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Statistical Studies in Immunity: The Theory of an Epidemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

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Extract

The rise and decline of epidemics of infectious diseases have been subjects of interest since the earliest times, but the scientific determination of the laws which govern their course offers even yet a wide and almost unworked field. Not but what a large amount of observation has been made on many of the conditions under which epidemics appear and pass away. Many epidemics are seasonal, and these have been studied; but the lack of any means of determining the course which a given epidemic might have taken in the presence of somewhat different conditions has made the deduction of certain conclusions impossible. Even the laws which regulate solitary outbursts of disease, the special subject of this paper, have been little studied. Explanations offered have varied with the period in history.

Type
Proceedings
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1906

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References

page 486 note * See Note at end of paper.

page 486 note † Rayer, , Histoire de l'épidémie de Suette Miliara en 1821, Paris, 1822.Google Scholar

page 487 note * Quoted also in Creighton's History of Epidemics in Britain, vol. ii.

page 487 note † Loc. cit., vol. i. p. 305.

page 487 note ‡ Reports of Registrar-General for England.

page 487 note § History of Cholera in Exeter in 1832, Shapter, p. 208.

page 488 note * Report of Board of Health upon Epidemic Cholera, 1848–49, plate, p. 26.

page 489 note * Creighton's History of Epidemics, vol. ii. p. 485

page 490 note * Compare Diagram XVII

page 491 note * Report on Epidemic of Smallpox in Wamngton in 1892–3, p. 7.

page 491 note † Watt's, Treatise, on the Chincough, Glasg., 1813, p. 344.Google Scholar

page 491 note ‡ Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination,—Appendix on Gloucester.

page 491 note § Reports of Metropolitan Asylum Boards, 1901–2.

page 495 note * From the Notebook of the Medical Officer of Health.

page 495 note † Supplement to the Report of Medical Officer of Local Government Board for 1887 on Diarrhoea and Diphtheria, p. 68.

page 496 note * Report to Registrar-General for England, 1903.

page 498 note * Harty, , Yellow Fever in Guiana, London, 1820.Google Scholar

page 501 note * This form is sometimes seen when a case of measles develops in a ward in which a number of susceptible children are confined. Although the sufferer be moved at once, yet the infection is present so early in the disease that usually several others succumb. In one actual case, when there were fourteen susceptible children in a ward, the epidemic developed in the following way. First one case; at the end of incubation period three cases; then a fortnight later seven; leaving only three to develop the disease, and these all succumbed in the next fortnight, so that the epidemic came to an end from the cause discussed and took the form of diagram XV. This, however, is under artificial conditions, and bears no resemblance to a natural outburst.

page 502 note * See Note at end of paper.

page 503 note * Report of Medical Officer of Local Government Board, England, 1881, p. 60.

page 503 note † Nothnagel's Encyclopaedia of Medicine, art. “Scarlet Fever.”

page 503 note ‡ Report of Medical Officer of Local Government Board, 1901–2.

page 504 note * Report of Medical Officer of Local Government Board on Maidstone Epidemic.

page 504 note † Ibid., 1886.

page 504 note ‡ Special local Report on the Epidemic, by Dr J. B. Russell.

page 508 note * Reports of the Registrar-General for England.

page 508 note † Reports of the Medical Officer of Health for County of London.

page 515 note * Table A, No. 16.