THE EVILS QUARANTINE LAWS, AND NON-EXISTENCE OF PESTILENTIAL CONTAGION; THE PRIVY COUNCIL, AND COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND METHOD OF CURE OF THE CHOIERA MORBUS, AND THE ATROCITIES OF THE CHOLERA PANIC. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY EFFINGHAM WILSON, HOYAL EXCHANGE : OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH ; JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN. , 1837. G. Cotti«, Fiiutcr, SionecuUcr-itrcet. DEDICATION. TO HER MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, VICTORIA THE FIRST, QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN, êfC. %c, $c. MOST HONOURED MADAM, Circumstances and occasions will arise to justify subjects dedicating their labours to their Sovereign. Instances may occur in which it would almost be criminal not to do so. It is the only way of respectfully drawing the attention of the Crown to any particular subject which otherwise might be lost. The facts which the following pages unfold, and the vast importance of the subject on which they treat, are of that nature, I humbly submit, to crave your Majesty's most serious consideration, if not to require your commands to your Ministers thereon. During a period of six years I have in vain, respectfully, endeavoured to draw the attention of three successive Prime Ministers of the Crown of England, Yiz., Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Melbourne, IV DEDICATION. to a subject which not only deeply affects the social welfare and the commerce of these kingdoms, but the best interests, nay, the lives, the property, the welfare of the inhabitable parts of the whole world ; viz., the Evils of Quarantine Laws. While Ministers are chiefly directing their attention as to how and by what means they shall retain their places and preserve their power, thousands and tens of thousands of human beings, through their neglect, are hourly being consigned to premature graves, under circumstances the most horrid and appalling. Millions upon millions of the human race have already been swept away the victims to a barbarous system of laws, the iniquitous effects of prejudice and ignorance. Ere your Majesty will have closed these pages it will be perceived, that you have it now in your power to do more for the preservation of life and property throughout the world than any Monarch ever yet ventured to do ; the consequence of which would be, that the whole of the human race would never cease to offer up their most fervent prayers to Heaven for your health and prosperity. If your Majesty should have resolution enough to burst asunder the bonds of the barbarous and inhuman quarantine laws, as now supported by this nation, to the great detriment and incomprehensible injury of the whole of the world, you will indeed accomplish one of the most important of achievements. The subject will have additional interest with your Majesty from the fact, that it is to your late most noble, most philanthropic, and Royal Father, the world is now indebted for the valuable light which DEDICATION. V has been thrown upon this interesting and most important question. When the Ministers of his Majesty George III. had treated with neglect and indifference Dr. Maclean's invaluable services in the cause of civilisation and humanity, and the Duke of Portland had refused to afford him the " facilities necessary to prosecute his important inquiries," to ascertain the nature of the plague, and the validity of the doctrine of pestilential contagion, the Doctor says, "Fortunately, I did not dismiss the subject for ever ; but after a lapse of years, by the patronage of his late Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, and of Lord Grenville and the Levant Company, having been enabled experimentally to examine the plague in Turkey, to have since that period succeeded in bringing the investigation of epidemic diseases, generally, to such a state of maturity, that the doctrines in "juestion must, in defiance of the prejudices by which their reception is still opposed, in no long time (discussion remaining free), be every where officially acknowledged and applied." The means of prevention and the method of cure for the Cholera Morbus, that most awful of visitations of Providence, are also subjects well deserving of your Majesty's utmost solicitude 5 not only as regards the possible afflictions which your own subjects may thereby escape from, but as regards the rest of the world. The public, Madam, are sensible of the intense anxiety with which your Majesty seeks to discharge the various and important functions of the Royal prerogative, and the great solicitude with which you watch over the interests of your subjects, in every vi DEDICATION. department of the State. To aid and assist your Majesty to accomplish these desirable ends, ith as much ease and convenience as possible, every class of the community most heartily unite with heart and hand, by every means in their power. Knowledge is power. No species, therefore, of information, on any question of State policy, should be withheld from your Majesty. On the contrary, it should be considered, as it positively is, the duty of the subject to place all important facts in such a convenient form as that they may meet your Royal eye in a manner least obtrusive, to enable your Majesty to give them a deliberate consideration, exercise your own superior judgment, and afford to your subjects the benefits of the decision of an enlightened understanding and a liberal mind. With the most humble and dutiful submission, I have the honour to be Your Majesty's Dutiful Servant, W. WHITE. London, October, 1837. PREFACE. One of the greatest evils to which the British public are exposed, and which frequently involves the interests of other States, is the manner in which some of the leading journals occasionally take up, or neglect, subjects. Their zeal oftentimes lead them into great errors on some questions ; their inactivity at other times produces mischief. The greater part of the calamities which befel this Nation, during the cholera panic, in 1832, and which subsequently occurred in many parts of Europe, originated in the injudicious and rash manner in which some of the daily journals, from day to day, in leading articles or letters from correspondents, circulated the most erroneous of opinions. When they saw their error, instead of allowing it to be corrected,they acknowledged their incapacity to discuss the subject, and therefore declared that they " must leave it in the hands of the Doctors." The Doctors, that is the Board of Health, were as ignorant as themselves upon the question. The consequences were, poor John Bull, between two stools, soon found himself on the ground. Some of the leading journals, like the " Chieftains" of the Royal College of Physicians, having once committed an error, would strenuous adhere to it, although " the whole of the human race should perish." * It is now nearly three weeks since I sent to the London daily journals, from page 33 to 64 of this work, on the means of prevention and method of cure of the Cholera Morbus, as also a copy of my treatise on cholera (second edition), to which is added upwards of 90 quotations from all the princi- • " For months the pestilence raged at Sunderland, Newcastle, and their neighbourhood in England ; and in Haddington, Tranent, and Musselburgh, in Scotland, without recourse being had to any measures which deserve mention ; but the instant that a few cases appear in the great centre of opulence, all is panic ; assessments and additional powers are proposed in Parliament ; national grants of money recommended ; and every thing conceded to the terror of the metropolis, and to the apprehension of popular displeasure, which prudence and forethought, and the application of many intelligent members of the profession, and others, as well as extreme suffering and poverty, had long called for in vain."—Edinburgh Surgical and Medical Journal- vin PREFACE. pal medical writers upon the question, illustrative of the correctness of my previous opinions. Not one of the daily journals have noticed the important subject notwithstanding thousands of human beings were at that time, in different parts of the continent, being daily carried off'with the disease. Whether the London press, by their silence, have on this occasion done their duty, it is not for me to decide ; the readers of this work will judge for themselves. As far as I am personally concerned, it was a matter of perfect indifference to me ; but not so with reference to the countless millions of people to whom it might have served. Under these circumstances I felt that the interest of the world in this great question should not be left to its chance of success to the British Government alone, still less the London daily press,— therefore, I addressed the following " Circular to the Ambassadors of Foreign Powers at the Court of St. James's;" and now submit my labours to the world at large, respectfully entreating for a liberal indulgence for the many errors I am aware the work contains :— "Permit me to have the honour to forward to Your Excellency the accompanying copy of my work on the evils of Quarantine Laws, and the non-existence of Pestilential Contagion. As well also a little treatise on the means of prevention and method of cure for the Cholera Morbus; and which Professor Lizars, of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (p. 33), declares, ' is by far the most valuable little tract that has yet appeared upon the subject, and not only deserves the attention of the public, but, from the many important facts therein stated, will be found very useful even to the Medical Practitioner.' "The immense and vast importance of these subjects to every nation on the face of the earth, particularly those of Europe, has induced me to believe that a copy of the work, before it is published, will be acceptable to Your Excellency. " In forwarding the document containing the important and irresistible truths which it does, I am induced to hope that after examination Your Excellency will consider the subject as one deserving of your consideration, and of sufficient importance to introduce to the attention of the Sovereign whom you have the honour to represent at the Court of St. James's. Indeed, as the work appears to be calculated to render such important services to States, and to mankind at large, if Your Excellency should think it might become desirable that it was translated into the language of the State, I shall be most happy, if you will allow me to have the honour, vu i-.taci:. ix (o forward to you another copy of the work for that purpose. "The sole object which has engaged so much of my time for years, and entailed no inconsiderable expense first and last, has been the cause of humanity; and my feeble endeavours, without personal consideration, have been exclusively directed to promote what I consider to be the welfare and safety of the whole of the human race. The same consideration now impels me to obtrude the result of my humble labours upon the notice of the different Ambassadors of Foreign Powers at the Court of St. James's ; with an earnest and sanguine hope that in so purely a philanthropic cause, they will condescend to lose no time in seconding, as far as may appear to be practicable, consistent with the views which they may take on the question, those endeavours. " If the work, which I have now the honour to submit for the consideration of Your Excellency, does not at once get the better of the vulgar prejudice of ages, and subvert the silly popular faith in the~doctrine of pestilential contagion, with Governments as well as mankind, there appears to me to be but one step more required for the accomplishment of it. It is, that the different Governments of Europe should countenance a Council composed of three or four eminent scientific Physicians who are not prejudiced, selected from different nations, who should repair to the spot wherever pestilential contagion was supposed to prevail, and that there they should combine with the most eminent Native Physicians and Philosophers to investigate as closely as possible the real causes of the epidemic, afford a clear report thereon from time to time to the different Governments of Europe, and also express their opinions on the doctrine of pestilential contagion. " Of the good results of such an enterprise a memorable instance will be found, the only one upon record, in the case of the free Junta of fifteen Physicians at Barcelona in 1822, as particularised at p. 118 of the work, when their Report, and the debates which it produced, caused the Spanish Corte« in 1822 to reject a code of sanitary laws which had been for years in careful preparation successively, by a Commission of the Government and two Committees of public health of the Cortes. " The presence of such a commission at the time of an epidemic would be eminently useful, by their services and example in dispelling fear, the causes of nine-tenths of the deaths which take place. " If such a course should meet with the approbation of X PltlìFACE. your Government, and my humble services be considered available to conduct such a commission, I should be most happy to unite myself in the undertaking. " Should Your Excellency be pleased to condescend to consider and approve of the propriety and utility of the proposition made, and feeldisposed to recommend it to the notice of Your Sovereign, I shall be very proud to be honoured with any commands it may be thought proper to make upon the subject. " I have the honour to be, " With the utmost respect, '< Your most obedient and very humble servant, "W. WHITE." CONTENTS. SECTION I. Continued ravages of cholera.