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Analysis Of A Correspondence On Some Of The Causes Or Antecedents Of Consumption

From: Fourth Annual Report Of The State Board Of Health Of Massachusetts
Creator: Henry I. Bowditch (author)
Date: January 1873
Publisher: Wright & Potter, Boston
Source: State Library of Massachusetts

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Page 3:

40  

The following is the mortuary record:

41  

Eldest daughter -- L-- died Feb. 2, 1837. Age, 22
Mother, " Dec. 16, 1838. " 43
Second daughter -- L-- " July 12, 1839. "22
Father, " Mar. 22, 1839. " 53
Third daughter -- N -- " Apr. 30, 1840. " 23
Fourth daughter -- E-- " Oct. 4, 1840. " 20
Eldest son -- J-- " May 4, 1839. " 25
Youngest son -- E-- " Sep. 22, 1839. " 2 1/2
Youngest daughter -- H-- " Sep. 22, 1855. " 20

42  

One son has died since, at a distance -- I don't know the particulars. One son is still living, aged about forty. The son J is reported to have died of diabetes; all the rest, of consumption. N died at Hanover, N. H. H-- lived all but two or three of her earlier days in S. H, and died there. I am told that the Rev. Doctor stated that his father's family were consumptive.

43  

Mrs. L-- D-- had two sisters die of consumption, and two of cancer. Three of her own children have died of consumption. One brother of her husband has lost three children by the same disease. Another brother has lost two children by the same.

44  

C-- W--, an intemperate man, died of consumption. One or more sisters died of the same. He has lost at least four children in the same manner, one of whom had lived in Texas, one in Hadley, one in Northampton, and one in Chicago; the circumstances all being different as to occupation and mode of life. I am satisfied that the disease is decreasing. The town is much more dry, the food is of a better quality, and the people understand more fully the sanitary conditions essential to health.

45  

I cannot but call attention to the excellent suggestions contained in the following remarks on the different influences affecting: the Irish, in Ireland and in America.

46  

Gavin. -- Hereditary influence in causing phthisis is very far from being as common as medical writers would lead us to think. The majority of those who have come under my care were free from such cause. To those who are acquainted with the habits of the Irish, in their own country, as well as in America, there is much that deserves thought, and also throws light on one cause for phthisis, and points to the great importance of climatology. In Ireland, the peasantry live on diet principally made up of saccharine and fatty substances -- potatoes and milk -- while in this country, meat and bread form their principal diet. Again, in Ireland, the peasantry live in ill-built houses, but if they do, the doors are seldom closed, thereby insuring a good supply of pure air. Quite the contrary here -- overcrowded tenement-houses, with small rooms opening into dark passage-ways, doubtful neighbors, and other things combined, oblige them to live with closed doors, so that ventilation is next to impossible. I am very much inclined to think that further investigation will show that the two agents above mentioned -- radical change in diet and want of pure air -- play a great share in producing phthisis amongst the Irish class of the community. In this respect I agree, to a certain extent, with Dr. W. McCormac, of Belfast, Ireland, who considers carbonized air the great factor in causing consumption.

47  

The apparent good influence of alcoholic Stimulants may be noticed in the following instance: --

48  

Morse. -- J B , a man of wealth and healthy family; residence could be called an eminently healthy one. He married Miss S . The S.'s all had consumption. He had three sons and five daughters. All the sons and three daughters died of consumption. The eldest son (J. B., Jr.,) married S B , whose mother died of consumption. S B died of consumption, and all her children, viz.: three daughters and one son. J. B., Jr., marries again, and before he died, begat a son, who, for many years was considered consumptive -- had diseases of bones of face, fingers and hand, called scrofulous, which undoubtedly were tubercular, but by the use of concentrated nourishing food, pure air, and sunlight, he is now living, and apparently well. All medicines were dropped, and milk and brandy were substituted, when he began to gain, and his sores healed.

49  

Hills. -- Consumption seems to be caused, in some cases, by hereditary influences: by which I mean that consumption occurs in the children of parents that have died of consumption, or where the uncles or aunts have died of that disease. There are other cases where a parent has died of consumption, in which we find the children troubled with a scrofulous condition; such as enlarged glands, a puffy appearance of face, and sometimes of other parts of the body which does not seem to be firm flesh, or adipose tissue. My expedience is too limited to be able to tell the result of such cases.

50  

The following is analogous to statements already made above, in regard to the Irish in America: --

51  

Huse. -- As regards the development of phthisis, not from any hereditary taint, but apparently wholly from local causes I will cite the following: -- A family of eight, the parents stout, athletic Irish people, with six children. At the date of my first acquaintance with them, March, 1866, they were all well, with but one exception. This was supposed to have been a cold, the result of suppressed menses from wet feet a month before. It was found to be a tubercular trouble, and proceeded to softening, and excavation in eleven weeks from the time of my first visit, when death ensued from phthisis. About the same time, a brother aged twenty-eight to thirty, consulted me, relative to cough: I found roughened respiration at the left top -- no particular emaciation. I ordered cod-liver oil and whiskey, and advised him to leave town as soon as possible. One year later (1867) I examined the lungs of another daughter of the same family, and found tubercle and condensation of the top of the left lung so marked that there was no doubt in my mind as to the diagnosis and probable result. The brother went to Worcester; returned in 1869; came under my care and died in April, of dropsy, the result of chronic peritonitis with diarrhea. The only child now at home is to all appearance, healthy, but still has a marked resemblance to her deceased sister. Two remaining sons are in different parts of the country, location and health unknown. The parents are healthy Irish, living plainly, but substantially, on a farm.

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