My friend, Doctor Stanford, of the Medical Staff, now settled here, has
given me the following valuable information, which my own observation
confirms, regarding the agency of panic, in promoting the diffusion of
epidemic disease. He happened to be serving with part of the British
army, at Cadiz, when an eruption of yellow fever took place there, in
the autumn of 1813, and as usually happens amongst medical men, the
first time they have seen that fever, some of them were staunch
contagionists, and impressed that belief upon the corps to which they
belonged. In all these the disease was most fatal to great numbers. The
men being half dead with fear, before they were taken ill, speedily
became its victims, to the great terror and danger of their surviving
comrades; but in the other regiments, where no alarm had been sounded,
the soldiers took the chances of the epidemic with the same steady
courage they would have faced the bullets of the enemy, in the lottery
of battle; escaping an attack for the most part altogether, or if
seized, recovering from it in a large proportion. From this picture let
us take a lesson, in case the impending epidemic should ever come to
spread in the populous towns of England, and the cry of contagion be
proclaimed in their streets. The very word will spread terror and dismay
throughout the people, causing multitudes to be infected, who would
otherwise, in all probability, have escaped an attack, and afterwards
consign them to death in despair, when they find themselves the marked
and fated victims of a new plague. Whatever they see around them, must
confirm and aggravate their despair, for desertion and excommunication
in all dangerous diseases, too certainly seal the fate of the patient.
It will be vain to tell them that hireling attendance has been
provided,--the life of the Choleraic depends upon the instant aid--the
able bodied willing aid of affectionate friends, who will devote
themselves to the task, and persevere indefatigably to the last. If
these be driven from his bed, his last stay is gone, for without their
active co-operation the best prescription of the physician is only so
much waste paper. What, let me ask, must have been the fate of the
patient, and what the consequent panic, if the case of Cholera that
occurred in London, a month ago at the Barracks of the Foot Guards,
had been proclaimed, and treated as a contagion? The poor fellow was
promptly surrounded by his fearless comrades, who with their kind hands
recalled and preserved the vital heat on the surface, by persevering in
the affectionate duty of rubbing him for many hours; but had the Medical
Staff of the regiment been true contagionists, they must, as in duty
bound, have commanded, and compelled every one of them to fly the
infection. It depended upon them, to have spread around a far wilder
and more dangerous contagion than that of Cholera Morbus, or any other
disease,--the contagion of fear--and from what occurred at Cadiz, as
above related, it is to be hoped our medical men will now see how much
they will have it in their power, when Cholera comes, to pronounce, or
to withhold sentence of desolation upon a community. The word Contagion
will be the word of doom, for then the healthy will fly their homes,
and the sick be deserted; but a countenance and bearing, devoid of that
groundless fear, will at once command the aid, and inspire the hopes
that are powerful to save in the most desperate diseases.
It is stated, in a Scotch newspaper, that two poor travellers, passing
from Kirkintulloch to Falkirk, ran the risque of being stoned to death
by the populace of the latter place, and were saved from the immolation
only by escaping into a house; and in an Irish one, that some
shipwrecked sailors incurred a similar danger. Such barbarities
must, in the nature of things, be practised every where under a reign
of terror, however humane or christianized the people may be--even the
fatalism of the Turk would not be proof against it. In Spain they have
been enacted in all their horrors (thanks to the quarantine laws) upon
the unfortunate victims of yellow fever;[33] and we shall soon see them
repeated amongst ourselves, unless the plain truth be promulgated by
authority to the people. Let them be told if such be the pleasure of
our rulers, (for it is not worth while disputing the point), that
Cholera Morbus is a contagion, but of so safe a nature in regard to
communicability, that not one in a hundred, or even a thousand, take
the disease,--that in this country, besides being a transient passing
disease, which according to certain laws and peculiarities of its own,
will assuredly take its departure in no long time; it is limited almost
always to particular spots and localities--that it is in their own
power, while it remains, to correct the infectious atmosphere of these
spots, by attention to health police--that they may fearlessly approach
their sick friends with impunity, for that the danger resides in the
above atmosphere, and not in the person of the patient; and that in all
situations they may defy it, for as long as they observe sobriety of
life and regularity of habits. Thus will public confidence be restored,
and thus be verified the homely adage of, "honesty, in all human
affairs, being ever the best policy"; for the concealment, or perversion
of the truth, however much it may be made to serve the purposes of the
passing day, can never ultimately promote the ends of good government
and true humanity, but must lead, sooner or later, to the exposure of
the delusion, or what would be far worse, to the perpetuation of error
and prejudice, and grossest abuse of the people, in regard to those
interests committed to our charge.
[Footnote 33: Vide O'Halloran, upon the Yellow Fever in Spain.]
* * * * *
Doctor Henry, of Manchester, has, in a late paper, published some most
interesting experiments, upon the disinfecting power of heat. He found
that the vaccine virus was deprived of its infecting quality, at 140°
of Farenheit, and that the contagions of Scarlatina, and Typhus fever,
from fomites, were certainly dissipated and destroyed, at the dry heat
of boiling water. In regard to these last, he might surely have ventured
to fix the standard of safety at a greatly lower temperature; for if the
grosser vaccine matter could be rendered inert at 140°, there can be
little doubt of the subtile gaseous emanations, which constitute the
aerial contagions, being dissipated by the same agent, at an inferior
degree. In the absence of direct experiment, we may venture to infer,
that 120° would suffice, to nullify these last. Such, at least, has been
the belief of those, who have been employed to purify ships, barracks,
and hospitals, from contagion, and I should think it must have been
founded on experience.[34]
[Footnote 34: As far back as the years 1796-7-8, this fact was familiar
to us in the St. Domingo war, only we were satisfied with a minimum heat
of 120°, from a belief that a temperature of that height, as it
coagulated the ova of insects (the cock roach for instance), and was
otherwise incompatible with insect life, would avail to dissipate
contagion.]
He does not treat of the disinfecting property of light, although such
an agent was well worthy of his notice; for the power, which in closely
stopped bottles can deprive Cayenne Pepper of its sting--render our
Prussic Acid as harmless as cream, and convert the strongest medicinal
powders into so much powder of _post_, can also avail to destroy the
matter and principle of Contagion. In fact, no other is used for
purifying goods, at our Lazzarettoes, where suspected articles of
merchandise, after some nugatory fumigations, are simply exposed to
light and air with such certain effect, that there is not, I believe,
in this country, any record of infection being propagated from them
afterwards. The experiments of Doctor Henry are as simple and beautiful
in themselves, as they promise to be useful and important, for now even
the horrible contagion of hospital gangrene would appear to be under
the controul of the pure agent he has been describing; and the principle
now established of light and heat, the grand vivifying powers of the
creation, being the sure and true preservers of the creature, man, from
the poisons generated even by himself, and otherwise around him, calls
for our admiration and gratitude, as shewing that these agents and
emanations of Almighty power can be made, in the hands of the practical
philosopher, to serve the purposes of domestic science, and in as far
as we can see, to fulfil, at least in that respect, the best intentions
of the Creator.
WINDSOR:
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