William Fergusson - Letters on the Cholera Morbus.

Referring once more to the Report of the 9th of June, made by the College to the Council, and signed by the President as well as by Dr. Macmichael, the cholera was there pronounced to be a communicable disease, when they had, as they freely admit, "no other means of judging of the nature and symptoms of the cholera than those furnished by the documents submitted to them." The documents submitted were the following, as appears from the collection of papers published by order of Parliament: – Two reports made to our government by Dr. Walker, from Russia; a report from Petersburgh by Dr. Albers, a Prussian physician; and a report, with inclosures, regarding Russian quarantine regulations, from St. Petersburg, by Sir W. Creighton. Dr. Walker, who was sent from St. Petersburg to Moscow, by our ambassador at the former place; states, in his first report, dated in March, that the medical men seemed to differ on the subject of contagion, but adds, "I may so far state, that by far the greater number of medical men are disposed to think it not contagious." He says, that on his arrival at Moscow, the cholera was almost extinct there; that in twelve days he had been able to see only twenty-four cases, and that he had no means of forming an opinion of his own as to contagion. In a second report, dated in April from St. Petersburg, this gentleman repeats his former statement as to the majority of the Moscow medical men not believing the disease to be contagious (or, as the College prefer terming it, infectious), and gives the grounds on which their belief is formed, on which he makes some observations. He seems extremely fair, for while he states that, according to his information, a peculiar state of the atmosphere "was proved by almost every person in the city (Moscow), feeling, during the time, some inconvenience or other, which wanted only the exciting cause of catching cold, or of some irregularity in diet, to bring on cholera;" that "very few of those immediately about the patients were taken ill;" that he "did not learn that the contagionists in Moscow had any strong particular instances to prove the communication of the disease from one individual to another;" and that he had "heard of several instances brought forward in support of the opinion (contagion), but they are not fair ones: " he yet mentions where exceptions seem to have taken place as to hospital attendants not being attacked, but he has neglected to tell us (a very common omission in similar statements), whether or not the hospitals in which attendants were attacked were situated in or near places where the atmosphere seemed equally productive of the disease in those not employed in attending on sick . This clearly makes all the difference, for there is no earthly reason why people about the sick should not be attacked, if they breathe the same atmosphere which would seem to have so particular an effect in producing the disease in others; indeed there are good reasons why, during an epidemic, attendants should be attacked in greater proportion; for the constant fatigue, night-work, &c., must greatly predispose them to disease of any kind, while the great additional number always required on those occasions, precludes the supposition of the majority so employed being seasoned hospital attendants, having constitutions impenetrable to contagion. Those questions are now well understood as to yellow fever, about which so much misconception had once existed. The proofs by disinterested authors (by which I mean those unconnected with quarantine establishments, or who are not governed by the expediency of the case) in the West Indies, America, and other places, show this in a clear light; but the proofs which have for some time past appeared in various journals respecting the occurrences at Gibraltar, during the epidemic of 1828, are particularly illustrative. By the testimony of three or four writers, we find that within certain points , those in attendance on sick, in houses as well as hospitals, were attacked with the fever, in common with those who were not in attendance on sick; but that, where people remained at ever so short a distance beyond those points, during the epidemic influence, not a single instance occurred of their being attacked, though great numbers had been in the closest contact with the sick, and frequently too, it would appear, under circumstances when contagion, had it existed, was not impeded in its usual course by a very free atmosphere: — sick individuals, for instance, lying in a small house, hut, or tent, surrounded, during a longer or shorter space of time, by their relatives, &c. A full exposure of some very curious mis-statements on these points, made by our medical chief of the quarantine, will be found from the pen of the surgeon of the 23d regiment, in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal , No. 106. 3 3 The writer of this, who may be known by application at the printer's, when the present excitement is at an end, is not only prepared to show, on a fitting occasion , the correctness of the statements of Dr. Smith as well as those by Dr. O'Halloran just referred to – but also, that in the investigations, in 1828, connected with the question of yellow fever at Gibraltar, facts were perverted in the most scandalous manner, in order to prove the disease imported and contagious: – that individuals had been suborned: – that persons had been in the habit of putting leading questions to witnesses: – that those who gave false evidence have been, in a particular manner, remunerated: – that threats were held out: – and, in short, that occurrences of a nature to excite the indignation of mankind, took place on that occasion; and merited a punishment, not less severe, than a Naval Officer who should give, designedly, a false bearing and distance of rocks. Those who are acquainted with the progress of cholera in India, must be aware how a difference in the height of places, or of a few hundred yards ( indeed sometimes of a few yards ) distance, has been observed to make all the difference between great suffering and complete immunity: – the printed and manuscript reports from India furnish a vast number of instances of this kind; and, incredible as it may appear, they furnish instances where, notwithstanding the freest intercourse , there has been an abrupt line of demarcation observed, beyond which the disease did not prevail. A most remarkable instance of this occurred in the King's 14th regiment, in 1819, during a cholera epidemic, when the light company of the regiment escaped almost untouched, owing to no other apparent cause than that they occupied the extremity of a range of barrack in which all the other companies were stationed! so that there would truly seem to be more things "on earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy" of contagionists. This seems so remarkable an event, that the circumstance should be more particularly stated: – "The disease commenced in the eastern wing of the barracks, and proceeded in a westerly direction, but suddenly stopped at the 9th company; the light infantry escaping with one or two slight cases only." – ( Bengal Rep. 311.) It appears ( loc. cit. ) that 221 attacks took place in the other nine companies. We find ( Bombay Rep. p. 11.) that, from a little difference in situation, two cavalry regiments in a camp were altogether exempt from the disease, while all the other regiments were attacked. Previous to closing these remarks, which seemed to me called for on Dr. Walker's second Report, it is fair to state, that in certain Russian towns which he names, he found that the medical men and others were convinced that the cholera was brought to them " somehow or other ," an impression quite common in like cases, as we learn from Humboldt, and less to be wondered at in Russia than most places which could be mentioned. It will not be a misemployment of time to consider now the next document laid before the College, to enable them to form their opinion, – the Report of Dr. Albers, dated in March, and sent from St. Petersburg; – this gentleman, who was at the head of a commission sent by the Prussian government to Moscow, states, that at St. Petersburgh, where the disease did not then reign , the authorities and physicians were contagionists; but at Moscow, where it had committed such ravages, "almost all strenuously maintain that cholera is not contagious." The following extract seems to merit particular attention: —