—Letter to Sir Robert Peel on the means of prevention and method of cure ; the evils of Quarantine Laws, and the atrocities committed during the cholera panic.—Sir Robert Peel's reply.—Conduct of the Central Board of Health : the horrors, cruelty, and deaths they occasioned.—Letter to Lord Melbourne, urging for a Committee of Inquiry into the abuses committed during the cholera panic, and the validity of the doctrine of pestilential contagion.—Lord Melbourne's reply.—Burying people alive ;. and poisoning them —Drunken medical men.—Bonquet at a grave-digger's ; and horrid scene at Naples.—Disregard of the Central Board of Health of all advice.—The indifference of his Majesty's Government in 1831 on the subject.—Absurd mission of Doctors Barry and Russell to Riga.—Terror and alann created by the proclamations of the Board of Health. SECTION II. The means of prevention and method of cure of the cholera morbus.— Review of Captain White's Treatise on Cholera by Professor Lizars.— Letter of Professor Lizars to Captain White.—Calomel recommended in 1831, to the Board of Health as the means of prevention and method of cure in cholera and rejected by the Board.—The injury the world at large has in consequence sustained.—The President of the College of Physicians and Captain White.—Present opinion of medical men of the vast importance of calomel in cholera, as the only means of prevention or method of cure.—Seat of the essential morbid affections of cholera.—Digestive organs the principal seat of the disease.— Action of the atmosphere upon the nervous system.—Premonitory symptoms.—The state of the blood after death.—Absurd proclamation of the Board of Health's "advice to families."—Audacious empiricism. —Select Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the advantage of calomel in the Milbank Penitentiary dysentery and fever ; differences of opinion of medical men, and decision of the College of Physicians.—Disputes in India with medical men as to the treatment of cholera ; and court-martial on Doctor Peers. sii CONTENT*. SECTION III. The evils of Quarantine Laws, and non-existence of pestilential conta. gion.—Awful mortality in 1837 by cholera.—Serious responsibility of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Melbourne.—The non-existence of pestilential contagion demonstrated by facts, and the opinions of eminent medical authorities.—Incompetency of the College of Physicians as judges.—Not a medical question.—Contradictions of physicians — Inconsistencies of medical men.—Quarantine at Marseilles of the French Government steam ship Leonidas, in July, August, and September, 183", with the plague on board.—Plague in India.—Ignorance of the true causes of pestilence.—The French army in Syria, and Napoleon's opinion of the plague.—Proclamation at Genoa relative to Quarantine Laws ; horrors and iniquities they occasion.—The College of Physicians their supporters.—Urs. Pym and Barry.—Sir Gilbert Blane and Sir James Macgregor.—Diet of a contagionist doctor.— Lectures of Sir Henry I lalford after dinner.—Origin of Quarantine Laws —Barcelona manifesto of fifteen physicians on pestilential contagion. SECTION IV. Dr. Maclean, the Privy Council, and the Royal College of Physicians, on • the plague of the Levant.—Report of the College of Physicians on Dr. Maclean's work on the plague.—Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1819 on the validity of the doctrine of contagion in the plague.—Letters of the Privy Council to the College of Physicians, and their answers.—Refutation by Dr. Maclean of the Report of the College of Physicians, on the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons.—Dr. Maclean's advice to statesmen and legislators-. —The enormous injury Quarantine Laws inflict upon commerce and the shipping interests ; recent abominable case at Falmouth.—The necessity for the immediate abolition of the Quarantine Laws. THE EVILS OF QUARANTINE LAWS, AND NON-EXISTENCE OF PESTILENTIAL CONTAGION, The continuation in different parts of Europe, as well as in Asia, of that terrific scourge to the human race the cholera morbus, and the evils arising from the application of Quarantine Laws for the prevention and suppression of it, are subjects of deep importance to every nation. The terrific accounts which we have for some time past been reading daily in the newspapers of the ravages which the disease has lately been committing, in Malta, at Naples, at Palermo, at Rome, Prague, Berlin, &c.; and the horrid results attending the continuation of the enforcement of the inhuman Quarantine Laws, for the professed object of confining or the impeding of its progress, under the supposition that it is contagious and infectious, renders the subject at the present moment one of no little importance to the whole of the population of the inhabitable globe. In the year 1831, Lord Grey's government formally recognised the doctrine of pestilential contagion in epidemic diseases, in the cholera; and accordingly placed the lives and liberties of all his late Majesty's subjects in these kingdoms under the surveillance of the College of Physicians, designated a " Board of Health;'' but which might with more propriety, from the evils and calamities they produced, have been appropriately termed the "BoAiiD ok Death." n 2 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH The measures recommended to be pursued by that Board of Health, before the cholera had even reached England, created the utmost alarm, and terror prevailed throughout the land. The calamity, misery, and affliction which it consequently occasioned, when the disease broke out, far surpassed any calamity the nation had ever witnessed ; for the ravages it committed far exceeded that of even the plague in 1603 or 1625. Having had considerable experience in the cholera in India, previous to the epidemic reaching England I endeavoured to warn the Board of Health of the consequences which were likely to ensue from the line of conduct they were pursuing. I also endeavoured to awaken the attention of the Government to the same, by a letter to Lord Grey ; but to no avail. After an elapse of four years, I had the honour to address Sir Robert Peel the following letter :— " Edinburgh, December 30, 1834. " Sir,—I beg leave to have the honour to draw your attention to a subject or two of great importance to the nation, and the universe at large ; viz.—¦ "1st. The means of prevention for the cholera morbus. "2nd. The enormous abuses which took place during the cholera panic. " 3d. The abolishing, or, at least, ameliorating, the present pernicious and impolitic quarantine laws. " FIRST, THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. " Previous to the cholera having made its appearance in England I submitted to the notice of the Board of Health what appeared to me to be the only means of prevention for that, theretofore, fatal and destructive disease. I felt myself justified, upon many grounds, for doing so. The absence of any remedy being suggested by any medical man, the extensive experience I had had of the disease in India, the AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 3 medical education I had received, and the opinions of the different medical authors whom I had consulted, all tending to prove the vast importance of calomel in the disease. " Unfortunately for the cause of humanity, and the country at large, the Board of Health, as I was 'nota medical man,' did not think it proper to listen to my experience, or to attend to my suggestions, notwithstanding the urgent and all-important nature of the subject. " Considering the Board of Health a public body, bound to receive with courtesy, and duly to investigate whatever information might be offered to them by persons who had had practical experience in the disease, I thought that when they rejected my testimony, it was my duty to address Lord Grey, then his Majesty's First Minister, stating the fact, and requesting to know whether his Majesty's Ministers approved of the Board of Health rejecting, at such a crisis, important practical testimony and information upon a subject it was notorious that with the exception of one individual, not any of the members had ever seen the disease. I also took the liberty to point out to his Lordship, in the most unequivocal terms, the dreadful consequences which would necessarily follow a continuance of such a line of proceeding. " This appeal, however, to his Majesty's Reforming Prime Minister, was treated with so much indifference as to be considered as unworthy even of notice. It followed that the miseries and affliction of the people, at a most awful crisis, were all but converted into a series of shameful jobs ; and attended with the most appalling consequences. "The melancholy experience of several years of great affliction in many parts of Europe, and the loss of upwards of sixty thousand lives in Great Britain, has at last proved the vast importance of the suggestions which I submitted to the consideration of the Board of Health. It is now clearly proved by the B 2 4 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH testimony of almost all the medical men in the world, that much of the loss of life, misery, and affliction, might have been avoided by proper consideration and attention on the part of the Board of Health, acting under the immediate attention, and direct authority, of his Majesty's Ministers. Herewith Ì have the honour to forward to you a second edition of a little pamphlet which was published immediately after the Board of Health had refused to receive my testimony. The most essential parts of it had previously been transmitted to them in manuscript. The present edition has in addition, a preface, addenda, and numerous notes and quotations from all the principal writers on the subject. The cause of humanity induced me to bestow the utmost attention upon every work that had been published upon the disease, which I could place my hands upon. The labour was intense, but I was anxious to arrive at a just conclusion, and strengthened by the quotations of the opinions of the best informed and most eminent medical practitioners, give weight to the work ; and thereby ensure it that consideration which the importance of the subject demanded, but which otherwise it might not obtain. The means of prevention, as originally recommended by me to the Board of Health, will be found at page 25. At the third paragraph of the preface will be perceived the vast importance of them. At page 2? in the Addenda reasons will appear why that little tract is now well deserving of his Majesty's Ministers' most serious attention. There can be no question but that the disease has become endemic, and that, as in India so in Europe, we shall have it again and again, with more or less virulence. It is therefore most important that his Majesty's Ministers should adopt the most effectual measures to guard the public against its sudden and fatal consequences. While writing this letter, my attention has been AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 5 drawn to a review of the pamphlet in a newspaper, the Edinburgh Patriot, and which appears to be so important and conclusive as to its merits, I cannot refrain