On the effects of volcanic action in the production of epidemic diseases in the animal and in the vegetable creation, and in the production of hurricanes and abnormal atmospheric vicissitudes / by H.J. Johnston-Lavis.

Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the effects of volcanic action in the production of epidemic diseases in the animal and in the vegetable creation, and in the production of hurricanes and abnormal atmospheric vicissitudes / by H.J. Johnston-Lavis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of liquid mud, so overwhelming that 50,000 people were destroyed by it. Humboldt says that, not only does the mud issue from the crater and flanks of the mountain, but also from crevasses in the neighbouring plains. This I attribute to the settling of the particles in the water-logged earth as the result of the concomitant earth- quakes and tremors. A catastrophe of this kind occurred in Java in 1822. Humboldt also gives many examples from South America. The lacustrine origin of some of these muds is proved by the enormous number of fish met with in the mud from Cotopaxi, Sangay and Tunguragua. These fish (Pune- lodes cyclopium) live in the lake streams and water-filled crevasses of these volcanoes. Towards the end of the 18th century the Imbabura in Ecuador (4582 m.), after a state of inactivity for a century, burst forth, covering the surrounding country with mud and fish. Thereupon immediately followed a “ Pernicious Fever,” which decimated the population and was attributed to the miasma arising from the putrefying fish mixed with the mud.