A treatise on Asiatic cholera / edited and prepared by Edmund Charles Wendt, in association with Drs. John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg.
- Edmund Charles Wendt
- Date:
- 1885
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on Asiatic cholera / edited and prepared by Edmund Charles Wendt, in association with Drs. John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.
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![CHAPTER XXXIX. RESPONSIBILITY OF NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL NOTIFICATION. Responsibility of Nations.—If we examine the history of past epidemics ^^■o iiiid that almost without exception tlie appearance of cholera in any given locality may be traced to importation from its endemic habitat, and that in the exceptional instances where it has seemed impracticable to so trace it, the initial case has been in doubt, and the failure was due simply to lack of proper surveillance and inquiry. Modern views as to the prevention of the spread of epidemic disease in general, and cholera in particular, are governed by the belief that the infectious matter of such diseases is a material particulate poison, with the weight of evidence in favor of the opinion that the materies morbi, is a living thing or organism, capable of being transported in certain arti- cles which for convenience sake we term fomites. The exclusion of these organisms, upon the one hand, or their destruction upon the other, is the respective basis of the principle of home quarantine and disinfection. I shall proceed to discuss the methods of performing this service in detail, but before doing so let me refer to a broader topic—that of arrest- ing cholera at its endemic center, which is the essence of prevention. A national government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, during its existence as a government, must assume certain responsibilities, among which are those affecting the physical and pecu- niary welfare of the people. A government must under the natural limi- tations of human rights, take the proper and necessary measiires to protect its subjects against pestilence or famine, by such wise and prudent acts as the necessities of the time may seem to warrant. A failure so to do would subject such a government in the eyes of all civilized peoples to just condemnation, and as the safety of nations makes them mutually in- terdependent, whether they will it or not, so the safety of a particular nation is dependent upon the physical integrity of its several municipali- ties, as well as upon the physical integrity of its neighbors. This re- sponsibility must be conceded by the ]3olitical economist, and the govern- ing motive then becomes a question of the relative weight of responsibilities which apparently conflict. Thus if we are debarred from commercial intercourse by reason of our fear of the importation of a contagious dis- ease, that deprivation may result in famine of greater or less degree, and this as here stated in extreme terms, furnishes the key to the reason of the great and apparent irreconcilable differences of opinion as to the maintenance of quarantine. Modern nations have tacitly recognized these responsibilities and endeavored to meet them by '' international conferences, rarely however with any view to mutual concession. At each '' conference thus far held, the commercial phase of the question has, although purposely kept in the background, seemed to be paramount;](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20996421_0365.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