transmitting a copy herewith. Upon inquiry from the editor I find that the review comes from the pen of one of the most eminent medical men in Edinburgh, Professor Lizars ; and this is confirmed by a letter, herewith enclosed, from Professor Lizars himself, in reply to a note from me. The reviewer, as will be seen, declares it to be " by far the most valuable little tract that hasyat appeared on the subject, and ?wt only deserves the attention of the public, but, from the many important facts therein stated, will be found very useful to the medical practitioners SECONDLY, THE ABUSES THAT WERE PRACTISED DURING THE CHOLERA MANIA. On this head I would beg leave to draw your attention to pages 33 and 34 of the pamphlet, for a slight glance of some of the general abuses that are well known to have prevailed at the time. I must, however, here distinctly state that facts of a most serious and atrocious nature have come to my knowledge which appear to me to be improper to publish without further investigation. From the inquiries I have been enabled to make at Musselburgh, and which are confirmed by some of the most respectable medical men in Edinburgh, the history of no country in the world, at no period, affords so revolting and disgusting a picture of depravity and inhumanity as the scenes which took place at Musselburgh, Dunbar, and Haddington, during the cholera panic. They are, in short, unparalleled for cruelty, barbarity, and infamy. Through fear gross ignorance, or something worse, all the bonos of civilised life were torn asunder; the sick and dying were treated worse than dogs. 6 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH It can be proved that in hundreds of cases the houses of his Majesty's subjects were, by public authority, gutted of their furniture and goods, which were burnt in the street, stated to be for the benefit of the public, without any indemnification whatever being made for them : that there are very strong grounds for believing that many persons were buried alive : that there are now alive, some of whom I have seen, persons who had been ordered to be buried : that there is strong grounds to believe that in many cases very improper medicines were administered : that it can be proved that in some places the hired medical men, employed and sent by authority, and living at taverns, were generally so drunk as to be unable to attend to their professional duties : that the hired ruffians employed to carry the sick and dying were allowed so much liquor as that they were often so drunk as to let fall and roll the dying patient into the street : that those who were employed to bury the dead have been seen fighting in a cart while sitting upon the coffin of a corpse. I submit, sir, that these are facts of an astounding-nature to have happened under the Reform Government of Lord Grey. I submit, sir, that evidence ought to be taken of these facts, and laid before his Majesty's present Ministers, for them to determine what steps ought to be pursued relative to the past, as well also to prevent a possibility of a repetition hereafter. The inquiry should be made at Musselburgh, Dunbar, Paisley, Edinburgh, Shields, Sunderland, Haddington, and Newcastle. If it is considered desirable, I shall be happy to assist in collecting the facts, or even to take upon myself the whole trouble and responsibility of collecting them, and then of submitting them to his Majesty's Ministers, with such a report as may appear necessary after further inquiry. AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 7 THIRDLY, THE QUARANTINE LAWS. The result of these inquiries I have now suggested will, I am convinced, produce a mass of evidence of so formidable and conclusive a nature, as will for ever set at rest the silly and pernicious doctrine of contagion ; and will afford ample materials to enable his Majesty's Ministers to ameliorate, if not altogether to abolish, the present obnoxious and destructive Quarantine Laws ; for it must be particularly remembered, that by the College of Physicians, the cholera was declared to be far more contagious than any other disease. This is evidenced by the proclamations that were issued, by the rules and regulations established, and by the decrees of the Board of Health, as fully exemplified at page 33 of the pamphlet. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, W. White. It will readily be perceived the vast importance of the subjects submitted in this letter to the consideration of Sir Robert Peel. It will be anticipated that Sir Robert at once took a profound and statesmanlike view of the subject, and answered it accordingly. Let us now see what his reply was :— " Downing-street, January 4, 1835. " Sir,—I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 30th of December, and its enclosures. " I must decline sanctioning such an inquiry as that which you suggest (and of which I do not at present see the advantage), unless it be recommended to me by the proper official authorities. " I am, sir, your most obedient servant, " W. White, Esq." " Robert Peel." This reply of Sir Robert Peel is any thing but what might have been expected from a statesman. The "proper official authorities" from whom Sir Robert Peel requires a " recommendation' before he would 8 MISCONDUCT OK THE BOAllD Ol' HEALTH " sanction an inquiry," the termination of which would do more to promote the welfare of the human race, the prosperity of commerce, and the interests of communities than any other, are the very authors of the evils complained of, the Royal College of Physicians ; who, most pertinaciously, in defiance of experience and reason, support those vile, inhuman, and infamous Quarantine Laws—laws originating in ages of barbarism, the offspring of gross ignorance, and which time, that destroys all things, has not yet been able to rectify. While the nation is busily employed in reforming all other antiquated laws, abuses, and institutions, through the influence of a blind and miserable routine, a matter of such paramount interest to nations is to stand still until such time as that hydra of medical science reforms itself. It will be observed that Sir Robert Peel in his reply confines himself to the simple question of appointing the inquiry recommended. He takes no notice whatsoever of the highly important subject recommended to his attention, " the means of prevention and method of cure for the cholera morbus"—a subject of vital interest to the whole of the human race. The conduct of the British Government on this subject forms a strange contrast with that of the Emperor of the North—the barbarian, the half-civilized savage, as he is sometimes honoured with being called. This uncivilized monarch before the disease reached Russia, advertised in all the papers of Europe a premium of 1100/. for the best treatise on the cholera that might be sent to St. Petersburgs as "no medical work hitherto published on this fatal malady had been found satisfactory ; nor had the suggestions contained in such works succeeded in arresting its devastating course, which, on the contrary, become every day more extensive, and seems to threaten the whole of Europe" What did the British Government do? Why, neglected the testimony and experience of hundreds AND TllK BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 9 of well qualified medical men in the disease, and appointed a board of medical men who knew nothing about it ; and who, instead of anxiously seeking for information upon the important and momentous subject, positively rejecting its other information. The British Government, in the year 1831, promulgated, in the London Gazette, the most dangerous of doctrines, the most pernicious of nostrums, lor the management of this disease, which could possibly be devised. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons fell victims to them in these kingdoms ; and million after million in other nations of Europe. It, therefore, became an imperative duty of the British Government to promulgate to the world the earliest possible acknowledgment of their error ; and, as an atonement for the dreadful evils which they had entailed for years upon life and property, have afforded every information they could possibly give, the result of subsequent experience, to check the disease or to cure it. But no ; they had started with committing a great error, and their pride and vanity would not allow them to acknowledge it. Obdurate to the calls of humanity, or the social and political ties of nations, they allow their error to degenerate into a crime of the deepest hue ; and now stand convicted of having committed an offence against society at large of which they never can receive their due reward. But why should the honour of the British nation, its character for humanity and philanthropy, be thus tarnished ? Is it because, as Dr. Saunders says, " lohat does not emanate from these chieftains (the Central Board of Health), must, if the whole race of men should perish, be circumspectly repressed, or strenuously opposed?" Failing in my endeavours to obtain the consideration of Sir Robert Peel to the important subjects recommended to his consideration, I next applied to his successor Lord Melbourne. I transmitted to his 10 MISCONDUCT Or THE BOARD OF HEALTH Lordship a copy of my letter to Sir Robert Peel, with the pamphlet on cholera, and other statements. His Lordship, on the 28th of April, 1835, was pleased " to offer me his best thanks for the communication, and also the pamphlets that accompanied it." I subsequently again applied to his Lordship on the same subject. But to no avail. I was not then even honoured with a reply to my letter. In the communication to Lord Melbourne, and for which he "offers me his best thanks,'" it was observed :— " The dreadful scenes of mortality which took place at the period when the cholera first reached England, the distress and terror which that awful visitation of Divine Providence occasioned, are fresh in the memory of all, " It now appears by the daily papers, that at this present period, ' in the southern provinces of France,' the cholera is exciting the greatest alarm, and that at Lyons the symptoms are ascribed, as has been the case in other great cities on the approach of an epidemic, to the effect of poison. " This fact clearly shows the necessity there is for the British nation to be at once prepared for the event of its re-appearance ; and which is more than likely, as the disease has again and again re-visited almost every part of the globe where it has hitherto once made its appearance. " We may therefore well ask ourselves, what is there in our physical constitution, our religious and moral habits, or even our boasted local situation, that should induce us vainly to suppose that we are to be more favoured by Divine Providence than our neighbours, or any other nation on earth ? " Considerations such as these impel me to take up my pen, to endeavour to awaken the public to a sense of their danger by slumbering too soundly until the enemy is within the gates. " Some years ago, long before the cholera had AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 11 reached Orenburg, the Russian Consul-General, George Benkliausen, Esq., asked me 'whether 1 thought the disease would visit Europe.' My reply was, ' that from the observations I had made of the progress of the disease, I had not a doubt but it would.' He then animadverted upon 'the barrier the stupendous Steppes presented, and that if infectious or contagious, it could not possibly be conveyed across them.' My answer was, ' / do not believe it to be contagious or infectious, but an invisible and undis-coverable scourge sent by Providence, that will visit all nations."* Two years afterwards, in August, 1829, it broke out suddenly at Orenburg, in the Russian Empire, 1118 miles from Moscow, and 1C00 from St. Petersburgh; an inland city, remote from any of its known abodes at the time, in a temperate climate and season, in a dry, open, cultivated country, and amongst a people who enjoy abundantly all the necessaries of life. In the early part of the year 1830, Mr. Benkhausen informed me that the cholera had broken out at Moscow, and asked ' whether I thought it would reach St. Petersburgh.' I answered "in the affirmative. He then invited me into his cab, to accompany him to his office, as he was desirous of having a long conversation with me. 1 did so. The result of the conversation was, that he expressed himself better satisfied with the views I took, and the opinions I gave, of the means of prevention and method of cure, by the facts advanced to support them, than what he had collected from any work he had seen. Mr. Benkhausen stated that the Russian Government had offered a premium of 1100/., for the best treatise on cholera that might be sent to St. Petersburgh, and invited me to write a treatise for it, * After a good two thousand one hundred and eighty years of research (from the time Hippocrates was born to the present day), by many ingenious and laborious men, there are still such diversities of opinion existing, that scarcely two physicians agree concerning the disease whicli now rages : and upwards of a third of those seized died.