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

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 XL. MEDICAL INSPECTION, INCLUDING THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF QUARANTINE. I. The Theory of Quarantine.—No one who has studied without preconceived ideas or ])rejudiee can fail to conchide that if the germs of cholera were exchided from a country, that country would certainly escape an epidemic. It is for the purpose of assisting in the work of exclusion of disease germs that quarantines are now maintained, and medical inspections instituted. It is true that the history of quarantine shows that its heginning ^\■as 2wrely empirical, for the city in the sea that had the first lazaretto was forced thereto by necessity. Venice was the great commercial entrepot of the Mediterranean; her sails whitened the horizon of every known harbor, and her returned vessels crowded her owu docks. Iler grcAit commerce made a flourishing carrying trade, and stimulated travel, but at the same time brought fomites to her households. There were repeated epi- demics the origin of which was traced either to the returned merchants, their sailors or their ships. Hence those wise Adriatic shop-keepers who valued life even above shekels, concluded to place restrictions upon the carrying trade, so that by detention they might conclude whether or not a particular vessel was infected, before allowing her entry into the port. They fixed upon the period of forty days as the time necessary for such detention: hence the term quarantine. The time, as we now believe, was unnecessarily long; the consequent detention cruel and hazardous, but for many years it was rigidly maintained, and although the time of deten- tion has been everywhere reduced, it is still tedious and productive of much hardship at many ports. The dangers of this excessive caution, the fear of commercial losses, and their reflex influence upon medical teachings have operated as powerful agents against the entire system. Thus there have appeared violent invectives against the practice of quarantine from many Avho should have been counted among its suporters. Professor Stille,' who has examined this question with that candor and regard for worthy opponents that has always been characteristic of him says: There is urged against the enforcement of a rigid quarantine by land or sea the singular argument that it has not always excluded the dis- ease. A more logical inference would seem to be that since it succeeded, not completely, but yet partially, its inefficiency should be charged to its imperfect execution; or even granting that the absolute exclusion of cholera is impracticable in every instance, including cases of choleraic diarrhoea, contaminated clothing, and merchandise, does it follow that the transit of 'Loc citat., p. 7.15-56.$