CHAPTER X.
CAUSES OF PESTILENCE CONTINUED—COLD, WANT OF CLOTHING, AND SHELTER—DEPRESSION OF MIND—INFLUENCE OF WEATHER, CLIMATE, HABITS, &C.
Few of the primary causes of pestilence among large bodies of men are so powerful or so extended in the range of their action, as extreme and long continued cold, want of sufficient clothing and shelter, and depression of the mind.
Coincident with many of the epidemics which are wont to prevail in this country, these circumstances are almost, without exception, found to be present; and if they are not admitted to be considered as the sole and exclusive causes of the prevalent disease, it is proved that they are co-agents or adjuvants of the very first importance.
Much of the continued fever which infests the poorer classes of our countrymen, and almost all the pleurisies, colds, and consequent consumptions, which prevail more or less among the various ranks every winter, are in a very great degree dependent on the extreme cold of the season which suddenly sets in, and against which the dress of the inhabitants of these islands is insufficient to provide. The labouring classes suffer much, more particularly from the action of cold and the inclemency of the weather. They are generally very scantily clothed, nay, they are sometimes scarcely covered, and the consequence is, that the cold makes a strong and lasting impression, the circulation on the surface is suddenly impeded, the perspiration is checked, and the whole fabric involuntarily shivers. Now these are the very first symptoms of fever, and unless the constitution is possessed of stamina to remove those symptoms without loss of time, and to establish the circulation in its vigour again upon the surface of the body, that disease, or some other, will undoubtedly be established.
When a body thus affected with cold is placed in a warm situation, there supervenes an excitement or reaction, which is marked by increased force of the circulation, and with redness and heat of the skin, a condition which is often experienced by persons who go immediately to the fire when newly arrived from a journey in the cold. When that reaction ceases, and is followed by a sense of coldness and by shivering, which again is succeeded by reaction, fever, in its proper sense, is established, and will assume a character of violence, lowness, or malignity, according to circumstances.
The clothes, the house, and the diet of the working man, are insufficient to protect him against the action of the cold, and to resist its operation when once it has fastened upon him; and thus it is, that to comparative want and to many privations, there is so often conjoined so much disease.
But it is in vain to expect any other result as long as our most deserving labouring population is worked in an inordinate degree,—so long as they labour beyond what their limited energies will, with impunity, permit—so long as they are often unable to obtain a diet sufficient for the maintenance, even of an idle person, and so long as their very breasts, from very want of clothing, are literally open and exposed to the fiercest blast that blows, and to the most searching and chilling rain that falls from Heaven.
Observe the industrious labourer at his work; behold his powers are taxed to the utmost, his energies, his capabilities, are put upon the stretch, and the entire fabric, God’s most complicated and most delicate creation, is actually labouring and heaving with protracted exertion. His blood distils the dew of labour, and his clothes, such as they are, are moistened with perspiration bursting from a thousand pores.
It frequently happens, that the labour of the poor man being over, sorely fatigued, too exhausted even to enjoy the consciousness that his hour of rest has arrived, with a heavy and unwieldy gait and hanging head, he seeks his comfortless abode, his scanty board, his dreary, dark, scarcely furnished apartment, with its faint and glimmering embers.
He swallows his spare repast and falls asleep at his fireside, but having no change of clothes, and those which he has on being wet with perspiration or with rain, are allowed to dry upon him. In the mean time the heat of the fire proves sufficient to create a steam on the side next it, and the house of course being open to the wind, currents of air, chillingly cold, pervade the apartment, and strike upon that side of the poor inmate which is most remote from the fire, and thus he of a thousand misfortunes and privations is actually steamed on one side, and perished with cold on the other. Persons placed in such a situation can scarcely, for any length of time, escape disease, and it is consonant with my knowledge to say, that the condition of a great proportion of the labouring classes is not one tittle better. Fever and many other diseases will continue to assail our labouring population as long as their food is insufficient, as long as they are barely covered during the inclement season, and as long as their habitations scarcely own a roof or a door, as long as the wind and rain enter at a thousand crevices; and while the cheerful and salubrious light of heaven is denied admittance by the old hats, bunches of straw, and rubbish which so frequently, in the absence of glass, fill up the space originally intended for a window. Yes, so long as every energy is exerted, and every moment that can be cheated from rest, to obtain that wherewith a supply of the necessaries of life may be procured, and when every other consideration sinks and gives way to the more pressing wants of nature, will disease prevail.
