1889 – Robert William Felkin – “On the Geographical Distribution of some Tropical Diseases”

Note: this is the historical background on these maps, presented as just just half the images. Full maps are covered on a page devoted just to historically important disease maps. [LINK]

Note: a review of the complete maps from this book, in color, is at Robert William Felkin – 1889 – Tropical Disease

On the geographical distribution of some tropical diseases. Robert William Felkin, 1889 (54 pp).

This version was accessed at books.google.com

Note: Google has done the world a favor by producing Google Books. But unfortunately, the libraries scanning these books lack an understanding of the value of large (>1 page) figures such as maps, so some of the most important information in these books is lost. Such a lack of inclusion may be hardware (scanner) related, but is not the case for Archives.org books, telling me there are other reasons for these behaviors ($, time, laziness).

In this first section, Felkin introduces us to some of the most important disease mappers and provides us with a history of this field. This is a history as he is most familiar with it, and so unfortunately is focused mostly on British scholars with a little of Western European accomplishments included. Nevertheless, these first couple of pages of the book provide us with helpful background for this new medical field. The individuals noted by Felkin include:

Alexander Keith Johnston, 1856
Alfred Haviland, 1870s mostly
Dr. E. G. Barnes, British Islands, maps on diphtheria and scarlet fever, BMJ, July 28, 1888.
Dr. Isambard Owen, British Islands, Rickets, Rheumatism, Chorea, Cancer and Urinary Calculi discussed, with Rickets, Chorea and Cancer mapped, January 19, 1889.
1880 US Census maps and charts on disease. Published June 1, 1886.
Dr. August Hirsch. Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology. (an immense multivolume set, but with no maps; consequently these maps were later produced and published by the British Society in its Proceedings).

Also mentioned are Richard Quain’s Dictionary of Medicine and Elias Loomis’s Contributions to meteorology 1889 writings.

Map number 16 is the most important map to review. This map merged the information produced by Dr. W. S. Wilson in 1881 and Dr. Robert Lawson in 1888. This map merges the concepts of pandemic disease spread direction and guidance with prevailing winds patterns and latitudinal limits on the diffusion process.

Most important to note here is that it in 1889, well into the period when the germ/bacterial theory of disease finally became the dominant disease theory for the time. There were still some malingering thoughts and philosophies generated during the 1870s and very early 1880s about the importance of understanding meteorology, climate, topography, and various physical geographical features (water, forest and land use) in relation to populations and the heritage of the people most afflicted by regional disease patterns. The strong reliance upon the zymotic theory during this time is the first attempt to begin to differentiate microrganismal diseases. This theory categorized diseases with suspected small organism cause together, setting the stage for further differentiation into those that can be effectively immunized versus those that cannot be prevented in this fashion, and those of viral origin (and many still felt to be toxic) versus those generated by different organisms. The categories of zymotic disease also included the differentiation of larger microorganism diseases (formerly ‘animalcules’) like the parasitic animal born disease patterns as well as those diseases still due to some sort of miasmatic cause. (These are all derived from the classification first mentioned as early as the 1830s but later made very popular during the late 1850s by British medical geographer and epidemiologist William Farr.)

MALARIA

Map notes: Notice the latitude boundary defined for distributions in Australia and Africa. The endemic region is clearly defined by the north and south boundaries depicted in Africa. Some endemicity might exist on the Eurasian contienent as well in and around parts of Lower India, but the distribution further north into Europe is evidence for the definition of an epidemical disease region. For the most part, the epidemical region depicts disease behaviors within the coastal shipping port settings (dark erareas), with diffusion then continuing inland.

Notes: The Regionalization of Malaria Zones (with race and ethnicity inferences) is provided by the above section of this book.

DENGUE

Note: reasons for fuzziness of region over and around China? is it included, but not well documented? Notice also the distributions depicted along the northern coast of Africa on the Mediterranean and along the Nile River.

ASIATIC CHOLERA

Notes: The above map probably depicts the epidemics period as ca. 1817-1821 (dark red), ca. 1829-34 (red), and ca. 1848-53, and possibly later (dark grey). These also demonstrate nidal (place of origin) and endemic patterns, versus global migration, pandemic diffusion patterns. The diffusion of the diseaes across most of the continents in the grey area is very much an exaggeration. The white disease-free regions are based on mountain topography and don’t take human population distribution into account. William Farr’s elevation theory is mentioned on p. 23.

YELLOW FEVER

(The map that follows depicts Yellow Fever, Oriental Boil (leishmaniasis) and Endemic Hematuria (Bilharzia).

Notes: Primarily oriental sore and hematuria are mapped above. Yellow fever was restricted to the western hemisphere (see text below, p. 25). This section presents the philosophy on the origins and spread of Yellow Fever, mostly during its early stages–three origins are noted: a) West India, Greater Antilles, b) the Mexico border of the Gulf Coast, and c) the Guinea Coast, Sierra Leone, Africa. This disease was at times almost as pandemic in nature as Cholera. The darker areas are for Endemic Hematuria, aka Bilharzia or Schistosomiasis (see: a northern Black Sea port and west Nile delta and the Cape Colony ports in South Africa). The very light grey regions over China depict Oriental boil (notice as well its diffusion through India into the Middle East where it is called the Budapest boil).