Letters on the Cholera Morbus.. Fergusson William

Dr. Hawkins leaves his readers to draw a very natural conclusion – that, as Dr. Davy admitted that there were no prevalent sensible states of the atmosphere to which the cholera could be attributed, he, therefore, believed it to have been propagated by contagion, an inference which we now see must be quite wide of the mark. Dr. Hawkins had, it appears, like many other medical gentlemen, access to the reports from Ceylon, &c., in the office of the chief of the army medical department in London, and it is to be regretted I think that, with respect to one of the Ceylon reports, he only tells us (p. 174) that "Mr. Staff-Surgeon Marshall reports from Candy, that of fifty cases which had occurred, forty died." Why more had not been quoted from a gentleman who had such ample means of witnessing the disease in its very worst form, I must leave to others to say; but, referring again to the highly interesting letter from Mr. Marshall on cholera, which appeared in the Glasgow Herald, of the 5th of August last, and in which, from many important observations which every body interested in cholera should read and study, the following remarks will be found: – "In no one instance did it seem to prevail among people residing in the same house or barracks, so as to excite a suspicion that the contact of the sick with the healthy contributed to its propagation." "The Indian Cholera, as it is sometimes called, appears not to be essentially different from cholera as it occurs in this and all other countries." "I consider it, therefore, impossible for a medical practitioner to speak decisively from having seen one, or even a few cases of cholera in this country, and to say whether they are precursors of 'the epidemic cholera' or not. That the disease is ever propagated by means of personal contact, or by the clothes of the sick, has not, as far as I know, been satisfactorily proved. The quality of contagion was never attributed to the disease in Ceylon, and I believe no-where did it occur in greater severity. I am aware that an attempt has been made to distinguish the ordinary cholera of this country from the 'epidemic cholera,' by means of the colour or quality of the discharges from the bowels. In the former it is said the discharge is chiefly bile, while in the latter it is said to bear no traces of bile, but to be colourless and watery. How far is this alleged diagnosis well founded? I am disposed to believe that, in all severe cases of cholera, whether it be the cholera of this country, or the epidemic cholera, the secretion of bile is either suppressed, or the fluid is retained in the gall-bladder." Mr. Marshall, it may be observed, is the gentleman who was selected by the late Secretary at War, in consequence of his known intelligence, to remodel the regulations relative to military pensioners; and I understand that, in consequence of the manner in which he executed that very important duty, he has since been promoted. After what appears from the above quotations, how perfectly unwarrantable must the assertion of Dr. Bisset Hawkins seem, that "from the Coromandel coast it seems to have been transported by sea to Ceylon!"

      We shall, I think, be able to see that the assumption of Drs. Macmichael and Hawkins, as to the importation of the disease into the Mauritius from Ceylon, is equally groundless with that of its alledged importation into the latter island; and here we have to notice the same want of candour on the part of those gentlemen, in not having furnished that public, which they professed to enlighten on the subject of cholera, with those proofs within their reach best calculated to display the truth; be it a part of my duty to supply the omissions of these gentlemen in this respect. The following is a copy of a letter accompanying the medical commission report at that island forwarded to General Darling, the then commanding officer, by the senior medical gentleman there.

      1

      As medical men in this Country employ the word infection and contagion in various senses, I shall, generally substitute transmissible or communicable, to avoid obscurity.

      2

      I presume that I shall not be misunderstood

1

As medical men in this Country employ the word infection and contagion in various senses, I shall, generally substitute transmissible or communicable, to avoid obscurity.

2

I presume that I shall not be misunderstood when I say, Would that the cholera were contagious– for then we might have every reasonable hope of staying the progress of the calamity by those cordon and quarantine regulations which are now not merely useless, but the bane of society, when applied to cholera or other non-contagious diseases.

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.

4

If the progress of the sweating sickness was similar to that of cholera, the advice of the King to Wolsey was sound; for instead of recommending him to rely on any-thing like cordon systems, or to shut himself up surrounded by his guards, he tells him (see Ellis's letters) to "fly to clene air incontinently," on the approach of the disease. I use the words approach of the disease occasionally, as it is a manner of expression in general use, but it is far from being strictly applicable when I speak of cholera; the cause of the disease it is which I admit travels or springs up at points, and not the disease itself in the persons of individuals, or its germs in inanimate substances.