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onwards, been other than it was—had drought and calm with heat prevailed—I have
no doubt whatever that the first recession would not have occurred when it did, and
that we should have experienced a mortality very much greater than we did
experience.
Diarrhoea during the epidemic season.
It was perfectly clear that during the whole period, from the beginning of August
until the end of November, bowel complaints, usually recorded under the term
"diarrhœa," were vastly more prevalent than they are accustomed to be in the same
months. The months of May, June, and July, showed nothing remarkable in this
way. In May, only 68 cases were recorded; the numbers in the six preceding Mays
varying from 42 to 67. In June, only 134 cases were recorded; the numbers in the
six previous years varying from 86 (1860) to 230 (1865). In July, only 379 cases
were recorded; the numbers in the six previous Julys varying from 84 (1860) to 399
(1864). But in August we had 1847 cases recorded, and an additional number of
persons obtained medicine for it whose names were not taken down; in the six
previous Augusts the number varied from 124 to 433. In September we recorded
1721 cases; the numbers in the six previous Septembers varying from 172 to 353.
In October we recorded 420 cases; the numbers in the six previous Octobers varying
from 72 to 164. In November we recorded 127 cases; the numbers in the six
previous Novembers varying from 40 to 88. Some of this increase might have been
little more than the result of alarm—perhaps some of it was—but the alarm was
nothing like what some people are apt to fancy. Except at the first outbreak in
Elder Walk, when the people certainly were, and had good reason to be alarmed, it
was absolutely nil; and even here it abated in a few days, as soon as it was seen that
provision was made for the immediate relief of those who were attacked. I watched
the effect of the outbreak upon the minds of the people most narrowly, and I am
positive that alarm had very little indeed to do with the augmentation in the amount
of recorded diarrhoea. The people, without exception, behaved most courageously
throughout these three months—none refused their kind offices to the sick through
fear of catching their complaint—the only difficulty I had was to keep them out of
the sick rooms. There was no cowardly fear—I vouch for it. More than this, there
was a general obedience to directions as to cleanliness and so on, which I scarcely
expected to meet with. All helped, in their measure, to do away with the attractive
causes of an outbreak, as soon as they were pointed out by myself or my assistants.
No,—the excess of prevailing diarrhoea, which no excessive heat or drought were
present to account for, was the veritable result of the epidemic influence dwelling
upon London during those months.
This, then, being the case, what relation do we find between the progress of
diarrhœal affections and that of choleraic attacks? Did they follow the same line of
increase and decline? No, they did not. There was but one wave of diarrhoea,
increasing from the end of July to the end of the third week in August, when, in the