Such is the destitution among many of the labouring class, and the vast amount of disease which prevails among them, is the necessary consequence.
The following facts illustrate well the influence which scanty food, insufficient clothing, and the privations attendant upon poverty, exert in the production of disease.
During the last three months (10th February 1839), the fishermen and potters living in Prestonpans, have been in a very destitute condition, the former, partly from the very boisterous weather which has prevented their going regularly to sea, and the latter from the closure of the potteries at which they were employed. During that time, these two classes of people have been suffering much from fever, about ten of their number having died in that short period; while the people, amounting to 750, including children, connected with Prestongrange colliery, who are well employed, well paid, and well fed, though inhabiting the same locality, and the houses stretching from Prestonpans to Musselburgh Links, have been almost entirely free of that disease, fever having affected two of those families only, in the course of the same time; and while fever is still prevailing extensively among the potters and fishermen, the people connected with the colliery have been entirely free of that disease since about the 7th of last December. On these facts I am well informed, being the medical attendant of the colliery.
Let us mark the operation of the same or similar circumstances upon soldiers; the consequences of exposure to cold, to the inclemency of the weather, of the want of sufficient clothing, and of habitations, among young and robust men, employed in the most active and spirit stirring occupations, connected with the most kindling and heart-rousing anticipations, and flushed with the glory and honour of victory.
Let the case be that of Napoleon’s Grand Army in Russia, perhaps the most remarkable recorded in human history, and that, perhaps, will equal any that will yet mark the future career of man, in the total discomfiture, in the unspeakable sufferings, in the awful destruction of human life, and, in short, in the triumph of nature over humanity, which, from beginning to end, attended the disastrous retreat of that mighty congregation of France’s bravest sons.
Let the case be that of the retreat of the Grand Army from Moscow, which, alas, was one horrid series of unprecedented disasters, of wreck upon wreck, whose course was one prolonged deathbed—one white, one snow-white shroud—one extended grave, which barely spared enough to convey the fatal tidings, and which received heroes by thousands, valour and all that is ennobling in the mass, which monuments can never note,—and broken hearts and broken ties, those of husband, of father, and of comrade, for which tears have flowed, but which tears can never bind again.
“At every step he (the Emperor) saw his soldiers, stricken by cold, extenuated by hunger and fatigue, falling half dead into the hands of the Russian cavalry.
“Around these (their bivouacs) hunger and cold rivetted those wretched sufferers. It was impossible to tear them away.
“Above sixty thousand men well clothed, well fed, and completely armed, attacked eighteen thousand half naked, ill armed, famished men, encumbered by more than fifty thousand stragglers, sick and wounded. For two days the cold and misery were so intense that the old guard lost a third, and the young guard one-half of their effective men.
“It was indeed but the shade of an army, but it was the shade of a grand army. It felt itself conquered by nature alone.
“Under these circumstances, the elements appeared more hostile to us than the Russians themselves. Their climate did its part—if they had done theirs.”
In that disastrous retreat there was a most extraordinary accumulation of influences powerfully destructive of health. There was extreme cold, that of an intensely cold climate, there was an insufficiency of food and of clothing, and there was a want of proper habitations,—the wretched sufferers lying almost naked around their fires in the open air, perhaps enjoying the partial protection of a shed, a ruin, or a stable, and sometimes seeking shelter in the carcasses of horses. But there was also present another influence, highly prejudicial to health, and equal of itself to a considerable proportion of the fearful amount of disease which prevailed, and that was depression of mind.
