Official reports made to government by Drs. Russell & Barry, on the disease called cholera spasmodica, as observed by them during their mission to Russia in 1831 : with an appendix, and other papers, extracts of letters, reports, and communications received from the continent, relating to that disease.

Sir William Russell, 1st Baronet, of Charlton Park

Date:: 1832

Credit: Official reports made to government by Drs. Russell & Barry, on the disease called cholera spasmodica, as observed by them during their mission to Russia in 1831 : with an appendix, and other papers, extracts of letters, reports, and communications received from the continent, relating to that disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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July. Admitting the contagiousness of the cholera, the occurrence will admit ot explanation, by adding that the doors of tlie house had been closed, and were again opened on the 1st September, and the interdicted thoroughfare, which shortened several roads, was again opened to every body. One of the two new patients was one of the porters at a gate that had previously been closed ; and the other a serjeanfs wife, living close to another of the doors; both were consequently most particularly exposed to persons passing through, who may have received the contagion. The disease, generally con- sidered, does certainly, at a later stage of it, attack a greater number; namely, when those previously seized come into communication with more persons who are predisposed, in the end fewer people sutler in proportion as the latter become less numerous. If I add to my experience that of so many others, and consider the history of the epidemic itself, I think I am not wrong in being fully con- vinced that the cholera is contagious. With regard to the contagious pro- perties of the cholera. First.—I consider them to be very volatile. Most of the persons attacked had been in close communication with cholera sick.; at the distance of several paces the contagiousness was demonstrable. Of the convalescents in A., none had touched No. 1 ; on the contrary, they had all kept at some distance, though in the same room. The female attendants only. Nos. 3 and 11, had rendered her the necessary assistance. Second.—I am of opinion the exhalations of the sick are the carriers of the disease, but only so long as they retain their vaporous form. I have given myself great trouble to ascertain if the clothes and linen covered with the perspiration of the sick were capable of transmitting the contagion; but I could not meet with any instance of it. Children taken from the cold, clammy breast of mother, or wet-nurse, and given over to another nurse to suckle, did not infect the latter. This occurred in my presence, in the case of No. 2, and with several nurses of sections B. C. and H. I do, however, believe, that where exhalations from sick persons are confined in a given space, as in clothes buttoned up, in hats, &c., and are immediately carried to persons in health, who are predisposed, they may prove contagious. As- suming this a priori, without being able to adduce a certain instance of it, which, indeed, I deem altogether impracticable, I think that most of those, to whom no contagion could be traced, contracted the illness in this manner'. Third.—On account of the properties thus attributed to it, it must be infinitely divisible. Much divided or rarefied, it very probably loses much of its efficacy; in proof, I refer to the case of the six oirt of one hundred and twenty work-people above-mentioned. All the windows of the cholera hospital were open night arrd day constantly, and opened to the place where they were at work, but the contagion was rrot propagated amongst the workmen, from its centre of emanation. Fourth.—From the above experience, I deem the shortest period that elapses between the infection and the first appearance of its effects, to be twice twenty-four hours. No duly authenticated document has, till now, proved what is the longest interval; it is, therefore, unknown. From all this, I think I may conclude, I. —That the disease is not conveyable far by things, and most espe- cially not during very hot, or very cold temperatures. II. —That in order to render effects or things brought from infected places or persons completely innoxious, it is only necessary to air them well, and particularly to convey through them streams of air. I have had the treatment of three hundred cholera sick, wholly, or in part, and yet 1 neither conveyed the contagion to my own residence, where eleven people

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