—Ainslie. 12 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOAUD OF HEALTH which he kindly engaged to forward. He further observed of the numberless tracts which had, in consequence, been sent in, not one was so satisfactory and conclusive to his mind. " I readily acquiesced in Mr. Benkhauseivs desires of committing to paper my sentiments ; but I renounced the entertaining an idea of the prize. It was accordingly prepared, and Mr. Benkhausen approved of it very much ; but he wished some parts left out. I took it home for this purpose; but unfortunately a sudden and serious fit of illness prevented my accomplishing it before the cholera was rapidly advancing towards St. Petersburgli, and the whole of Europe was threatened with it. " At this period, the first Board of Health being-formed, I transmitted to Sir Henry Hal ford, for the consideration of the Board, the most essential parts of the treatise. Moreover, I personally attended at the College of Physicians, to offer auy explanation they might require, or to illustrate my opinions; and also, if acceptable, to offer my services gratis in any way. I particularly drew their attention to ray ' means of prevention;' but Sir Henry 11 al ford and the Board were neither disposed to entertain my suggestions, or listen to any explanations I could offer ; they very politely bowed me out of the hall of the College of Physicians, thanking me for my good intentions, but observing that ' as I was not a medical mail they could not listen to me.' "The result of the experience of the last four years clearly proves, beyond all manner of doubt, that had my suggestions and advice been attended to, the lives of many thousand human beings would have been saved ; and it also would have prevented almost all the terror, contusion, alarm, and cruelties that took place. " I have a second time endeavoured to awaken the attention of the first Prime Minister of the Crown to the subject, and to prevail upon him to adopt measures for the public welfare, in case of a relapse, that would A KD THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 13 effectually prevent a repetition of the most shameful scenes which took place on the former occasion. But, alas ! I have a second time been unsuccessful. " It would therefore seem that the public welfare is but a secondary consideration in the breast of political rulers, and that the lives of the whole community are, under the most appalling of circumstances, to be left to chance, or what is worse, to the management of persons unqualified and incompetent to the task. Indeed, their conduct has met with just reprehension and condemnation in all parts of the kingdom, but in the very nest in which they were hatched. " I am sorry that I should be placed in so painful a situation as that of complaining against the conduct of two Prime Ministers of the Crown; but when the lives of thousands, and probably tens of thousands, are at stake, there is no alternative but so doing. " It will have been perceived, that at an interval of four years I have twice appealed. If, on the first occasion, the great danger to be apprehended of the disease induced the Minister to a disregard of m v suggestions, surely the second was entitled to a consideration, backed as it was by the subsequent experience and opinions of nearly the whole of the medical profession of the world. "The eleventh hour has come : a new Minister is appointed ; let us see how he will act in the affair which interests the whole of the human race. The road is open to him to do justice to the country, honour to himself, and effectually to serve countless millions of human beings." This appeal to Lord Melbourne was accompanied with an illustration of some of the dreadful abuses which had taken place during the cholera panic, as follows :— PUBLIC AUTHORITIES. " By the Cholera Act, framed by the Central Board of Health, all sorts of persons, whether ill or well, living 14 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH in a house where any person had had the disease, were dragged off to a pest-house, or quarantine station. Respectable females, as well as males, were thus indiscriminately thrown into contact with the very scum of the earth, and located with thieves and prostitutes. The case of one respectable single lady, in particular, enjoying an income of 500/. a-year, has been mentioned to me. She was taken off to the pest-house, in consequence of her servant having had the cholera, and kept a prisoner fourteen days ; her house was gutted of its furniture, which was burnt in the street. Hundreds of people in the middling and lower classes, were served the same trick. " Margaret L-------------, a fisherman's wife, being a little unwell, during her husband's absence from home, was carried off to the hospital. On his return home he was seized by the police, at the threshold of his door, and carried off' to the quarantine station or pest-house. Their two sons, when they landed in their boat, on return from fishing, were also seized and carried off to the pest-house. The father and two sons were in good health and strong powerful men. They were all treated as though they had had the cholera. The woman, in two or three days, died— the sons became frantic—they both died, as also did the father, at the end of the tenth day, with a broken heart. " A medical gentleman in Edinburgh was taken up, cast into prison many days, and fined 10/., for not reporting a patient as having the cholera, who in truth had it not ; and this was done upon the report of some evil-minded person. Such was the rigour with which the quarantine law was carried into effect by the civil authorities. IMPROPER MEDICINES. "J. S------------, a child of three years of age, the doctors declared could not live. They gave for it a small bottle of medicine, of which half a teaspoonful AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 15 in a little water, was to be given every three hours. The doctor stated to the parents the hour the child would die. After the first tea spoonful was given the child continued to get worse, and its stomach swelled enormously. The father was about to give it the second dose, and had put it into a teacup, when, as he sat by the fire stirring it up, he perceived that it got thicker, that it changed into a variety of colours, like paint, and he could hardly stir it. Seeing this he became alarmed, threw it under the grate, and determined to give the babe no more. At the hour named by the doctor that the child would die, the child to all appearance was dead. The parents then wrapped the child up in its cloths, locked the room door, and left it. The father proceeded to the undertaker's for a coffin, and to have the child buried. Being late at night, and the undertakers very busj', the funeral was delayed until the morning. About two o'clock in the morning, while the parents were sitting in an adjoining room bemoaning the loss of their child, they were astonished by hearing the child crying. Upon unlocking the door, they were still more so to find the child sitting up in its bed crying for food. Had the child at an earlier hour been supposed to be dead, or had it. happened in the daytime, there is no doubt but that this child would have been buried alive. I have seen this child ; and the fact was stated to me by the father. [There can be no doubt but what the medicine so given was a solution of arsenic] " Medicines were sent to B D----------, who, after the first dose, would take no more ; he is now alive, but the cat to whom some of it was given, mixed with food, died. BURYING ALIVE. " G. B----------, undertaker at----------, is prepared to prove, upon oath, that he was often compelled, by the public authorities, to put people into their coffins IG MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH before the breath was out of their bodies. In four days he put forty-seven into their coffins. For six weeks, every one who died was treated and buried as though they had died of cholera. They were thrown twenty and thirty into the same grave. He believes that many were buried alive. He particularly instances the case of a remarkable fine young woman, about nineteen years of age, whom he says was "quite warm when put into her coffin, and had beautiful rosy cheeks, and a smile upon her countenance, and looked as though she was in a strong sleep, the effects of opium." The public authorities used to drive this man about the town like a mad dog, with long poles in their hands, to keep him at a distance from them, throwing him the key of rooms and houses where he would find a corpse which he must bury. " There is a middle-aged woman now alive, who was endeavoured to be thrust into a coffin ; it being found too short, they were about to break her legs to get her in, when the undertaker went for another coffin. When the second coffin was brought into the room, she had so far recovered as to be able to tell them to save themselves the trouble, for she was not dead. DRUNKEN MEDICAL MEN. I have been informed, that at a certain town in Scotland, several young medical men had been sent from Edinburgh to assist in the cholera. They lived at a tavern, and were generally drunk from morning to night, so much so as that they were often unable to wait upon the sick and dying, and were always quarrelling as to whose turn it was to attend. They each drank from a bottle to a bottle and a half of brandy a day." This statement of facts to my Lord Melbourne, was accompanied with a declaration, which I repeat, that " this is not the worst that will come out, if a commission of inquiry is established." AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 17 " One case submitted to Lord Melbourne is so horridly depraved that it has been left out, being too disgusting to meet the pubiic eye in this place. At some of the hospitals the dead were robbed, and the fingers of married women had been cut off to get their rings. " Yet all these abominations were carried on at the public expense ! In the first place, immense sums of money were collected by public subscription towards carrying into effect the amelioration of the condition of the poor, and defraying medical expenses. In the second place, those very humane, kind-hearted, and generous people, were subsequently rated, or taxed, for the very same purpose ; and to this hour no account has been given of how the private subscriptions were disposed of, or what were the amount of the sums raised by those means. In like manner the public rates. Now, it must be obvious that this is not exactly the thing, or that it can be expected that the public are satisfied with it. " Surely it is high time that some public investigation took place into the whole of the transactions of the Central Board of Health ; that the public were made acquainted with the sums they have cost them for salaries, expeditions, and the amount paid out of the public purse to the different persons employed under them. There should be a schedule made out of every person so employed, exhibiting who they were, how and where engaged, and at what salary; further, what portion of the Board now remains receiving-pay, and how much. " A return ought also to be made from every parish in the kingdom that has been rated for the cholera, to see what sums were raised, and how they were expended. " As soon as Parliament meets an Act should be passed, calling upon all authorities who have been collecting private contributions to deliver an account of their trusteeship, as it is generally believed that great abuses were committed in some places under c 18 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH that form. This is clue to the public and the cause of chanty and humanity; for, unless it is