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O'HALLORAN, Thomas.
Remarks on the Yellow Fever of the South and East Coasts of Spain; Comprehending Observations Made on the Spot, By Actual Survey of Localities, and Rigorous Examination of Fact at Original Sources of Information.

Description:
pp. xv, (i), 208. Folding engraved map - "Plan of Barcelona ... in the year 1818". Original paper boards with printed paper spine label, uncut, a few old ink marks on the front free end-paper, a very good copy.

*Very scarce - COPAC records copies at the British Library, Oxford and Cambridge and the Wellcome Library. The first recorded account of yellow fever is that of Alexo de Abreu, Lisbon, 1623 [GM 5449.5], with the definitive study of Walter Reed a.o. in 1900 [GM 5457], showing that the mosquito Aëdes aegypti, is the vector. At least two workers on the etiology of the disease themselves succumbed to it through accidental transmission. Prior to the publication of O'Halloran's book, GM only records the accounts of the epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 and Du Tertre's account of the outbreak in Guadaloupe in 1635, 1640 and 1648. O'Halloran quotes extensively from Spanish sources and discusses the prevailing arguments for and against contagion but without being able to come to a definite conclusion. He does describe the topography in some detail including the presence of swamp and pools of stagnant water but nowhere discusses the mosquitos. It was not until 1854 that Louis Beauperthuy proposed that mosquitos were a possible vector for yellow fever followed by Carlos Juan Finlay in his paper of 1881-1882 which suggested that mosquitos carried the infection from man to man. See WATERSON & WILKINSON History of Virology - 'Among the many important results following each other in rapid succession in the early years of the century was the heroic work on yellow fever. For more than two centuries the disease had remained a mysterious scourge in the subtropical areas of the Americas since it first travelled there on slave ships from Africa to Barbados in 1647.'

Callow and Wilson. London.

Date Published: 1823.

Stock No. 61573

Price: £450.00

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