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.

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    were taken ill in any of the hospitals, and not before the civilians in the neighbourhood had become affected. “ 3rd. That the attacks among the washerwomen could in no case be reasonably traced to contagion ; the greater proportion was not at all attacked, and those who were, were not attacked until the neighbour- hood where they resided had become unhealthy. “ 4th. That out of 516 individuals of families in the closest contact, 312* were not attacked ; this being a much larger proportion than in contagious diseases, in which some state the non-attacks to be 1 in 26; others, 1 in 34. “ 5th. That patients with other diseases, and medical officers, were not attacked until the disease had extended to the neighbourhood, until an advanced period of the epidemic, and Mr. Frazer, 73rd Regiment, who was a considerable time in the lazaretto, was not attacked till he came into the garrison, where there was much less chance of contagion. I saw three patients in the lazaretto, and Mr. Frazer in attendance upon them. “ 6th. That the military contracted the disease, though in as great isolation as it was possible they could be, having for upwards of three months, no contact with sick, or with any one who, by the remotest possibility, could have transmitted the disease to them. “ 7th. That upwards of 4000 persons removed to the neutral ground with their bedding and furniture, and the disease must have spread, had it been contagious. “ 8th. That a woman of the name of Ackerman was taken ill in a shed, and no less than 18 susceptible persons were in contact with her, without contracting the disease. “ 9th. That Mrs. Farquhar, who had had the disease on a former occasion, cut off all communication with persons beyond her gate, on account of her niece, who had lately arrived from England. There was a space of several yards between the gate and house, so that a close approach was prevented. Notwithstanding, this young lady was attacked in the severest form and died. “ 10th. That the vessels in the bay, amounting to 300, were per- fectly exempt, though there was constant communication with the shore, and one medical gentleman, Mr. Mathias, was in the constant practice of visiting his family on board ship, though in daily attend- ance upon patients. lie died of the disease.” Is the Yellow or Bulam Fever capable of being imported ? I am of opinion that the Yellow Fever cannot be imported so as to extend itself to a previously healthy and unpredisposed population; that the instances of the supposed propagation of the disease in this way cannot, in any case I have met with, bear, in my opinion, the test of that rigid examination necessary to deter- mine a question of such importance to the interests of humanity and science ; and that the coincidences of the arrival of dis- eased ships, and the eruption of the disease, w'hichwill happen as long as Yellow Fever exists, and ships sail, cannot be considered as cause and effect, but a fortuitous concurrence of events, until it shall have been first established that the disease is of a con- * Qy. 372. See Appendix I., p. 171. [G B. II.]