done, in the event of such another sad calamity, the springs of charity will be frozen, and the innocent victim of affliction, probably, left to pine and die in want through the cupidity of former knaves. " There is, in short, an ample field for inquiry, and which ought to be boldly and fearlessly entered. It matters not whom it may expose, whom it may condemn, or whom it may consign to punishment or everlasting ignomy. It is essential to the ends of justice and good government. It is a work befitting a Government to perform, and will not be neglected by one that knows its duty to the country or the world at large, or has any regard for its character. If the Government decline, why it is for the representatives of the people to do it for themselves." Such was the " comnmriication" to Lord Melbourne, and for which his Lordship begged " to offer me his best thanks." There is, however, one statement in my letter to Sir Robert Peel, which at the present time would be incorrect ; viz., that " the history of no country in the world, at no period, affords so revolting and disgusting a picture of depravity and inhumanity as the scenes which took place at Mussulburgh, Dunbar, and Haddington, during the cholera panic." We find that at Naples, last year (1836), the Neapolitan Government had adapted the same course as the British Government in 1831, of treating the epidemic as contagious and infectious ; and that quarantine or sani-tory laws were enforced to their fullest extent. A correspondent of the Morning Post writes from Naples on the 20th November, 1836 :— " I found the road stopped by soldiers, and began at first to fear I should not succeed in obtaining admittance; but the superior officers very politely took me by another route to the house of the grave-diggers. There I found a large assemblage of official AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 19 personages at supper, and was in a moment placed at a table amongst them, when I partook of some sweet dishes, and drank a glass or two of wine. After this I was conducted to the burial-place, where I found a parcel of people standing round an immense bonfire of coffins, close to the fosse, into which others were engaged in pitching the dead, a duty that was performed with very little ceremony. No religious observance took place, but the sufferers were thrown in pell-mell like dead dogs, some of them in a state of nudity, others partially clothed, and some entirely dressed. Men, women, and children were flung indiscriminately into the same hole. The coffins, with which they kept the large fire, were used first to bring the dead from the carts, standing two or three yards off; but how they were furnished I do not know. "When I arrived, which was about eight o"clock at night, they had just commenced. I remained more than an hour, and only three or four carts load, amounting to, I think, thirty-five or thirty-seven persons, were received during that time. From these carts the grave-diggers dragged the bodies by the heels into the coffins, in which they carried them to, and at once cast them into, the hole. I examined several of the dead very carefully, and found them to be chiefly old people. There was among the number one young girl, of, I should suppose, about fourteen or fifteen. The skin was not discoloured, and the limbs appeared to be perfectly round and healthy. Indeed, she looked as if she had been asleep. There was another (a woman), of about two or three and twenty. This corpse I also touched and examined. The flesh was firm, and of a natural colour. These were the only observations I made during my stay at this interesting but horrible place." This, it must be admitted, is as " horrible, deplorable, and depraved a picture of the effects of the " received opinion" of the doctrine of "pestilential c 2 20 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OK HEALTH contagion" and of " quarantine laws," as could probably be produced. The responsibility of his late lamented Majesty's Government, and her present Majesty's, for all these evils, misery, and affliction, is very great. That they were clearly foreseen and pointed out to Lord Grey and the public, the following letters, which appeared in the Morning Advertiser of July, 1831, will prove :— " TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER. " Sir,—As you have thought the little pamphlet on the cholera morbus, which 1 had the pleasure to send you, worthy of quotation, probably you may do me the further favour of giving insertion to the accompanying letter, addressed by me to my Lord Grey. As no notice has been taken of that letter by his Lordship, will it be going too far if I draw the conclusion that his Majesty's Ministers approve of the Board of Health rejecting the testimony of persons who have had experience in the disease, unless they happen to be medical men. " That such a course should be pursued upon an occasion of so much vital importance appears most extraordinary. It would almost lead one to an uncharitable opinion as to a serious anxiety for the public welfare, and as though the Board of Health, in propagating the doctrine of contagion, had rashly adopted an opinion, of which they were not firmly convinced ; or surely they would most readily entertain a consideration of any means that might he suggested as a preventative, whether it came from a medical man, or not a medical man. The opinion of most practical men is, that it is not contagious ; and I have reason to believe that even his Majesty's Ministers and the Board of Health are at variance upon the question. I do not believe that it is. " If the Board of Health had been composed of medical gentlemen who had had experience in the AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 21 disease, this might have been some sort of an excuse for rejecting my evidence ; but, when it is notoriously known tliat they are not, and that Mr. Russell is the only one who has, and he is absent, such a mode of proceeding must be any thing but satisfactory to the public. Surely if these gentlemen are paid for their labours, the least they can do is with courtesy to receive communications from those who are not. " But there appears to be some mystery in the concoction of the Board. Why were not a portion of them medical gentlemen who have had experience in the disease in India ? Would they not have been infinitely more calculated for the task ? and would their report not have been more satisfactory to the public? Is it possible that the report of Mr. Russell (sent to Riga), let it be what it will, can throw any new light upon the nature of the disease, or afford the Board more information as to its general symptoms, or the measures to be pursued to cure or prevent it? Will the Board, upon his return, be better qualified to lay down rules for the guidance of the public than they are at present? Certainly not. What are they about? What have they done? Is it Mr. Russell's sole opinion that is to guide them? If so, it is a manifest injury to the public at large to trust to the opinion of one man, however numerous or great his qualifications (and Mr. Russell's have been pretty well extolled), when the assistance might be had, and no doubt gratis, ofso many enlightened and able practitioners who have had experience in the disease. This seems strange, passing odd, when the health of the public generally is at stake. "Probably, sir, some member of either House of Parliament may consider it worthy of some inquiry the proceedings of the Board of Health. They appear to have done nothing hitherto that is at all satisfactory to the public. If the disease was unhappily to make its appearance, which God forbid ! what 2$ MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH measures have they recommended to prevent or cure it? "lam, &c. "W. White." "TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL GREY. - "My Lord,—Permit me to solicit your Lordship's attention to the accompanying pamphlet. "Having had considerable experience, during a long residence in India, in the cholera morbus, I addressed a letter to the President of the Board of Health on the subject, and afterwards waited on that Board, by whom I was informed, that, as I was not a medical man, they would not entertain any communications 1 had to make. " I have now most respectfully to inquire of your Lordship, if the Board of Health are fulfilling the intentions of his Majesty's Ministers in rejecting information on the subject. " I have the honour to be, my Lord, " Your most obedient servant, "July 3, 1831." "W. White." "to the editor of the morning advertiser. "Sir,—As you have indulgently inserted my letter to Lord Grey, and appear desirous to afford the columns of your journal for the propagation of information that may be useful to the public on the interesting subject of cholera, I need not apologise for addressing you at the present important crisis. Pray indulge me with having a little discussion with what are called the leading journals, who have excited so much alarm, and afterwards abandoned the question 'to the doctors ; and I have no doubt but that, by incontrovertible facts, I shall succeed in removing some of it. I must say that some of the journals have shown themselves infinitely more active to create alarm than remove it. My little pamphlet has been in their hands these ten days, and although it is the first, and hitherto the only one, which has ventured to lay AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 23 down any rules for the public to regulate their system by, no notice has been taken of it by them. It may have proceeded from my not being a medical man ; but this I protest against, as unfair and illiberal to myself, and impolitic and unjust to the public. "I did not appeal to the medical faculty, or the public, rashly ; or ask them implicitly to imbibe my views, or to follow my suggestions. I merely solicited for an impartial consideration of them. It is to facts and experience I refer them, and to the luminous observations I have quoted of medical men of acknowledged talent. This, surely, cannot be deemed presumptuous, when the medical gentlemen of England, generally, have had no experience in the disease, and therefore cannot be expected to be such good judges of it as those who have, nor can their opinions, in comparison, avail. Let the Indian practitioner refute me if he will ; I have no fear that the English one can. " We know not how soon it may break out in this country. A few years ago no one would have believed that it would ever appear in Russia. It has however now broken out at St. Petersburgh, when they verily believed they were secured from it by quarantine establishments. '* It may not be unsatisfactory, sir, to you, to peruse the following notice taken of the pamphlet on Sunday last by the United Kingdom. I am informed that it comes from the pen of a medical gentleman of the East India Company's Service, who has had very great experience in the disease. It may give confidence to the public. " 'Thislittle pamphlet, although written by a nonprofessional person, is the production of a gentleman who has studied the subject, and with a discerning eye has profited by the dreadful experience which a long residence in India has afforded. Mr. Ainslie's inconsstencies are admirably dissected, and the just pathological views of Mr. Johnson are well brought 24 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH forward. The facts adduced are in favour of the non-contagion doctrine ; and the treatment pursued we know, from professional Indian experience, to be judicious, and founded on sound principles.' " Permit me, after these observations, to submit to your superior consideration the propriety and utility of affording to your numerous readers the opportunity of perusing the accompanying extracts from my pamphlet on the means of prevention. It is those parts which I submitted to the consideration of the Board of Health. Although it has been treated by that learned body with neglect, if not contempt, until they have denied the practicability and utility of the suggestions, have explained their reasons why, and have suggested something better, the public may probably feel grateful to you for any information they can receive, if ever so little, to allay the anxiety now prevailing. That, too, not without a sufficient cause from the conduct of the Board of Health. If the disease was now to break out, in the present divided state of opinion