Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/313

Rh Many, lest they should be told to avoid these, abstained from procuring foreign medicine. Nine-tenths of the deaths could have been prevented by care in diet. The worst cases of diarrhoea and dysentery brought to me yielded to treatment. Cases under one's own personal supervision, and where instructions were followed, recovered. With the common strumous diathesis it has excited no surprise to see so many adults as well as children suffering from enlarged suppurating glands in cervical and submaxillary regions, and in the groin, &c.; not a few had parotid abscess with suppuration. Numerous abortions and cases of premature labour occurred, but none died with ordinary treatment. Single and multiple abscesses are an every-day occurrence here, but these have multiplied nearly tenfold since the advent of measles. Before the rash had disappeared a large number of adults passed intestinal worms by the mouth.

"Now that two months have elapsed since the last case of fever and rash, a mild persistent form of remittent fever is prevailing. This with glandular and respiratory affections are the most common ailments at this season.

"In the mission dispensary I am daily seeing cases of sickness the starting-point of which was measles. The two epidemics of influenza at the end of 1891 and January 1893 increased the tendency of Samoans to chest affections. Measles will be found to have still further intensified their susceptibility to respiratory diseases; and the frequent deaths, as well as the many debilitated natives one daily meets with, give evidence that we have not yet reached the end of the measles epidemic—an epidemic which will long be remembered, as not one of the entire population seems to have escaped."—Dr. Davis, British Medical Journal, May 19, 1894.

Judging from the above, it is evident that whenever measles has proved especially fatal to the individuals of an Old World race, it was when they were placed under very abnormal conditions—when their vitality was reduced