Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/283

 Rh spasmodic cholera. Deducting these, we find the remaining cases to bear nearly the same proportion to the total diseases, as the cases of cholera did in the former periods; and it is obvious that we should exclude these cases of the new form of disease, in making an estimate of the general prevalence of English cholera in this district. On this principle, the proportional number of cases of cholera at Penzance, during the seventeen years, in place of being 1 in 118 cases of disease generally, as might be deduced from table A, ought to be only 1 in 210 cases, a proportion which is less than that recorded in Dr. Bateman's London tables (1 in 187), and considerably less than that in Dr. Woolcomb's, at Plymouth (1 in 107).

The disease does not appear to prevail more among miners than among other classes of the people; and the results of my observation and inquiries afford me nothing peculiar to state, either as to the character or treatment of the disease.

The visitation of the epidemic spasmodic cholera in this district, in 1832, presented, I believe, nothing peculiar in its features or history. It first made its appearance in the fishing village of Newlyn, in the parish of St. Paul, and subsequently visited Penzance, and the adjoining parish of Gulval. The following extract from the Penzance Dispensary Report, for the year ending April, 1833, drawn up by Dr. Montgomery, physician to the dispensary, contains a brief summary of the epidemic: "The cholera, at Penzance, as elsewhere, was preceded as well as accompanied by numerous cases of diarrhœa, and this diarrhœa, when neglected, was found to pass into cholera. With a few impressive exceptions,