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Sect. XIVJ MEDICINE AND MEDICAL STATISTICS. 



453 



latter, and as the expression of bis profes-v-rnal opini 

 thus influenced or formed, particularly with regard to 

 their being of an infectious or of a non-infectious cha- 

 racter^ may involve not only the safety of the greater 

 part of the men in his own vessel, but that of the crews 

 belonging to other ships, or even of communities residing 

 on shore, it will be admitted that these are not subjects, 

 when opportunities occur, that ought to be superficially 

 examined or inattentively reported. 



Besides endemic and epidemic diseases arising from 

 general or terrestrial sources extraneous to a ship, there 

 are others which originate in local or personal causes 

 existing on board. To distinguish betv/een these is a 



matter of greater difficulty than seems to be generally 

 apprehended. For instance, it has frequently occurred 

 that fever has broken out in a single vessel of a squadron, 

 and attacked not only the whole or the greater part of 

 her crew, but all visitors who ventured on board, although 

 they remained in her only a few hours. If these latter, 

 after returning to their own ship or home, passed through 

 the disease without communicating it to any other person, 

 the opinion generally formed has been, that the fever was 

 the result of exposure to some local cause unconnected 

 with the personal emanations of the sick ; but if in either 

 case the attendants or immediate neighbours of the vi- 

 sitors were subsequently, that is, within two or three 

 weeks, seized with fever similar to that of the latter and 

 of the patients in the ship, and again other persons who 

 had been in close communication with them w^ere attacked, 

 then the conclusion arrived at has been (as indeed it 

 could not be otherwise) that the disease, if it were iiot in 



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