on the part of medical men generally, the most dreadful sacrifices of life might take place. The public would be subjected to all sorts of experiments ; every species of absurd, pernicious, and impudent quackery would be resorted to by the ignorant and needy practitioner, while the difference of opinion amongst the most respectable part of the profession would lead to the most fatal consequences. " Yours, &c. "July 11, 1831." "W. White." Subsequent events unhappily fully verified the correctness of the forebodings contained in those letters. It will be well if my Lord Grey can reconcile it to his conscience that lie has no responsibility to his God, if not to his country, for the deplorable scenes which took place in ] 832, in consequence of his disregard to the admonition given to him. It will be more fortunate if Sir Robert Peel and Lord Melbourne can discover that for the lives AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 25 that have been lost on the Continent since I submitted my humble labours to their attention, no responsibility can attach to them. A Board of Health, as I have before remarked, constituted by the authority of his late Majesty, under such extraordinary circumstances, let their talent have been what it would, ought at least to have possessed the qualities of firmness, consistency, personal industry, and forbearance. But of all those qualifications they were notoriously deficient—forming a strange and irreconcilable contrast with the Medical Boards at Moscow. Ignorant themselves, with the exception of one individual, Mr. Russell, even of the nature of the disease, or the method of cure, a panic seized them. Why the Board was so constituted, when there were so many scores of medical men at hand who had seen and had great experience in the disease, remains lo be explained. The first proclamation of the Board at once proclaimed their incompetency, weakness, and folly. The disease was declared by them to be contagious and infectious. One day they issued a proclamation allowing of the goods to be landed, but not the passengers, who were to undergo quarantine. The next day they issued a second proclamation, allowing of the passengers to land, but prohibiting the goods. Totally at a loss to know themselves what to do, as a means of prevention, they reject without inquiry or consideration as to their probable efficacy, the means which were recommended to them ; and which are now admitted by almost all the medical men in the world to be the only means of prevention, and are certain as measures of cure. They treated with perfect indifference and contempt the opinions of all the more enlightened practitioners in the world, and pin their faith to the sleeve of two contagionists, Doctors Barry and Russell. These gentlemen, to amuse and cajole the public, are sent to Riga to ascertain that which had been decided by far more scientific men, and those who had had great 26 MISCONDUCT OF the board of health experience in the disease ; viz., to identify the disease with that of India. Dr. Walker, at the expense of his Majesty's Government, had travelled from St. Petersburgh to Moscow to ascertain the same point : he had nearly lost his life from the excessive fatigue, &c, of the journey; he had made his report; so had. also Dr. Hammet, from Dantzic. Yet Mr. Barry and Mr. Russell must be sent, as the Board could not be satisfied. They had not been forty-eight hours at St. Petersburgh, when, upon seeing only one case, Mr. Barry says it " afforded to his colleague, Dr. Russell, ample means of satisfying himself as to the identity of the disease." There had been but two cases of cholera; they "saw the survivor of these ttvo cases;" and, as though the horrors had seized them on the 1st of July, 1831, they wrote, "the important object of our mission seems to he already accomplished." No doubt but what the object was a job, a dirty job, a shameful job ; as even the misery and affliction of the human race was rendered subservient to the prodigal squandering of the public money. No man in his senses anticipated any practical good from the mission. I commented at the time upon it in severe terms in the Homing Advertiser. The medical profession themselves have since denounced it. "The result of their mission," says Dr. Bell, " has been generally unsatisfactory to the profession to which those gentlemen belong, and to the public." He might have added, "who were their dupes." Both those gentlemen were very properly honoured with knighthood for their exertions in the cause of science and humanity. Fortius purpose they made a Report, which of course was printed at the public expense, and in which they do not fail highly to compliment each other upon their amazing discriminating powers. For instance, the great Dr. Barry says of the great Dr. Russell, that the moment he saw the ''survivor" (mind, not the dying, or the dead man,) with " astonishing discrimination'' instantly exclaimed, "This is the gkniune disease!" a AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT« 27 phrase, no doubt, borrowed from Gosnell, the perfumer of Regent-street, who is so remarkable for his "genuine bears grease." But Doctors Russell and Barry—Sirs, i—we beg their pardon, were in Russia, and the term was consistent enough. The object of those gentlemen making a report was curious enough. They say that " there were many descriptions of the malady much more ably and accurately drawn up than they could pretend to give ;' yet, in the very teeth of this acknowledgment, and that. they had seen but one person who had evidently recovered, they do so, as " a short account of the symptoms they had witnessed might be useful.'' Good heavens ! what an opinion must those gentlemen have formed of the capacity of their colleagues of the Board of Health, and the anxiety of John Bull for gullibility. Dr. Walker, in his letter to C. Greville, Esq., Clerk of the Privy Council, dated 17th of April, 1831, says, " I had the honour of reporting to you from Moscow, for the information of his Majesty's Honourable Privy Council, my convictions respecting the disease prevailing in this empire, that it was the cholera morbus which had ravaged the territories of the Honourable the East India Company." Dr. Walker's report from Moscow is dated the 17th March. He had then before him the Reports of the Boards of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, on the disease. In it, he says, " from what he saw, and the reports of medical men whom he had consulted, and whose experience was more extensive than his own, he was led to pronounce, without doubt or hesitation, that the disease in question was the true Indian cholera, agreeing in its symptoms, and in the appearance of the body on dissection, with the accounts given in the reports of the Medical Boards of the three Presidencies." The Board of Health, instead of employing their minds with anxious solicitude as to the various causes 28 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH which might derange the functions of the body, and the prominent predisposing causes of the disease, and suggesting the most rational and probable means of fortifying the constitution against the susceptibility of attack, were engaged in deciding that " decayed articles, such as rags, cordage, papers, old clothes, and hangings, should be burnt ;" thinking with Benedicts, who says, that the yellow fever or plague lay in an incubated slate in an old rag for seventeen years. Instead of devising means for the preservation of the human body, their time was taken up with thinking of the danger of the common sewers, and of " cleansing the house from the cellar to the garret.'' They were anxious that all the drains and impure ditches were emptied ; but they forgot to say one word of the necessity of purifying the human body, and disencumbering it of the corroding and destructive excrements and the germs of the disease. In short, they set to work more like scavengers than scientific medical men. It would have been well for mankind had their folly ended here. Terrified and frightened to death themselves, while they were preaching up "common prudence," they became indiscreet beyond measure.— They railed against unnecessary alarms, but declared that the less intercourse man had with man the better. " Avoiding all unnecessary communication with the public out of doors "was one of their "preventive measures;'" and, for this purpose, " all articles of food, or other necessaries for the family" were to " be placed in front of the house, and received by one of the inhabitants, after the person delivering them should have withdrawn." People infected were to be removed to the Cholera Hospital, whether they liked it or not; and, for the sake of humanity they decided, that " the fewer the number of persons employed to attend them the belter !" Those who refused to go to the Cholera Hospital were to have " a conspicuous mark (sick!) placed in front of their house, to warn persons that it was in quarantine ; and when persons with the disease 12 AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 29 had been removed, and the house purified, the word (caution !) was to be substituted ; and the inhabitants of such house were not at liberty to move out to communicate with other persons until the mark should have been removed." While the public were informed that " the two preventives zve re a healthy body, and a cheerful unruffled mind." By way of producing them, the Board ordered a " strong body of police around infected places, so as to utterly exclude the inhabitants from all intercourse." To enforce this, and to preserve a "cheerful mind," it was intimated that "it might become necessary to draw troops around them, if the disease should ever show itself in this country in the terrific way in which it has appeared in various parts of Europe." "Convalescents from the disease, and those who had any communication with them" were to "be kept under observation for a period of not less titan twenty days." The consequences attending those regulations were far more fatal than the spreading of the disease itself; and there is no doubt, as Dr. Kirk says, that it " multiplied tenfold the mortality amongst those attacked." Even the simple step of the Board ordering the cleansing of the drains, &c, was not done until it had been forced upon them by my letters which appeared in the Morning Advertiser. In the letter of the 26th July, 1831,1 observed, " It is said that the disease first makes its appearance in the dirtiest parts of every place. Only then look at the filth of St. Giles's, Wapping, Saffron-hill, and fifty other places, and the obnoxious exhalations from the sewers, disgustingly impregnating the atmosphere, producing a variety of diseases, while the habitations and the bodies of the inmates are overrun with vermin. Look at the stagnant pools around the metropolis, filled with putrid matter, with which the commissioners of the roads, under the pretext of laying the dust, annoy the olfactory powers of every passenger, as well as thereby injure the health of the public. Talk of Russian filth! Can it equal 30 MISCONDUCT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH, &C. this ? Why have not the Board of Health turned their attention to these important points ? Are the savoury exhalations from the royal kitchens of St. James's and Windsor so very seductive in their charms, as to deprive Sir Henry Halford of the power of even recollecting that there were such nuisances existing in London ? Why does not Sir Henry Hal-ford himself look into facts which painfully obtrude themselves upon every one ? Why do not the Board of Health recommend the immediate employment of all the scavengers throughout the metropolis to cleanse the filthy by-ways, and every hole and corner which is favourable to the propagation of the disease ? There is where the danger lies, and not at Windsor or St. James's Palace. It is at Wapping, and such like places, where Sir Henry Halford's company as President of the Board of Health is wanted. Why are not the officers of every parish called upon to attend and see that those nuisances are removed or abated ? As cleanliness is declared to be one of the best preventives, why are not the inhabitants called upon to whitewash their houses with cmick lime—-not the common stuff that is only useful to the eye ? Where the inhabitants are too poor, let it be done at the expense of the parish, or the State." SECTION II. THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. I would now beg leave to refer to a second edition of my treatise on " Cholera Morbus ; the Means of Prevention, and Method of Cure," as transmitted to Sir Robert Peel and Lord Melbourne. In the first place the reader's particular attention is requested to the following quotation of the review of the pamphlet by Professor Lizars, as it appeared in the Edinburgh Patriot newspaper of 27th of December, 1834, and which was transmitted to Sir Robert Peel. "Treatise on Cholera Morbus. By Captain W. White, late of the H.E.I.C.S. Second Edition ; with Preface, Notes, and Addenda.