Letters on the Cholera Morbus. Fergusson William
communicating the disease. There are even cases fully authenticated, that nurses, to quiet timid females labouring under cholera, have shared their beds during the nights, and that they, notwithstanding, have escaped uninjured in the same manner as physicians in hospitals have, without any bad consequences, made use of warm water used (a moment before) by cholera patients for bathing.
[3] The writer of this, who may be known by application at the printer's, when the present excitement is at an end, is not only prepared to show, on a fitting occasion, the correctness of the statements of Dr. Smith as well as those by Dr. O'Halloran just referred to—but also, that in the investigations, in 1828, connected with the question of yellow fever at Gibraltar, facts were perverted in the most scandalous manner, in order to prove the disease imported and contagious:—that individuals had been suborned:—that persons had been in the habit of putting leading questions to witnesses:—that those who gave false evidence have been, in a particular manner, remunerated:—that threats were held out:—and, in short, that occurrences of a nature to excite the indignation of mankind, took place on that occasion; and merited a punishment, not less severe, than a Naval Officer who should give, designedly, a false bearing and distance of rocks.
"These, and numerous other examples which, during the epidemic (we ought, perhaps, to call it endemic) became known to every inhabitant of Moscow, have confirmed the conviction of the non-infectious nature of the disease, a conviction in which their personal safety was so much concerned.
"It is also highly worthy of observation, that all those who stand up for contagion, have not witnessed the cholera, which is, therefore, especially objected to their opinion by their opponents." He closes by the observation, "The result of my own daily experience, therefore, perfectly agrees with the above-stated principle, namely, notwithstanding all my inquiries, I have met with no instance which could render it at all probable that the cholera is disseminated by inanimate objects." The words in italics are as in the Parliamentary papers on Cholera, pp. 8 and 9. Here is something to help to guide people in forming opinions, and to help governments on quarantine questions; but owing to a portion of the "perverseness" which Dr. Macmichael in anger talks about, Dr. Albers still Pt_1 [Pg 14] speculates upon cholera being contagious, and the College, it would seem, take up his speculations and sink his very important facts. Sir William Creighton's Report gives what puports to be an extract from a memorial of his on cholera, given in to the St. Petersburg Medical Council, tending to establish the contagious character of the disease; and with this a report by the extraordinary committee appointed by the Emperor to inquire into the Moscow epidemic. The disease had not appeared at St. Petersburg when he drew up his Memorial, and it does not appear from any-thing which can be seen in the extracts he furnishes, that he had personal knowledge of any part of what he relates. He gives the reported progress of the disease on the Volga and the Don, but is extremely deficient exactly where one might have expected that, from the greater efficiency of police authorities, &c., his information on contagion would have been more precise, viz., the introduction of the disease into Moscow, which could not, it would seem have been by material objects, for, according to the Committee, composed "of the most eminent public officers,"—"the opinion of those who do not admit the possibility of contagion by means of material objects, has for its support both the majority of voices, and the scrupulous observance of facts. The members of the Medical Council have been convinced by their own experience, as also by the reports of the physicians of the hospitals, that, after having been in frequent and even habitual communication with the sick, their own clothes have never communicated the disease to any one, even without employing means of purification. Convalescents have continued to wear clothes which they wore during the disease—even furs—without having them purified, and they have had no relapse. At the opening of bodies of persons who had died of cholera, to the minute inspection of which four or five hours a day for nearly a month were devoted, neither those who attended at their operations, nor any of the assisting physicians, nor any of the attendants, caught the infection, although, with the exception of the first day, scarcely any precautions were used. But what appears still more conclusive, a physician who had received several wounds in separating the flesh, continued his operations, having only touched the injured parts with caustic. A drunken invalid having also wounded himself, had an abscess, which doubtless showed the pernicious action of the dead flesh, but the cholera morbus did not attack him. In fine, foreign Savans, such as Moreau de Jonnés and Gravier, who have recognized, in various relations, the contagious nature of the cholera morbus, do not admit its propagation by means of goods and merchandise." (Parl. Papers on Chol. p. 13.) With the above documents the Council transmitted to the College a short description of the process of cleaning hemp in the Russian ports; and, lastly, the copy of a letter to the clerk of the Council from our ever-vigilant, though never-sufficiently-to-be-remunerated, head guardian of the quarantine department, who, taking the alarm, very properly recommends, as in duty bound, that a stir be forthwith made in all the pools, and creeks, and bays, &c., of the united kingdom, in order that all those notoriously "susceptible" old offenders, skins, hemp, flax, rags, &c., may be prevented from carrying into execution their felonious intention of covering the landing of a dire enemy. In truth, from the grave as well as from the sublime, there often seems to be "but a step;" and in reading Pt_1 [Pg 15] over this gentleman's suggestions about susceptibles and non-susceptibles, one may fancy himself, instead of being in the land of thinking people, to be in the land of Egypt, where, as we are informed (Madden, 1825), the sage matrons discuss the point, whether a cat be not a better vehicle for contagion than a dog:—a horse may be trusted, they say, but as to an ass, he is the most incorrigible of contagion smugglers;—of fresh bread we never need be afraid, but the susceptibility of butcher's meat is quite an established thing:—or we might fancy ourselves transported to regions of romance, where it is matter of profound deliberation, whether an egg shall be broken at the large or the small end. Such things are too bad for the nineteenth century; and in England, too, with her enlightened parliament! But until these questions are better examined, our guardian must bestir himself about articles susceptible of cholera contagion, while he enjoys his good quarantine pay, his good half pay from another department as I believe, and withall, if we are not misinformed, a smart pension from the Gibraltar revenue, for what granted nobody can tell.
The documents above referred to, would appear then to be the whole on which the College admit that they formed their opinions, and people may now judge whether the verdict be according to the evidence, or whether it be not something in the lucus a non lucendo mode of drawing conclusions:—most persons will probably think that, on such evidence, there might at least have been a qualified opinion. It appears, however, that having come to a decision on the 9th of June, that the disease was communicable from person to person, they in three days after, approved of persons being sent to Russia to find out whether they had decided rightly or not. Are we now to expect that, should the occasion need, they will heroically make war against their own declared opinion? For my part I expect from them all that should be expected from men; and the liberal part of the world will not fail to see from this, that I do not despair of even Dr. Macmichael, being still open to conviction. Let it not be for a moment understood that, in any-thing which has been said, or which may remain to be said respecting this gentleman, or in any-thing which may be hereafter said respecting Dr. Bisset Hawkins's work, I mean to insinuate that contagion in cholera is not with them a matter of conscience; but I certainly do mean to say that their zeal has manifestly warped their judgment; and not only this, but that it has prevented them from laying statements before the public on the cholera questions with all the impartiality we might have expected from gentlemen of their character in the profession.
In Dr. Macmichael's pamphlet, consisting of thirty-two pages, and professing to be a consideration of the question, "Is cholera contagious?" we scarcely find the disease mentioned till we come to page 25; the pages up to this being occupied chiefly by a recapitulation of opinions formerly given "on the progress of opinion upon the subject of contagion;"—on the opinions of old writers as to the contagion of plague, small-pox, measles, &c.:—he would infer that whereas small-pox and certain other diseases have, by more accurate observations made in comparatively modern times, been taken from the place they once held, and Pt_1
[Pg 16] ranged among diseases decidedly contagious, so ought cholera