Depression of mind conveyed a withering influence to the hearts of the bold victors of a thousand actions, and paralyzed the whole energies of the system. Here it acted on a gigantic scale, and its work of death, yes, of death itself, was not less prodigious.
The humiliation, the mortifications, and the heart-rending misfortunes of which these once victorious but now unhappy men were the prey, could not but induce a state of mind, which, of all other circumstances, must have been the most favourable to the invasion of disease. Daily experience demonstrates that disease is much favoured by the presence of circumstances, such as are referred to in the following passages.
“That grand army, which, in the course of the preceding twenty years, had marched in triumph through all the capitals of Europe, now, for the first time, reappeared, mutilated, disarmed, and fugitive in one of those (Konigsberg) which its glory had reduced to the greatest abasement. Its inhabitants hastened into the streets, as we passed along, to observe and reckon our wounds, and to estimate by the number and the extent of our misfortunes, the foundation on which they might build their hopes: we were forced to regale their eager and delightful eyes with our miseries; to submit to pass under the yoke of their delight, and, dragging our squalid and miserable forms in full review before their detested scrutiny, to march under the almost insupportable weight of calamity which the hatred of the spectators beheld even with transport.”[9]
Footnote 9:
Segur’s Expedition to Russia.
The very knowledge and observation of mental distress and bodily suffering creates a depression of mind, and sickness arising therefrom spreads among the spectators, although, in other respects, they are comfortably situated, and have abundance of clothing and wholesome food.
Segur further relates:—“Consternation took possession of the soldiers of Marshal Victor, though unbroken in numbers and in spirits, after having given way to their customary acclamations on beholding their Imperial commander, when, instead of the grand column which was to achieve the conquest of Moscow, they perceived behind Napoleon, only a band of spectres, covered with rags, women’s pelisses, bits of carpet, or with dirty cloaks scorched and burnt by the fire of the bivouacs, and with feet wrapped in the most wretched tatters.”
Depression of mind favours the accession of many diseases. This was noticed when the prevalence of fever was under observation.
It has been remarked by Citois, that the colic of Devonshire and Poutou attacks more particularly those families who are suffering under that calamity.
Disease frequently makes its first appearance when friends and relatives assemble to pay the last marks of respect at the funeral of the departed. I am acquainted with several instances in which, shivering, tremors, and sense of great debility, have suddenly supervened in men in perfect health upon the “lifting” of the corpse, and upon the “lowering” into the grave, moments in which the hearts of many would seem to threaten to melt away, and in which they have proved to be the primary symptoms of fever; the other more violent and more dangerous characteristics being duly developed. A man, named Stevenson, died at Tranent last winter; the friends were assembled in the house to attend the funeral; his brother arrived from a distance, just as the body was about to be lifted, went into the apartment, apprehended he smelt infection, and instantly felt very ill. After having gone to the churchyard, and returned home, he was immediately attacked with sickness, which assumed the form of fever, and he died in the course of a few days.
The following statement, made by Dr Paris, illustrates well, how depression of mind, by affecting the system, promotes the action of poison:—
“A patient had been taking mercurial medicine, and using frictions for a considerable period, without any apparent effect; under these circumstances, he was abruptly told that he would fall a victim to his disease; the unhappy man experienced an unusual shock at this opinion, and in a few hours became violently salivated (that is, became affected with the peculiar action of mercury on the mouth).”
CLIMATE.
Besides the various causes of pestilence to which reference has been made, there are many others connected with peculiarities of climate, irrigation, soil, and habitudes of nations, of which the limits of this work will not permit an extended account. Of the peculiarities of climate, the most important are the greater or less intensity of the sun’s rays. It is found that much solar heat disposes to excessive action of the liver, and hence it is that fever in tropical regions is biliary; characterized by derangement of the biliary organs, of which the liver is the principal; that fever in the West Indies is yellow, a colour which proceeds from the dissemination of the bile throughout the body. Few persons who have remained long within the tropics are free of disease of the liver, and this is well known to be a common, nay, almost a universal complaint among soldiers who have returned to this country after many years’ service in those regions.
