Report from the select committee appointed to consider the validity of the doctrine of contagion in the plague.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee on Contagion in Plague.
- Date:
- 1819
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report from the select committee appointed to consider the validity of the doctrine of contagion in the plague. 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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![the open air adds much to that security. The plague now is in Barbary, at Tan- x);. giers; I conceive that if goods were packed up there and sent to England, there William Pym. would be great risk unless they were opened in the open air. ^.^g ]siarch.) Then according to your opinion, if the same care was observed in the case of \ ^ — landing goods, and purifying them by exposure to the air; if ships were admitted to immediate pratique, as is observed in landing persons and goods, and purifying them at quarantine estabhshments, ships conveying persons and goods to England might be with safety admitted, with the same bills of health as those with which they are at present admitted at our quarantine establishments ?—I should consider that to be actually quarantine. Then how do you account for this, that those whose duty it is to perform these expurgations of goods imported, should not ever, if the contagious matter of the plague has been about these goods, have caught it in the quarantine establish- ment ?—It is difficult to answer that; but I think the danger might be increased if the goods, cotton for instance, were distributed among weavers in their small and ili- ventilated apartments, without having undergone the purification which they do in the open air in the lazaretto. Do you know what the course of practice, with a view to the expurgation of goods from infection or plague, is in our quarantine establishments ?—Yes, I do. Then you can inform the Committee, on your own knowledge, w hat the usual practice of the expurgators is, in the personal performance of their duty, with respect to ships coming with foul bills of health ?—The first step is, with respect to bales of cotton, to get a certain number of bales on deck in the importing ship; the bales are opened at one end, and a certain quantity of cotton drawn out, by the person em- ployed pushing his hand and arm in as deep as he can (in this country they do it with their hands; at Venice and Marseilles, when cargoes are infected, they do it with iron hooks.) The bale remains in this state for three days, as well as I can recollect, when the other end is opened and undergoes the same operation for three days longer; the bales are then removed into the lazaretto, where they are again opened at both ends, the cotton pulled out, and exposed to the air as much as possible for forty days. In performing their duty so, do you not think the expurgators expose themselves to every possible risk of taking the plague, by contact with the cotton, if the plague was attached to it?—They expose themselves certainly, but not so much as if the cotton had been admitted into small apartments, such as weavers occupy, where they are liable to come in contact with it without its having been purified by exposure to a circulation of air. Is your opinion, such as you have drawn from the knowledge of others, of the contagious nature of the plague, that it is more easily communicated by actual con- tact than by inspiration or vapour from an infected person?—It is from the expe- rience of others, particularly that of our medical officers of our army in Egypt and at Malta; on this subject Sir James Macgregor has written very fully. Then, is it more communicable by contact ?—In very many instances it has been proved to have been communicated by contact. Is It not matter of wonder to you, that in an establishment of fourteen years duration and full practice, and with the great care the expurgators take in perform- ing their duty in the manner you have described, the expurgators should never any one of them have taken the plague from goods which came in ships having foul bills of health ?—It must appear extraordinary, if the goods really were infected. Then you must either wonder, that the plague has never been taken by these expurgators, or suppose that the bales of cotton in which they thrust their hands, had not matter of the plague in them?—Malta, before 1813, had been nearly as long free from the plague as England has. The plague, in my opinion, was intro- duced into Malta by goods infected with the plague, and which had not been expurgated. You have said, that at Venice and Marseilles the practice is to draw out the €Otton with iron hooks; do you know that it is different at Malta ?—I have seen them doing it with their hands at Malta; at Venice and Marseilles, I believe it is only infected cargoes that are treated with hooks. But you do not know, that during the whole of the time that Malta was exempt from the plague as in England, it had been the practice to do it with iron hooks? — I never heard that it was the custom to use iron hooks ; previously to my super- intending the quarantine department in that island, it was customary completely to unpack every bale of cotton, that it might be the more exposed to the air; this occa- 449- ■ P sioned](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24749527_0059.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
