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

  • 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 / [by R.C. Prus]; with introductory observations, extracts from Parliamentary correspondence, and notes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tion in houses, and by the want of proper drainage in places contiguous to habi¬ tations; and, if the Turkish government would, in the first instance, apply vigorous measures to correct these evils, they would strike at once at the* causes of the disease; whereas the measures, which they have now in contemplation, will only be productive of inconvenience and suffering to numerous individuals.’’ In 1841, Dr. Robertson, deputy-inspector of hospitals and serving with the British troops in Byria, thus expresses himself in his official report to Government on the Plague :— 4‘ In reference to the contagious or non-contagious* nature of this at times frightful disease, I beg to state that the result of all my experience leads me to believe that the disease originates in local causes, and that it is endemic in Syria and Egypt; that it is not of a highly contagious nature; and that, if ever so at all, some other concurrent circumstances are necessary to render it so. Extreme and exclusive opinions on the doctrine of contagion are hardly warranted by the present state of our knowledge. My own firm conviction is that the plague cannot be communicated from one person to another in a pure atmosphere, even by contact; but I am not prepared to assert that, if plague-patients are crowded together in confined and ill-ventilated apartments, infection will not be produced, just as happens in Typhus fever.” Mr. Biant, our consul at Erzeroum, writing about the same period res¬ pecting the then recent severe outbreak of the plague there, says :_ “ As far as my own experience goes, I have been led to doubt the contagious nature of the disease, as it showed itself here last Summer; or, if it were con¬ tagious, it must have been in a very slight degree. I have had, within the sphere of my observation, many cases of the most complete and extensive contact, without the disease being communicated.” Mr. Sandison also, our consul at Brussa, informs us that “ the cases are numerous in which persons escape the disease after contact with persons seized with it, even in its most malignant stage. There are fre¬ quent instances also of individuals being attacked by the plague, without being at all able to trace communication with any infected person or sub¬ stance.” Influenced no doubt by these and other similar statements, Lord Aber¬ deen, following in the same path of enlightened policy with his prede¬ cessor, endeavoured in 1843 to bring about the establishment of the pro¬ posed general Congress which, to the great regret of every humane and liberally-minded statesman in Europe, had never yet taken place. The French Government readily acquiesced in his views; but the Austrian, while professing their readiness to co-operate, considered that the holding of any conference or congress would be premature, until exact information was procured from competent medical men upon the following three points :— 1. The minimum and maximum of the terms of quarantine to be fixed upon for persons. 2. The terms of quarantine necessary for goods and merchandize. 3. The best measures to be adopted for the disinfection of objects that are susceptible of contagion. * These words are used here in the sense of “transmissible” transmissible.”—G. M. and non-