Proceedings and debates of the fourth National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention : held in the city of Boston, June 14, 15, and 16, 1860 / Reported for the City Council of Boston.
- National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention
- Date:
- 1860
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Proceedings and debates of the fourth National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention : held in the city of Boston, June 14, 15, and 16, 1860 / Reported for the City Council of Boston. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
53/300 (page 47)
![ages as to what was necessary and proper to be done in establishing and maintaining efficient barriers against the introduction of infectious diseases. All the theories of the past have been not only errone- ous, but injurious. All our commercial cities ought to be grateful for what this Convention has already done, in its previous sessions; and in adopting the report which lies before you, acknowledgments are justly due to the intelligent gentlemen of the Committee for what they have done towards illustrating the principles of this theory, and thus giving us the opportunity and the privilege of stamping our action upon a series of intelligent, judicious, and authentic propositions, which, under the guiding hand of Providence, must result in great good not only to the present, but, eminently so, to the future of this country. The commercial cities are mainly interested in this branch of the question. I hope that the delegates from the interior States, which do not reach the ocean, will bear with us while we treat this branch of the subject, because it harmonizes thoroughly and effectually with the whole system. A perfect organization for the proper management of health and the prolongation of life covers broad ground. The in- terior and the exterior States are all interested in the question. But when we discuss what relates to quarantine simply, we must confine it to its operation upon the seaboard. Every State that has its seaport upon the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico, open at all seasons to the commerce of the tropics, is deeply and especially interested in this subject; and you, sir, [the First Vice-President,] who so honorably represent here a southern city and your constituents, are as much interested as we are who represent northern communities. We have much to learn from each other in regard to the intercourse between the North and the South, and permit me to say that, it is always well for us to counsel together. Until recently we had been placed under restrictive regulations, which were both unnecessary and oppressive, not only to all the rights of the citizen, but to the great interests of commerce. In the noble bay of that city where I live, in the summer months of past years, you could have found scores,—perhaps I might be justified in saying, sometimes, hundreds,— of vessels unnecessarily retained, with crowds of men, women, and children, imprisoned be- tween the sweltering decks, disease and death rife among them, without the power on the part of any public functionary to give them permission to leave the infected atmosphere, and enjoy the benefit of the free air of the country, and the society of their friends. This was one of the great wrongs which grew out of an erroneous system of quarantine, which confined the sick within the circle of the pre- vailing infection, and thus increased and perpetuated the very evil it was intended to remedy. Sir, all this has been wrong in theory, doubly wrong in practice ; we have done much to correct it; and when this Eeport shall have been adopted as the foundation of a system methodically and carefully prepared for the general government of the question throughout the country, then will both commerce and humanity be enfranchised and set at liberty from these wretched barriers against personal communi-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2100755x_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
