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cause may possibly be, in numerous instances, certain local domestic conditions, errors of diet, or particular kinds of food, or food prepared in a particular manner; certain forms or kinds of clothing, etc.

Smallpox in its unmodified form, as well as in the form of varioloid of a more or less intense grade, was, a few years since, of constant occurrence throughout the State, and produced annually in the aggregate a considerable amount of mortality. Of late years, however, we hear much less of smallpox, even in those portions of the State where the constant demand for laborers in mining, in large iron works, and in other extensive manufactories, attract thither a large number of foreigners, by whom the variolous infection is liable to be introduced. From some districts the disease would seem to have become entirely eradicated, while in others, it is only after long intervals that a case or two of it has occurred, while no spread of the disease has resulted. This favorable state of things has been brought about mainly, if not entirely, by the greater care that has within a few years past been paid to vaccination; its extension throughout each community; the use of a fresh and more efficient virus, and the resort to revaccination at proper intervals, and especially upon the occurrence in a neighborhood of a case of smallpox, in order to test the amount of immunity from variolous infection, enjoyed by those reputed to be protected by a preceding operation.

For some time past there has prevailed, and, so far as we can learn, to a very great extent, throughout every portion of the State, a peculiar, and, in many cases, a most troublesome and inveterate cutaneous affection. The true character of this somewhat anomalous skin disease has greatly puzzled the physicians who have encountered it. From its being, as was supposed, traceable in many instances to the soldiers of the army or to their clothing, it has been popularly termed the army or soldier's itch. Its origin, however, in numerous instances has been shown to be altogether independent of the army or anything connected with it. It is very certain, we think, that the disease is not strictly a form of scabies. From the difference in the description given of it by different writers, it is very probable that the term "army itch" has been applied to very distinct affections, the only resemblance between them being the occurrence of a fine vesicular eruption upon different parts of the skin, attended with a constant intolerable itching. The serous discharge from the ruptured vesicles dries upon the surface of the skin in the form of scales, differing in thickness at different parts

Upon the removal of these scales, the skin beneath presents a red, moist surface. Some of the cases present nearly all the.characteristics of prurigo, while in others the predominant symptoms are those of eczema; while again in many of the cases the disease of the skin is scarcely to be distinguished from scabies. In many instances the symptoms of all three affections appear to be combined in the same case.

We have seen too little of the malady referred to to permit us to form any just views as to its etiology. From some facts that have fallen under our immediate notice we have been led to the belief that the disease is communicable from the sick to the well by direct contact or by means of infected clothing; others, however, who have had better opportunities for studying the disease, positively deny its contagiousness.

The foregoing sketch of the prevalent diseases of the State of Pennsylvania is correct so far as it goes. Its value and interest would have been enhanced had it been in the power of your Committee to present accurate statistics showing the extent to which each of the diseases referred to has prevailed within a given series of years, in the different portions of the State; the ages, sex, domestic condition, and occupations of the persons most liable to be attacked; the absolute percentage of mortality of each disease, with its ratio of mortality at the different periods of life, in the two sexes, and according to the different conditions and occupations of the patients. To obtain such statistics in a series sufficiently extensive to serve as a basis for safe conclusions, is, in Pennsylvania, at the present day impossible; nor will they ever be obtained until in every county of the State the registration of all deaths, with the particulars connected with each, shall be required by a judicious law strictly enforced.

ON

THE CONVEYANCE OF CHOLERA FROM HINDOSTAN THROUGH ASIA TO EUROPE AND AMERICA.

BY

JOHN C. PETERS, M. D.,

OF NEW YORK.

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