Second report on quarantine : yellow fever, with appendices / General Board of Health.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second report on quarantine : yellow fever, with appendices / General Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    27/426
    Many families in Gibraltar,” says Dr. Smith, “ secluded themselves without escaping the disease, and I myself witnessed numerous instances of this.” “ Shutting up houses,” says Mr. Amiel, “ burning furniture, and prohibiting intercourse with the sick, have had no effect in checking the progress of the disease.” When the alleged cases of security afforded by seclusion come to be examined, it is generally found that they are without any real foundation. Of this the following may be cited as examples. In speaking of the Yellow Fever epidemic which prevailed tit Gibraltar in the year 1813, Sir William Pym states:— “ Of 500 persons confined to the dock-yard during all the time of the sickness, there was not an instance of one of them being attacked.” Again, he says :— “ The labourers belonging to the naval works have been kept in strict quarantine in tne dock-yard, very near the spot where the disease showed itself in 1810, and if there is a situation in Gibraltar favourable to the generation of marsh miasmata it is there ; and in 180-1, it shaved the fate of the other parts of the garrison ; yet those people this year have continued healthy, as well as another party of inhabitants, who established themselves in Camp Bay, and cut off all communication with the infected.” Dr.Gillkrest quotes from Dr. O’Hallorau the following comment on this passage :— “ The perusal of the foregoing quotations in the work of Dr. Pym struck me forcibly on my arrival at Gibraltar in the pre- sent year. 1 thought the immunity of the dock-yard from fever in the year 1813 a singular circumstance, and one which strongly operated against the doctrine which I am inclined to embrace. 1 had not doubted the assertions of Dr. Pym and Mr. [W. W.] Fraser ; for, from their rank in the service, the one being at the head of the Health Office in London, anti the other at the head of the Medical Department in Gibraltar, it w-as reasonable to expect information of authenticity, for their opportunities of attaining it exceeded that of others, it hap- pened, however, by accident, that a medical gentleman, who saw the epidemic of 1813, observed, in the course of conversation, that fever prevailed to some extent in the dock yard that year ; and that, by an application to Mr. Buck, who was secluded with the others, and who is now the superintending officer in charge ot the establishment, particular and authentic informa- tion might be obtained on the subject.