Observations on the oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress, addressed to the British Association of Science ... 1838 / [Sir John Bowring].

  • John Bowring
Date:
1838
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress, addressed to the British Association of Science ... 1838 / [Sir John Bowring]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    professed his belief in the contagious character of the plague. Many individuals condemned to death were deli¬ vered over to be experimented upon, and received by him into the plague hospital. Five he inoculated, most of them several times;—they were inoculated both with the blood and the pus of plague patients—of the five, only one showed any symptoms of the disease. His own deduction is, that these experiments prove nothing, either for or against con¬ tagion ; because, he says, they were made in a hospital where there were from 500 to 600 plague patients—in an apartment where, from fifty to sixty were confined,—on subjects who had been attending the plague patients for a week. The natural inquiry would be—has the plague ever been communicated as the small-pox is communicated, by the virus alone—in places remote from spots where the plague is wont to rage ? Can any such case be quoted 1 In my intercourse with physicians in the East, I have found several examples of attempts vainly made to commu¬ nicate the plague by inoculation to themselves. Clot Bey has twice inoculated himself, both from the matter of the bubo and from the blood of plague subjects. Dr. Hepitis made several efforts to give himself the plague by repeated in¬ oculations, but in vain. The case of Dr. Rosenfeld has been frequently cited as evidence of the contagiousness of plague. He exposed himself to its action in every conceivable way— sought its worst exhibitions—dwelt habitually among the diseased—accustomed himself even to tear open the buboes of plague patients, and to smear his body with their pus and their blood. He seems to have been of negligent,—not to say filthy habits,—and had for years, both in Africa, Asia, and Europe, treated the plague w?ith scorn and mockery, professing to have discovered a preservative, with which he secured himself and his followers. It might be a question for curiosity, whether the history of such a man affords most evidence for or against the doctrines of the conta- gionists; but I cannot refrain from quoting a singular passage in his biography, which Dr. Pezzoni has written, to prove the
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