POSTSCRIPT
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.
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
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.