The common nature of epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilization, also remarks on contagion and quarantine : from writings and official reports / by Southwood Smith ; ed. by T. Baker.

  • Thomas Southwood Smith
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The common nature of epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilization, also remarks on contagion and quarantine : from writings and official reports / by Southwood Smith ; ed. by T. Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    99/144 (page 89)
    CHAEACTER OP THE this ill-fated sliip^ tliat tliey were permitted to quit it. Their removal took ]3lace on tlie Sth of October_, after wMcli event two more deaths occurred_, one of them being that of the pilot who took the vessel from the Mother- bank to Standgate Creek * As already stated_, official inquiries were dii'ected to be made into the causes of this extraordinary mortality^ from which it appears :— That there was nothing peculiar in the disease itself. The medical and other officers of the ship^ as well as the medical and other officers at Boa Yista^ that is_, all com- petent witnesses who actually saw the disease^ concur in stating that it was nothing more than an aggravated form of the common endemic fever of the African coast; a view which is decisively confirmed by the original description of the disease in the medical journal of the shipj and by post-mortem examination. In opposition to this generally-received opinion^ how- ever, Sir William Pym promulgated a statement that, in addition to the common African fever, the celebrated nova pest'is of Dr Chisholm had been introduced into the vessel by a passenger taken on board at Sierra Leone j this disease being, as he represents, a fever sid generis, known by the name of the African, Bulam, Yellow, or Black Yomit Fever, attacking the human frame but once, and differing from the common remittent fever in being highly contagious. * A striking contrast to this treatment of tlie crew of the Eclair is ex- hibited in the case of Her Majesty's frigate, the Arethusa, which recently (Feb. 14, 1852) arrived at Plymouth from Lisbon, having on board cases of small-pox. Instead of putting the ship in quarantine, and confining the healthy in the same poisonous atmosphere with the sick, wiser counsels on this occasion prevailed, and more humane measures were adopted. On the advice of Dr Eae, Inspector of the Royal Xaval Hospital, the sick, twelve in number, were immediately removed to that establishment, and of these two died, without any cummunication of the disease.