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GLANDERS IN THE HUMANE SUBJECT.
REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS. was
305
daring the last century medical writers
to describe and more clearly define the disease now acknowledged as leprosy ! " But directly after this he says, that " at the present day the profession talk and write of leprous, nervous, scrofulous, and scorbutic diseases, each of them adjective terms, which may imply anything but define nothing." With all deference, I fear the Doctor’s remarks will not contribute much to remove the obscurity, or to enlighten us on this subject, although his exertions, as a practical man, I believe to be highly useful and meritorious. And, as to the writers of the last century, it was they who, misunderstanding or disregartiing the descriptions of lepra arabum, græcorum, and elephantia, as given by Aretius, by Rhazes, and others,-it was those writers, I say (of the last century), who led to the chaotic confusion, and the grossest errors on the subject; and even at the prestnt day, the disease known here and described by our systematic writers under the name of leprosy, ha·, in reality, no affinity with the genuine lepra, lepra arabum, or elephantia of the Greek writers.* This loathsome disease, as we learn from recent reports, is much on the increase in Demerara and other colonies, and many whites affected have latterly removed to northern climates (especially North America), and to this country, with the hope of obtaining some relief from their sulferings. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Joti-i HANCOCK, JOHN HAYCOCK, M.D.
began
49, Welbeck-street, May 7,
1839.
THE LANCET. London, Saturday, May 18, 1839. THEActs for the
Registration of Births, Deaths, Marriages, have been in operation since July 1st, 1837, and the presentation of the Annual Report of the Regisand
trar-General
expected.
to
Parliament may soon be the Registration Acts
When
Legislature we noticed some provisions, but deferred any consideration of the general nature and bearings of the system of civil registration until it had been tested, and experience as well as reasoning should enable us to point out any of its defects, or to suggest any improvements. We shall now discuss the subject fully; for this measure, if properly carried out, must prove of great importance, whether we regard its legal utility, and the facility it will afford for the equitable transmission of property ; its application to matters of medical police ; the facts which it will contribute to political science, or the were
before the
of their
light which
it must
inevitably
throw upon
medicine. In rapidly reviewing the history GLANDERS IN THE HUMANE SUBJECT. and present state of the registration, we A-4 experiment, recently performed by shall take as a guide the evidence given M. Nonat and M. Bouley, has demonstrated before the Committee of the House of Comthe identity of glanders occurring in the human subject with the glanders which mons in 1833,-the acts themselves,-other A horse was inoculated authorities which will be indicated,—and affects horsfs. with some purulent matter taken from a pxtient labouring under glanders. The animal the results of observations that have fallen soon presented all the well known symptoms under our own notice. of glanders, and died on the llth of March, Weddings, christenings, and burials were eighteen days after the inoculation. Ott comparing the lesions of the nasal cavity registered, to a certain extent, by the monks, which were observed in the inoculated ani before the Reformation. In 1538 an injuncmal with the parts of a horse which had died of glanders occurring in the ordinary tion was issued by THOMAS LORD CROMway, the points of resf’mblance were found WELL, ordering the parson to record the to be most striking.-Bul. de l’Acad. Roy. de same facts, weekly, before the wardeus; Med., May, 1839. subjecting him for neglect to a fine of 3s. 4d: * The rightly-named elephantia, or ele- Nearly similar injunctions were issued in phantiasis, was that well described by 1547 and 1559. A biil was introduced into Rhazes, and now but too well known in the West Indies by the same name,—elephant’s the House of Commons, " To erect an office foot, or the Barbadoes leg,-wliieli is an enor- « of registership, to be kept in every din. mous enlargement of the feet and ler, to " cese;"but, through the interposition of which parts the disease is cou6u ed ; it, in the Clergy, it did not eventually pass. In fact, ha, no auatogy with leprosy.
No. 826.
305
daring the last century medical writers
to describe and more clearly define the disease now acknowledged as leprosy ! " But directly after this he says, that " at the present day the profession talk and write of leprous, nervous, scrofulous, and scorbutic diseases, each of them adjective terms, which may imply anything but define nothing." With all deference, I fear the Doctor’s remarks will not contribute much to remove the obscurity, or to enlighten us on this subject, although his exertions, as a practical man, I believe to be highly useful and meritorious. And, as to the writers of the last century, it was they who, misunderstanding or disregartiing the descriptions of lepra arabum, græcorum, and elephantia, as given by Aretius, by Rhazes, and others,-it was those writers, I say (of the last century), who led to the chaotic confusion, and the grossest errors on the subject; and even at the prestnt day, the disease known here and described by our systematic writers under the name of leprosy, ha·, in reality, no affinity with the genuine lepra, lepra arabum, or elephantia of the Greek writers.* This loathsome disease, as we learn from recent reports, is much on the increase in Demerara and other colonies, and many whites affected have latterly removed to northern climates (especially North America), and to this country, with the hope of obtaining some relief from their sulferings. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Joti-i HANCOCK, JOHN HAYCOCK, M.D.
began
49, Welbeck-street, May 7,
1839.
THE LANCET. London, Saturday, May 18, 1839. THEActs for the
Registration of Births, Deaths, Marriages, have been in operation since July 1st, 1837, and the presentation of the Annual Report of the Regisand
trar-General
expected.
to
Parliament may soon be the Registration Acts
When
Legislature we noticed some provisions, but deferred any consideration of the general nature and bearings of the system of civil registration until it had been tested, and experience as well as reasoning should enable us to point out any of its defects, or to suggest any improvements. We shall now discuss the subject fully; for this measure, if properly carried out, must prove of great importance, whether we regard its legal utility, and the facility it will afford for the equitable transmission of property ; its application to matters of medical police ; the facts which it will contribute to political science, or the were
before the
of their
light which
it must
inevitably
throw upon
medicine. In rapidly reviewing the history GLANDERS IN THE HUMANE SUBJECT. and present state of the registration, we A-4 experiment, recently performed by shall take as a guide the evidence given M. Nonat and M. Bouley, has demonstrated before the Committee of the House of Comthe identity of glanders occurring in the human subject with the glanders which mons in 1833,-the acts themselves,-other A horse was inoculated authorities which will be indicated,—and affects horsfs. with some purulent matter taken from a pxtient labouring under glanders. The animal the results of observations that have fallen soon presented all the well known symptoms under our own notice. of glanders, and died on the llth of March, Weddings, christenings, and burials were eighteen days after the inoculation. Ott comparing the lesions of the nasal cavity registered, to a certain extent, by the monks, which were observed in the inoculated ani before the Reformation. In 1538 an injuncmal with the parts of a horse which had died of glanders occurring in the ordinary tion was issued by THOMAS LORD CROMway, the points of resf’mblance were found WELL, ordering the parson to record the to be most striking.-Bul. de l’Acad. Roy. de same facts, weekly, before the wardeus; Med., May, 1839. subjecting him for neglect to a fine of 3s. 4d: * The rightly-named elephantia, or ele- Nearly similar injunctions were issued in phantiasis, was that well described by 1547 and 1559. A biil was introduced into Rhazes, and now but too well known in the West Indies by the same name,—elephant’s the House of Commons, " To erect an office foot, or the Barbadoes leg,-wliieli is an enor- « of registership, to be kept in every din. mous enlargement of the feet and ler, to " cese;"but, through the interposition of which parts the disease is cou6u ed ; it, in the Clergy, it did not eventually pass. In fact, ha, no auatogy with leprosy.
No. 826.