The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-12-09 00:00:00

THE ILLNESS OF THE PRINCE OF
WALES.

In noticing the Mineee of the Prince of Wale% the apparent
pmdiarities of typhoid fever, and its origin and causes, the
hqi,±l Telwaph of Monday says :

- - -
The expectation of a crisis at any• time during the
past week was not founded on any facts connected
with the natural history of typhoid fever. It is part
of the natural development of the disease that. in a
well marked ease, its main symptoms should gradually
ri-e in intensity till about the middle of the third
Week ; and in favourable cases after that date there is
nalally • aubsiolence of the symptoms. That aided-
&nee does not occur, in many cases, however till the
I. Ali week, awl the eveellent recoveries are made in
ra-cs in which the tlynototoms have retained or t yen in-
t ....mai their intensity till the end of the fourth week.
Thvre was, therefore, Wo ground for evil boding in the
fret that throughout all the earlier part of the past week
the third week of the Prince's illness—the physicians
had to record that, while the disorder was pureeing a
favourable course, the fever was still severe. There
wa,, however, just diwinietutle fclt on Friday. when
It was founol that on Thursday evening there had
Idd ..n an excess of the usual difference in this illness
id...tw0...t0 tie- evening and morning temperature, hat this
them dowctrie indication WDA ~fiff,VollrahlP, and the
tl doe, not err. Illitrsday being hi the middle
it • • t io • w co.k, when the eymptornsof decline of beat
Id y ft. he looked for, an unuatially high tempera-
suo It as the bulletin honestly annttenced, was
prol,o rly roczaroltml with anxiety. Nid e may take this Oc-
C,-i.,11 odf e.prods-ing what is, we feel sure, the general
nf th, most experienced, that on no other 0C-
• Of equal inoportance have the published bulletins
onc•tly clear, inure carefully and yet ex-
Jaaitly wordldsl, or in everywaymors satisfactory. They
tay, dvodi 4,1 the studied obscurity which sometimes
thametcrise••thedirectilar utterance of (*.net physicians,
olcoy. ;rig the neceseary reserve, have not,
Cd is oftd•rt the ease under such circumstances, ern-
language fitted and apparently intended to con-
eral rather than empreso the truth. To the popular .
Mind, ef mune, medical utterances are never very in-
telligible, anol are alware liable to 'inheonetrection ;
but to the adetituttelv Infonneol critic these bulletins
hare throughout atio'rded information self-comoistent,
aad• apable of affording data hor an intelligent judlii-
hint of the :Lethal condition of the patient and the
progress of the malady from day to day.
Thus, then, to-day we are able to decipher, in the
tek.grams which were issued on Saturday evening and
dimag Sunday, features of great encouragement. In-
deed, the impression which ought to he derived from them
ja one of more decioltsl andl tlytntugh hopefulness than
haa }wow warranted by arty previous anwouncemenht
is-ced since it was first mile known that his Royal
Egliness was suffering from a bharp attack of enteric

