Twentieth century practice; an international encyclopedia of modern medical science by leading authorities of Europe and America . r words, that theair may become a carrier of the contagion, so that the latter can bespread hj the atmospheric currents within a small range. There iscertainly no mathematical expression to be found for the extent ofthat range; at the utmost, it extends no farther than the immediatesurroundings of the sick. Although Hirsch thought that no mathematical expression can befound for the extent of the aerial convection of smallpox, yet the ex-perience of recent epidemics
Twentieth century practice; an international encyclopedia of modern medical science by leading authorities of Europe and America . r words, that theair may become a carrier of the contagion, so that the latter can bespread hj the atmospheric currents within a small range. There iscertainly no mathematical expression to be found for the extent ofthat range; at the utmost, it extends no farther than the immediatesurroundings of the sick. Although Hirsch thought that no mathematical expression can befound for the extent of the aerial convection of smallpox, yet the ex-perience of recent epidemics in the British Isles proves that its strik-ing distance is considerable, certainly much greater than that of ETIOLOGY. 401 typhus fever. In tlie outbreaks of 1871-73 and of 1876-79, the ques-tion did not jperhaps receive the attention to which it was justlyentitled, A local epidemic in Sheffield in 1887 and 1888, however,afforded an opporcunity of reducing the facts to a mathematicalexpression. In his Manual of Public Health, Mr. A. Wynter Blyth ob-serves : The usual spread of smallpox is from person to person, but 4000 Fig. 2. -Diagram snowing the Influence of the Sheffield Hospital in spreading theDisease in 1887-88. from inquiries which have taken place as to the influence of smallpoxhospitals upon a surrounding population, and the experience of theSheffield epidemic (of 1887-88), it is certain that the infection canstrike at a distance. Whether the contagious i)articles are conveyedby the air itself, or by the medium of the common household fly orother insects, the imjoortant fact remains that infection may travelfar. The influence of the Sheffield Hospital could be distinctlj^ tracedfor a circle of four thousand feet; for instance, the following percent-ages of households attacked at successive distances from the hospitalVol. 402 MOOEE—SMALLPOX. are given in the original report by the late Dr. F. W. Barry, in-spector of the Local Government Board for Engla
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade189, booksubjectmedicine, bookyear1895
