Quarantine and the plague : being a summary of the report on these subjects recently addressed to the Royal Academy of Medicine in France, with introductory observations, extracts from Parliamentary correspondence, and notes / by Gavin Milroy.

  • Milroy, Gavin, 1805-1886.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quarantine and the plague : being a summary of the report on these subjects recently addressed to the Royal Academy of Medicine in France, with introductory observations, extracts from Parliamentary correspondence, and notes / by Gavin Milroy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    empty for a month at least; and health-guards to be stationed near to, but not to be put on board of, the infected vessel. With respect to the cargo, since it has not been proved by any authentic fact that articles of merchandize have the property of retaining pestilen- tial miasms, and of transmitting the plague, the Commissioners confine themselves to merely recommending the employment of such means as are most simple and least oppressive or vexatious to commerce. After exposing the barbarous absurdity of the plan followed at the Mar- seilles lazaretto, even up to the present day, in the treatment of any one affected with, or supposed to be affected with, plague, it is suggested not only that plague-patients should be treated and waited upon like any other patients, without using the cruel and ridiculous precautions that are still in force, but also that post-mortem examinations should be made in all fatal cases. Should the plague break out in any house, town, or district, the rules to be followed are simple and obvious. The sick should be immediately removed from the dwelling, where the disease has appeared, to a healthy well-aired spot that has been fixed upon ; while all the other inmates also should be compelled to leave it, in order that it may be duly cleansed, pu- rified, and ventilated. On no pretext, should the infected be confined and inclosed along with the healthy by sanitary cordons, or other compulsory measures, in the very place where the pestilence exists; this were only aggravating the mischief and rendering it more concentrated. The great object should be to attenuate the virulence of the atmospheric poison by separating the sick from the healthy, and by keeping both in airy, elevated, situations. If necessary, tents and simple barracks should be established, and the healthy be compelled to dwell in them, at a distance from the focus of infection. The Report, of which we have now given so extended an analysis, was elaborately discussed at eight or nine sittings of the Academy of Medicine, in the months of May, June, July and August. Notwithstanding the la- bour expended, we do not think that either much new matter was added to the details which the Report itself contains, or that any of its more impor- tant positions were successfully impugned. The majority of the speakers, as well as of the members of the Commission, declared their cordial con- currence with the results of M. Prus’ researches, while the minority were divided into two sections that maintained very opposite opinions; the one advocating nearly all the extravagant notions held by the ultra-contagion- ist party, and the other loudly proclaiming the non-communicability of the plague under almost any circumstances, and calling for the entire abrogation of all quarantines. The reader will be able to judge for himself of the va- lue of the opinions of both of these parties. By far the most valid objection to the Report is, that the practical re- commendations, proposed in its concluding portion, are not altogether con- sistent with the doctrines professed before; the quarantines recommended are unnecessarily stringent and severe, if the conclusions in the body of the Report be correct. On the whole, however, the labours of the French Commissioners are deserving of the very highest praise, ; and we should be doing injustice to our own feelings if we did not again express our grateful admiration of