fever. It was, of course, encouraging throughout to
hear of many hopeful features in the cane 1 his Royal
Highness, especially to leer that the patient was main-
taining his strength well, thus favouring the belief,
and indeed indicating the fact, that the constitutional
conditions were good, and the dangers of a'ti'ers", as
it called, or the weakness which gives a bad turn
even to ordinary attacks, might be eliminated from
this rare; and, again, it was most satisfactory that
the public were continuously reassured by the intima-
tion that there were none of the complications which
add to the perils of the disorder in a considerable pro-
portion of cases. But there must needs be no small
anxiety throughout the second and third week, while
the fever ran high, or was " severe." It was impossi-
ble, therefore, to attach any element .1 certainty to
the hepea raised even by favourable bulletins, under
such CIL cumatauces, and during these earlier stages.. . .
Increased attentien has been directed to the in-
cidents of the Searboroagh visit by Dr. Dale's letar.
and by a rumour which is current in the clubs that
another of the Scarborough party, a servant taken
down for the occasion, has been attatked with typhoid
fever since his return to London. Considerable
interest would of course attach to this incident,
if this should prove to be the fact—and it is stated
to us on authority which, but that it lacks medical
ratification' we should consider unexceptionable—
and if, further, the dates of the onset of the
disease concur, within reasonable limits, with
; that of the commencement of illness in the case of
; his Royal Highness and the Earl of Chesterfield.
It must, however, be remembered that the historT
of zyniutic disease is full of extraordinary coinci-
dences; and the fact that typhoid fever is now ;
epidemic in many parts of the country, and that it is
specially prevalent in London at this moment, must
have its due weight in preventing any hasty conclusion
from being arrived at, In reference to the endemic
status of typhoid fever in London, the British 21Adical
Journal states that the fever is just now abundant and
of a severe type: Daring the last five weeks the
weekly deaths registered have ranged as follows: 27,
27, 32, 36, and 23, against 28, 22, 19, 20, and 21, for
the corresponding weeks of laid year. The number
of admissione at the London Fever Hospital, Liver-
-1501-road, has been reduced during the last few
weeks by the opening of the Metropolitan
Asylum at Homerton for fever cases. Dr. Collie,
the Resident Medical Superintendent at this asylum,
considers that the present endemic condition may be
considered severe. He : "Of enteric cases we
have achuitted 50 cases of true enteric fever, of these
23 were of a mild character, and 2ffiwere severe, having
been complicated with more or less of bronchitis,
pleurisy, or pneumonia. Of the total admimeiona we
have had nine deaths. The causes of death were as
follows: 1. Enteric fever: hiemorrhage. 2. Enteric
fever: bronchitis. 3. Enteric fever: pleuro-pneu-
mouia. 4. Enteric fever: bronchitis, Inemorrhage.
a. Enteric fever: bronchitis. 6. Enteric fever:
hemorrhage. 7. Enteric fever: bronchitis. 8. Enteric
fever: pleuro-pneumonia, haanorrhage. 9. Enteric
fever: bronchitis, perforation, peritonitis. There
remain at present 47 enteric patients,
The groom at Sandringham—as to whom an un-
founded statement was made on Saturday that he was
dead- --is, we learn, doing fairly. In the consideration
of the peel able etiology of the fever by which his Royal
Highness and the late Lord Chemterfield were almost
simultaneeusly attacked, great weight must be attri-
buted to the apparently local origin of the fever in the
groom at Sandringham, who bad never been at Scar-
borough at a 11....
The more largely important paragraphs, however, of
the litter by Mr. Dale, the medical attendant of Lord
Londesberough, were, aa, we peiuted out, those in
which he di.cesseil the general question of the mode
of origin of typhoid fever, and described bis views of
the relations of certain insanitary conditions to the
public health. This is indeed, a matter of great
national import. No ?act is better odablished in
the history of outbreaks of typhoid fever UNA that
it is due to sewer poison; that that poison acts
upon the system similarly whether inhaled or
taken into the blood by drinking polluted water ;
and that in most if not all such outbreaks the majority
of the persons affected suffer from diarrffisa and
sickness, while a few are struck down with enteric or
intestinal fever. There are other questiane on which
there is a difference of medical opinion especially
whether this sewer poison is one generated Jr num, or
which finds its way into the sewer from already in-
fected sources—but of the pythogenic propagation of
this "filth fever,' as it is called by the Medical Officer
of the Privy Council, there is not any doubt what-
ever. Nor is there any doubt that where evil effluvia,
such as Mr. Dale describee, find their way from sewers
hito a dwelling house, they are capable of affecting
all the inmates wore or less with the influence of
the typist 'ld poison, and producing diarrlicea in some
and fever in others. We might in to under this head,
MS CVO, perfectly in point. a greet number of well
authenticated instances .1 such I utbreaka . . .
Meantime we may eloerve that the fact of visitors to
a le else suffering whilst it., iinnatet escape is also com-
patible with numerous recorded observations in this
as in litany cognate disorder, In A Wetion of Dr.
Murchisi no standard treatise on the Continuol Fevers
of Great Britain, in which he expressly treats of this
sul ject. he states, after quoting carefully eifted eeries
of statistic,s indicating the greater liability of
new-comers "I have known several instances in
hick euccessive i,itors at the same house, at inter-
vals of months or even years, have been seized after
their a-rrival with pytle .genie fever or diarrhwa, frail
which the ordinary residents were exempt. These cons
siderations point to the depewlenee of pythegenic fever
en sonic local cause, to which the system becomes
habituated by constant exposure ;" and, diecuoing
the relative immunity of workers in drains from the
fever- -an immunity which is, of course, only partial
—be again repeats that it is generally admitted that
continued exposure diminiehes the risk of infection,
and that persons mold exposed to sewer emanations
suffer relatively less than others whose exposure is
casual,