Cholera gleanings, a family hand book, enabling readers of all classes to judge for themselves of the great error into which governments were unfortunately led by men looked upon as infallible guides, who very strenuously maintained the cholera to be a disease during which "The living shall fly from the sick they should cherish." / By J. Gillkrest.

Gillkrest, J. (James), -1853

Date:: 1848

Credit: Cholera gleanings, a family hand book, enabling readers of all classes to judge for themselves of the great error into which governments were unfortunately led by men looked upon as infallible guides, who very strenuously maintained the cholera to be a disease during which "The living shall fly from the sick they should cherish." / By J. Gillkrest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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$might not be admitted into the Public Mospitals, in the same manner as cases of any otlier disease [!!] Tlie Central Board of Health, therefore, under the full conviction that the cleanliness, and general good arrange- ments established in the Public Hospitals of the Metropolis, are found sufficient to prevent the spread of typhus fever,— recommend the adoption of the above suggestion, with ref- erence to sporadic cases of cholera: a measure in favour of which humanity would plead irresistibly in the event of any cases of that disease occurring and being carried to the door of the Hospital, as the only place of refuge, after the break- ing up of the local Boards of Health and their parish hos- pitals.—O, si sic o7nma !—Wo\i\d that it had been always so !—What a world of misery it might have prevented in fair England!—How much greater would have been ,the patients' chance of recovery than by removal, as was often the case, and to a distance, too, even at night or in bad weather (as we saw by the accounts of the time in the public papers)—not to speak of the great saving of expence to Government and to parishes ! In the foregoing document we have a striking instance of Truth bursting forth under extra(»rdinary pressure ;—bursting forth in spite of the most unusual and often most unjustifiable efforts to keep it down ; —in spite of a Cholera Gazette (KSPKCfALi.v dkvotkd to sup- port the DocTRiNK OF CONTAGION, as Dr. Scoatie has stated in his work : for further information on this point see p. 32 of these sheets) whether published altogether at the public ex- pence, or not, I cannot say ; and though in a Medical Ga- zette, the Editor had invoked on the unhappy heads of some of us unbelievers in the mischievous doctrine of Chiefs of Quarantine, the fate (the flame and the ashes) of Pompeii ! A strange circumstance, connected with the above memor- able Document, is its having been known to so few up to this hour.—Indeed, I am not aware of its ever having been pub- lished for general information. Tiie copy, shewn me im- mediately on its being issued, was one of those intended$

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