Letters on the Cholera Morbus Part 6

It is stated, in a Scotch newspaper, that two poor travellers, pa.s.sing 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked 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 pa.s.sing disease, which according to certain laws and peculiarities of its own, will a.s.suredly 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 pa.s.sing 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 const.i.tute 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 c.o.c.k 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 grat.i.tude, 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: PRINTED RY R. OXLEY, AT THE EXPRESS OFFICE.