Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly.

Jamaica. Central Board of Health

Date:: 1852

Credit: Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

320/594 (page 10)

$A^^'dm was the like attempt nuide in 1817-8, and a<];ain it was fouiKl ami declared to Ije utterly iuedec- tuaK 1*/. Ill Great Britain, the question of the importa- tion of cholera as an epidemic, and of the practicabi- lity of preventinii;- its iraroduction and spreiid by pro- hibitory regnlatious, have been more attentively exa- mined than iri perhaps any other coctntry ; and the result of all the en(piiiies has been a very j;eneral concurrence of opinion as to their entire inefficiency. The General Board of Health of En,<i;land expressed their deliberate opinion on the subject in their report on <|uarantine, and in their hr^t and second notifica- tions issued in the autumn (yf 1848; and the Royal Colleji^e of Physicians of London, eiubracing ahnost all the distin2:uislied physicians in Ei]i2,land, recorded about the same ti'me, their sentiment.s in the following wa>rds Cholera ap[»ears to have been very rarely commanicate(i by personal intercourse, anti all at- tem[)ts to stay its progre!«s by cordons or cpjanintijie liave failed. From these circumstances, the commit- tee, w ithout expressinjj^ any positive opinion witti re- spect to its. contajj;ious or non-con tap; ions nature^ ai^ree in drawinij; this practical conclusion, that in ;i ({istrtct where cholera prevails no ajipreciable in- crease of dfin^er is incurred by miiusterin;^^ to |)erson* aHected with it, and no safety afibrded to the coni- miinity by tiui isolation of the sick. To the sonnrlness of this conclusion, tlie (Jentra!. Board of Health vvoukl express their entire asisent. V. it is to be observed ttiat the circumstance of healthy persons tVoui an uninfected district havinj^ cau;L^:ht the disease by i^oinj; into an infected locality, does not at ail invalidate or aHect the opinion no\r ex[>revssed ; sucIj person.^ became exposed to and in- haled the atmospheric poison in the place wliere it existed^ and were equally obfioxious to its deleteri- ous ajjjency with the rct<ideuts in the infected hKrahty ftscir. If such persons on returninij;- to their uninfect* «;d di.vU'ict wjif only atlackcd th'jinsclvcs witli$