— Strange, London. '"'Our attention has been called to a very interesting Treatise on Cholera. Having read it ourselves with much satisfaction, we think it our duty to recommend its perusal to the public. It is certainly an extremely valuable and important little treatise, and may be considered an extraordinary production, coming as it does from the pen of a military man ; for although he did study medicine in his youth,* his professional duties as a soldier must have withdrawn him at a very early period from prosecuting either pathology or practice of medicine ; he shows, however, that he still retains a knowledge both of pathology and prac- * Under his father, the late W. White, of Bath, D«. Crawford, Bar-low, and Moodie. 32 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION tice, and such as would do credit to many professional medical men. He seems to understand the subject thoroughly, and handles the question, in all its various forms, in a scientific and masterly manner. It is by far the most valuable lit tie tract that has yet appeared upon the subject, and not only deserves the attention of the public, but, from the many important facts therein stated, will be found very useful even to the medical practitioner. "Captain White first published his pamphlet in June 1831, and it is to be lamented that the Central Board of Health should have disregarded the sueges-tions and advice of an individual who had so extensive experience of the disease in India, when it raged so terrifically at Moorshedabad in IS 17 ; as there he was obliged to act the doctor on many occasions, and with what success is demonstrated by several very instructive cases detailed in his pamphlet. The Captain appears to have since read most attentively the various and numerous works which have been published on this fatal disease, for he has given several quotations to illustrate his previous opinions, and to prove his priority of proposing means of prevention, as also some of the most efficient measures of cure. " This treatise may be divided into three heads— the means of prevention and mode of cure—the conduct of the Board of Health, and the necessity of a public inquiry into the abuses stated to have been practised—and the important question of contagion, the folly of it, and the injury which the present quarantine laws inflict upon commerce and human life. It seems unnecessary to us to give any quotations, as the work itself is so short ; but we cannot conclude without recommending it in the strongest manner to our readers, professional and non-professional, that they may satisfy and convince themselves of the important truths therein stated." The following is a copy of the letter of Professor Lizars referred to in nry letter to Sir Robert Peel, SECTION IL THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. I would now beg leave to refer to a second edition of my treatise on " Cholera Morbus ; the Means of Prevention, and Method of Cure," as transmitted to Sir Robert Peel and Lord Melbourne. In the first place the reader's particular attention is requested to the following quotation of the review of the pamphlet by Professor Lizars, as it appeared in the Edinburgh Patriot newspaper of 27th of December, 1834, and which was transmitted to Sir Robert Peel. "treatise on Cholera Morbus. By Captain W. White, late of the H.E.I.C.S. Second Edition ; with Preface, Notes, and Addenda.—•-Strange, London. ¦' Our attention has been called to a very interesting Treatise on Cholera. Having read it ourselves with much satisfaction, we think it our duty to recommend its perusal to the public. It is certainly an extremely valuable and important little treatise, and may be considered an extraordinary production, coming as it does from the pen of a military man ; for although he did study medicine in his youth,* his professional duties as a soldier must have withdrawn him at a very early period from prosecuting either pathology or practice of medicine ; he shows, however, that he still retains a knowledge both of pathology and prac- * Under his father, the late Mr. W. White, Surgeon, of Bath, and Drs. Crawford, Barlow, and Moodie. D 34 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION, AND tice, and such as would do credit to many professional medical men. He seems to understand the subject thoroughly, and handles the question, in all its various forms, in a scientific and masterly manner. It is by far the most valuable little tract that has yet appeared upon the subject, and not only deserves the attention of the public, but, from the many important facts therein stated, will be found very useful even to the medical practitioner. " Captain White first published his pamphlet in June 1831, and it is to be lamented that the Central Board of Health should have disregarded the suggestions and advice of an individual who had so extensive experience of the disease in India, when it raged so terrifically at Moorshedabad in 1S17; as there he was obliged to act the doctor on many occasions, and with what success is demonstrated by several very instructive cases detailed in his pamphlet. The Captain appears to have since read most attentively the various and numerous works which have been published on this fatal disease, for he has given several quotations to illustrate his previous opinions, and to prove his priority of proposing means of prevention, as also some of the most efficient measures of cure. " This treatise may be divided into three heads— the means of prevention and mode of cure—the conduct of the Board of Health, and the necessity of a public inquiry into the abuses stated to have been practised—and the important question of contagion, the folly of it, and the injury which the present quarantine laws inflict upon commerce and human life. It seems unnecessary to us to give any quotations, as the work itself is so short ; but we cannot conclude without recommending it in the strongest manner to our readers, professional and non-professional, that they may satisfy and convince themselves of the important truths therein stated." The following is a copy of the letter of Professor Lizars referred to in my letter to Sir Robert Peel, METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. 35 sicians, Sir Henry Halford, explain the grounds upon which the Board of Health took upon themselves to recommend " bark and capsicum' as a means of prevention of the cholera ; as also to have elucidated their peculiar properties of acting upon the fluids. It has been already stated that the Board of Health declined to listen to my opinions, or to attend to my recommendation, or to hear any thing I could have to say, because I " was not a medical man." The fact is, they did not wish to be informed. I was asked if I "didnot think the disease contagious"!"' To which having replied in the negative was quite enough for the Board of Health. It appears almost incredible, but nevertheless it is a fact, that Sir Henry Halford after observing to me, " You recommend calomel as a means of prevention," asked the extraordinary question, " Did you ever know an instance where a person had taken calomel prevent their having the disease ?" It was evident what the public had to expect from the wisdom of the " sages of the Board of Health" when the President could put a question to me as to fact which could alone be known to the Almighty. Admitting that a man had swallowed the whole of an apothecary's shop, how was it possible for it to be known to him that which could alone be known to the great Creator ? There might have been good and probable cause for supposing that the use of mercury had the properties of preventing the disease, but beyond this human penetration could not divine. I offered to explain the grounds of my forming the opinion ; but no, it could not be listened to, as I "was not a medical man." I should probably have offended Sir Henry Hal ford's ears by explaining that which the Board ought to have been aware of; viz., the vast importance of calomel in purifying the bile, and increasing the action of the liver. They ought to have been aware of the sympathy between the functions of the skin and liver, the liver and the bile, the necessity d 2 36 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND of purifying the blood, as the most trifling causes may derange the whole system in a minute. In short they appear to have been wholly at a loss to know and understand the value of calomel in the disease. " Physiologists," says Deipech (the eminent professor of Montpelier), have long placed the liver at the head of the organs, by which the blood is purified ; as the solar plexus, common to the two ganglia, and which participates in their morbid affection, supplies the liver with the nerves by which it is animated, it cannot appear strange that the functions of this organ should languish, or close. Whether the obstruction of the principles of the bile contained in the blood, by the action of the liver, is the principal influence of that viscus, with reference to the purification of the blood, or whether it contribute to this purpose in any other manner, it is not the less remarkable that the venous blood passes through the region of the liver, without their undergoing any change, that the secretion of the bile ceases ; and that, most commonly, the liver is found destitute of the full injection which constitutes its natural state." In connexion with the subject of the sympathy between the skin and the liver I must here observe, that by the pathological investigations, and able scientific anatomical researches, which took place at Edinburgh by Professor Deipech, Doctor Lowenhayn of Moscow, Doctor Cost of Montpelier, and Professor Lizars, the fact has been clearly established, that the " central part of the ganglionary nerve is the seat of the essential morbid affections of cholera." The enlightened foreigners, however, disavow all claim to a priority of the discovery. They admit that their attention was drawn to it from the opinion expressed by the eminent Dr. Loder, of Moscow. By a singular coincidence Professor Lizars had also entertained and expressed the same opinion. Deipech in his letter to Professor Lizars says, " The result of our -METHOD Ol' CURE l'Oli THE CHOLERA. 37 labours may perhaps contribute to throw some light upon a practical question, the solution of which is of the greatest importance to all Europe." It is here deserving of particular attention that indigestion« is a prevailing complaint with every one wherever cholera is common ; and the greater the degree of the disordered state of the stomach, the more likely is the person to be affected by the epidemic, and the less likely to recover. The Russian Report says, " The principal seat of the disease is the digestive organs." Mr. Bell declares "every symptom of the disease is referable to the secreting functions of the abdominal viscera, and to irritation, consequent on depraved secretions being thrown into the intestinal canal.'' " Its first symptom," says Dr. Kirk, "are gastric irritations; and if in this stage remedies are used to rouse the energy of the bowels, and to stimulate them into such action as to throw off offending causes, the future germ of cholera may frequently disappear, nay, even the efforts of the constitution may work it off, and those dreadful symptoms which characterise cholera asphixia may never appear." " The marks of gastric and intestinal irritation," observes Greenhow, " sometimes show themselves for many days, in diarrhoea, loss of appetite, nausea, pain in the stomach, with quick irritable pulse, and the other slight symptoms of indisposition which have already been noticed. The secretions are not yet suspended, and the diarrhoea is perhaps rather a bilious than of a serous nature; the whole train of symptoms are distinctly referable to the digestive organs." Professor Lizars remarks, that " the atmosphere •is unseasonable, it is warm, damp, and surcharged with the electric fluid ; it hence impairs the whole nervous system, especially the ganglionic system of nerves. The pulmonary plexus is, therefore, unable to endow the lungs with power to oxygenate 38 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND thoroughly the blood — the covdiac plexus to enable the heart to circulate perfectly the blood—the gastric plexus to empower the stomach to digest the food—the hepatic plexus to influence the liver to secrete the bile—and lastly, the renal plexuses to give energy to the kidneys to secrete the urine; the atmosphere stimulates imperfectly the cutaneous nervous filaments and capillary blood vessels. The consequence of this deficiency of nervous energy to these important organs is, that the chylopoietic and assistant chylopoietic viscera become deranged.