Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-01-29
PREVENTIVE MEDICINE
Progress Made in the Sci
ence Of EpidemiolOgy.

ence of Epidemiology.
THE ETIOLOGY OF DISEASE,
An Interesting Address to the
London archaeological Society
BY DR.. ThOrne Th0rne.
In dealing with the subject in his
inaugural address, to the Epidemic
logical Society, yesterday evening
the President, DR.. Thorne Thorne, ex.
pressed the opinion that there were
but few phases in the great progress
which had marked the Victorian era
that had had a greater effect for good
than that which. had been concerned
with improvements affecting public
health, and that intelligent action il
this direction had been largely based
ON the development of preventive
medicine and epidemiology. Up te
the date of the Queens accession the
first requisite to proper understand
ing of the etiology of disease-namely
the registration of the causes oi
death-was wanting, and to this was
largely due to the fact that, while
epidemics wrought widespread havoc,
men in their helpless ignorance could
but associa their causation with
telluric and meteoric influences and
the like.
With 1886 came the civil registra-
ton of deaths, and at once some in
sight vas acquired as to the influence
of 1lsease on age, sex, condition OF
life and locality. At the close OF
1889 it was found that 80, ,S19 had died
of smallpox during the proceeding
eighteen months. Between 1888 and
1910 the scarlet fever deaths rose from
58O2 to 1886, and this was imme-
diately followed by terrible death
roll due to "fever," generic term
including all our continued fevers.
Examination of the incidence of there
diseases taught some first lessons as
to their causes, and it was soon found
that in English towns and cities
the general mortality was greater by
A per cent than in country districts,
and that this excess was largely
capable of remedy. Tracing the his
tory of certain preventable diseases
during the past fifty years as typical
of the progress made, smallpox was
first discussed. In 1886 it had been
noticed that the distribution of that
disease was disturbed both by the pro-
. lection which some derived from
Jenner's great Discovery of the pre-
vious century, and by the artificial
diffusion of the malady which accom-
panied the then practice of inocula-
fion. Study of these influences led to
the adoption in 1910 OF the system OF
public vaccination, by which call
persons" could claim to. be vaccinated
at the public cost, and it was reserved
to this era TO extend and elaborate
that system der the vaccination acts
passed between 1858 and 1871.
The effect of these various statutes
was discussed, and it was shown that
whereas in the quinquennium 1882
the smallpox mortality of England
was 57.2 per 100, 900 living, it steadily
fell to 14.4 during the period 1855 so,
an achievement without parallel in
the history of sanitary medicine. But
q severe shock was received by the
sudden rise during the period 1904
to a rate of 42.7, and it became clear
that in the face of the potent infection
imported during the Franco German
war the people had not obtained the
full protective value of vaccination.
Discussing the various causes of this
fatal epidemic, DR.. Thorne Thorne al
luded to the immunity to attack from
infection, which is believed to be in
herited by the offspring of those who
have themselves suffered from certain
infectious fevers, and he though it
possible that, just as the Fiji islanders
were decimated by measles, against
which they had acquired no sort Of
heredity, so the people of this country
lacked, in the face of poison of ex-
ceptional virulence, and by reason of
their ancestry being vaccinated, that
partial protection against smallpox
which they might otherwise have in
herited. But the most important out
come of that epidemic had been the
researches of DIR. Buchanan, who had
abundantly proved that the potency OF
. comparatively recent vaccination
can hardly be exaggerated, and who
had clearly indicated how the protec-
ton can be most efficiently obtained.
With improved practice in this re-
spect the smallpox death-rate has
again continuously decreased, until in
the five year, 1SS0-S4, it stood at 65
per 100, 900, far smaller rate than
any attained since records of this fatal
disease were commenced.
In dealing with typhus fever, its
wide diffusions in our large towns and
cities during the earlier portions of
her Majesty's reign were recalled, and
it was explained how its association
with the crowding together Of houses
on area and of people in dwellings
was gradually learned, these condi-
tions being in variably associated with
. state of destitution, and leading to
that fouling of air breathed which re-
suits from the concentration OF the
emanations from human bodies.
Turning to London, Mr.. (now Sir
John) Simon's graphic descrip-
tions of the city courts and
alleys we're referred to, there being at
that time dense populations living in
an atmosphere scarcely respirable for
its closeness, and surrounded by an
influence so degrading that to chill
dren born under it's curse it must
have been "a very baptism into in
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