Another active agent in the production of disease in these climates is the great fall of dew which takes place between the setting and rising of the sun, and the extreme degree of cold which attends it. The dew begins to fall as soon as the sun gets below the horizon, and increases till about an hour or two before dawn; the cold at that time is extreme, more particularly felt on account of the great heat which is experienced during the day. The cold is the immediate cause of the falling of the dew, which is only the water that was dissipated in vapour by the action of the sun’s rays. The dew favours the action of the cold; and persons who are exposed to it, are in consequence frequently attacked with disease.
Persons unaccustomed to the heat, and ignorant or regardless of the consequences of exposure to the night air, often suffer much, and become affected with the peculiar distempers of the climate, in this manner: they lie down on the ground scantily covered, while the sun is still above the horizon, and make no provision for the cold and damp of night which is sure to overtake them.
Persons go to bed also with too few clothes, being then warm and oppressed with heat; in the night the dew falls, the cold arrives, and they are often awakened with severe rigors or shiverings; and thus fever, dysentery, and the like disorders are induced.
The winds in all latitudes are often instrumental in the production of disease. Some have been already referred to in connexion with the conveyance of vitiated air. Some are hurtful from their excessive heat, as, for instance, those blowing directly off the burning deserts of Arabia and of Africa. The Sirocco is not only extremely hot, but is copiously loaded with aqueous vapour. It visits Italy, blowing there several days at a time, and acts almost as a vapour bath upon the inhabitants. The Sirocco blows off the deserts of Africa, passing over the Mediterranean sea, there imbibing a large quantity of water, converted into vapour, and rushes upon the fair shores and degenerate population of Italy. Its immediate effect is to relax the system, and to open up all the pores on the surface of the body. These effects are very hurtful to health, and become particularly so, when they are long continued, as sometimes happens. But more dreadful are the results of exposure of persons so situated, to the sudden action of an intensely cold blast, such as the Tramontane, which, driving from the northern side of the Alps and Pyrenees, passing over their snow-capt summits, and sharing their bitterness and frost, rushes, without warning, upon the inhabitants.
The tramontane is very cold, and acting upon persons in a manner “forcing” in a hot house, soon produces pleurisies, colds, consumptions, &c. &c.
These vicissitudes in Italy, and those which are wont to occur in regions within the tropics, are much greater than the variations of weather which are experienced in the British Isles, and which are comparatively harmless; or are hurtful, at least, in a much less degree.
In many countries the rivers periodically overflow their banks and cover the surrounding territory. The Nile overflows annually, and when the water has almost disappeared by infiltration into the soil, and by evaporation, and when that which is left is muddy, slimy, and mixed with organized remains, exhalations arise, and a vitiated atmosphere is produced, which is said by medical men, who have lived upon the banks of that river, to be productive of plague.
The territory again on the banks of the Canton river in China, is almost constantly under water, and its fertility is thereby much increased. The ground there is used for the growth of rice which delights in a soil covered with water. When the heat is intense, when the water contains organized putrefying materials, and when the weather is close, and the atmosphere is a little agitated, then vapours ascend which, mixing with the air, cause it to be vitiated, and to be productive of malignant remittent fever.
The habits of nations are also influential in the production of disease. The privations and penances which devotees endure are followed by a very hurtful influence on the health, whether they be what are enjoined, or whether they be voluntarily suffered, as they suppose, to conciliate the favour of the Deity.
The diet, clothing, occupations, pleasures, government, laws, social usages, genius, and ambition of nations, materially influence their health, and give tendencies to particular maladies; but interesting as the subject is, the investigation cannot be pursued here.