., in dealing with 

 such death returns, has said : " Of the incalculable amount of physical 

 suffering and disablement which they occasion, and of the sorrows and 



* Abridged from a lc«ture delivered at Cheltenham, March 15, 1883, and published 

 in "The Practitioner." 



