Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/301

 Rh in the former part of this paper, exists in abundance in the district of the Landsend; and if dyspepsia or disordered digestion, however produced, gave rise to it, as others imagine, we shall find hereafter how plentiful a source of this kind is found among the poorer population: its supposed connexion with scrofula, also, seems disproved by the frequency of this latter affection in the district. If pure air and water free from saline or earthy impregnation, tend to give an immunity from calculus depositions in the bladder, it must be allowed that this district possesses these advantages in great perfection.

Scorbutus.—I never saw a case of this disease, and it was equally unknown to the oldest practitioners: a very few cases of purpura were met with.

Diseases of the Brain and Nervous System.—I notice under one head the several diseases thus classified together in table A I. because I have little to offer respecting them in general, and still less individually. Epilepsy and hydrocephalus I have already noticed. It will be seen, on referring to the tables, and comparing them with the reports of Drs. Bateman and Woolcombe, that the proportion of cases of apoplexy and palsy, on the Dispensary books, came very near to that observed at London and Plymouth. I certainly was disposed to regard palsy as very frequent, and the obituary of St. Paul, which gives the proportion of deaths from the two diseases as 1 in 40, would seem to establish the great prevalence of both palsy and apoplexy. Chorea appeared to me unusually rare,