—¦ "When an individual thus conditioned, with his digestive organs deranged, but much more so with these digestive organs overloaded with indigested food and fœces, which have irritated them, or produced diarrhoea, is exposed to cold, so as to check the cutaneous functions, a twofold disease is produced, a violent colic and fever, or cholera." Now, can it be doubted for a moment that as soon as cholera makes its appearance, every person should adopt measures to place the digestative organs and the body in the most healthy state possible ? " It is clear," says The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, " that it is preceded by a slight, and often imperceptible, but general disorder of the digestive functions, which a very inconsiderable cause suddenly converts into a positive disease, with all the phenomena of the epidemic. Sedulous attention, on the contrary, to every gastric or gastroenteric uneasiness, disarms the epidemic of its power, and appears to render it of little moment whether the disease is communicated from one to another, or not." Of what avail would Sir William Beatty's Preventive Medicine, " Bark and Cayenne" have been to produce such results? Still more so to fortify the constitution against an invisible inodorous, intangible poison, capable of produciug the most METHOD OF CURE FOK THE CHOLERA. 39 malignant effects upon the human constitution ; "but," as Greenhow says, " how produced, or whence proceeding, is more than we are likely to determine in a satisfactory way?" " By early attention," says Fife, " the progress of the disease has been arrested, when there was much reason to believe it might have assumed a severe form." " In its first stages," says Maccalum, " it is easily cureable by proper means, and it is highly important that every publicity should be given with the knowledge of these facts, throughout the whole empire." Let us now inquire what is the result of neglecting to attend to the digestive organs when the atmosphere is pregnated with the noxious vapour producing cholera. The profuse rice, watery or gruelly digestions, which consist- chiefly of the serum of the blood poured out by the mucous exhalents of the intestines: " in proof of this," says Lizars, " the flocculi are fibrinous." " The evacuations," says Kirk, " of advanced cholera, are not the discharges of alvine matters, or the ordinary fluid of the bowels. They are largely composed of the nervous and saline parts of the blood, and consequently produce a destruction of strength, as swift as it is complete." Now to obviate and " prevent''' all this, of what use could Sir William Beatty's " Bark and Cayenne pepper'' be ? " In the premonitory symptoms," says Dr. D. B. White, " I order my patients, when they retire to bed, to take a pill composed of calomel prep. gr. vi. opii cruda gr. i ; to be followed in the morning with a dose of castor oil, with a few drops of laudanum ; or what is probably better, under ordinary circumstances, a powder consisting of pulv. rhei half a drachm, zingib pulv. gr. viii. This simple I may have to repeat, but I never knew it fail." The Doctor adds, " I have prescribed for 40 THE MEANS Ob' PREVENTION AND upwards of a hundred patients labouring under those symptoms above alluded to, which usher in the disease, and although within its limits ten cases of cholera have occurred since my superintendence, all of them so preceded, yet in not one of the above hundred instauces did this disorder supervene; and in only four individuals was my assistance a second time required." What further proof is requisite to convince the inhabitants of the whole world, of the vast and invaluable properties of calomel previous lo and in the course of the disease. But if we wish for an important illustration of the utility of calomel, and consider that it is the only medicine in the world which acts with effect in promoting the circulation of the blood, we have only to refer to the post mortem examinations of cholera subjects. By the Russian Report we find, " the blood was repelled inwards from the surface, especially towards the abdominal cavity. By the excessive secretion of watery fluid from the organs there situated, which is the peculiar effect of this disease, the blood loses its facility of moving, and owing to the superabundance of fibrin, comparatively with its other principles, falls into a state of stagnation. This was sufficiently proved, both by the extraordinary accumulation of black, thick, almost coagulated blood, which was found after death in the internal vessels, and likewise by the quantity of blood drawn from the veins during life, which was thick, black, and obstructed by scarcely any oxygen from the air." Mr. G. H. Bell observes, " the substance of the liver, when cut into, is found gorged with black blood, not coagulated, but thicker than usual. The colour of the bile is generally green, the great veins of the trunk and liver of thick and impure blood, as are the right auricle and ventricle of the heart. The lungs are black, and in appearance almost a fleshy structure, and, when cut into, freely METHOD OF CU UE FOR THE CHOLERA. 41 gives out the same gremous blood." The Russian Report says, " a superabundance of thick black blood occurred in the veins of the stomach and liver. No bile is visible in the small intestines or stomach. The veins of the liver, and sometimes those of the bowels, are gorged with blood. The gall bladder is full of dark bile." " It is," says Professor Lizars, " an acknowledged fact among physiologists, that black blood impedes the action of the heart. The blood thus vitiated is circulated in the brain, spinal chord, and ganglionic system of nerves, and will impair their functions, and re-act particularly on the circulating aud respiratory organs." These facts surely ought to instruct mankind to doctor themselves, without the aid of a physician. " Calomel" says the Russian Report, " is the most effectual remedy against the stagnation of the blood, and particularly its fibrinous part, which having become thicker and less mobile, only stops up the blood vessels." But fully and justly to appreciate the value and vast transcendent talent of the Board of Health, alias the College of Physicians, in their endeavours to counteract all those evils, I must beg to introduce to the particular attention of the reader the following, from the London Gazette of the 20th October, 1831 :— " Advice lo families for the prevention and cure of this dreadful innladt/. " It is important to point out the instant measures which may safely and Uucjiciullj/ be employed where medical aid cannot be procured. All means tending to restore the circulation, and maintain the warmth of the body, should be had recourse to without delay. The patient should be immediately put to bed, wrapped up in hot blankets, and warmth should be maintained by other external applications, such as repeated friction with flannels and camphorated spirits, poultices of mustard and linseed (equal parts) to the 42 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND stomach, particularly where pain and vomiting exists; similar poultices to the feet and legs, to restore their warmth. The returning heat of the body may be promoted by bags containing hot salt, or bran, applied to difterent parts of it. For the same purpose of restoring circulation, white wine whey, with spice, hot brandy and water, or sal volatile, in a dose of a teaspoonfui in hot water, frequently repeated, or from five to twenty drops of some of the essential oils, as peppermint, cloves, or cajeput, in a wine-glass of water, may be administered. With the same view, when the stomach will bear it, warm broth, with .spice, may be employed. In any severe cases, or where medical aid is difficult to be obtained, from twenty to forty drops of laudanum may be given in any of the warm drinks previously recommended. "Henry Halkord, " President of the Board. " This treatment is within the means of every family, all that is required being, that they should provide themselves with the following simple medicines :— " Pint of spirits of wine and camphor. " 1 or 21b. of mustard and linseed powder. " loz. of essential oil of peppermint, cloves, or cajeput. " All of which may be procured for a few shillings. " It is seriously recommended that every person should be prepared with the prescribed remedies, so that nobody shall have to attribute to his want of caution the spread of a malady so terrible and overwhelming." By this it will be perceived, that while the Board of Health were rejecting the simple and invaluable remedy I had suggested, they were enjoining every private family in these kingdoms to convert their house into a sort of an apothecary's shop, to provide themselves with certain nostrums as specifics, many of which were notoriously well known to be worse than useless for the object to be obtained. METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. 43 This proclamation of the Board of Health is a bright illustration of a remark contained in the Report of the College of Physicians to the Privy Council, of date the 15th of November, 1815, wherein they say, " The history of physic presents numerous instances of recorded facts, which, after having obtained credit at certain periods of time, have, by subsequent investigation and inquiry, fallen into disrepute, or have been disproved." This may also now be said of Sir William Beatty's preventative medicine. " Little was to be learnt," says Dr. Kirk, " of the right treatment of the disease in Mussulburgh aud Tranent. The practitioners were in dismay, and knew not what hand to turn to. Their remedies were as various as they were uncertain; and I retired from the scene, when the opprobrium Medicince stared me in the face, and taught me an imperative lesson of how poor a thing our boasted art is when God is against us." Amongst the " remedies so various" and " uncertain," besides those recommended by the Board of Health, were to be found in Mr. Ainslie's work on Cholera, dedicated to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, "two or three drachms of the sub-carbonate of magnesia in a little tepid water ; and so effectual was the remedy, that in few instances," he says, " had he occasion to repeat it ; and by these means he saved the lives of many hundreds." Nay more, the learned Doctor says, " ninety-nine out of a hundred" were ^aved by that nostrum. He also recommends " {ringer '' " calf's ßile,'' " galvanici/.-g," " blistering," " inhalino o.vygen gas* $c. SgC. All of which, if they "come up" must be " tried over and over again/' for this most extraordinary of all reasons, " if they do not prove successful, at all events they can be attended with no bad consequences ! /" Such trash as this comes from the pen of a gentleman who " resided in India for a period of upwards of 44 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND thirty.years," and "after," as be observes, "having read most of the publications on the subject of cholera which had been given to the world.'" Therefore he has the modesty to call it, " elucidating that which seems to have perplexed many ; viz., the best methods of treating the cholera morbus." Immense quantities of cajeput oil, oil of peppermint, &c. &c., were sent to Russia by the advice of Sir Henry Halford. There, as in Asia and England, they proved a total failure. The Russian Report, speaking of calomel, says : " it is the most effectual remedy against the stagnation of the blood, and particularly of its fibrinous part, which, having become thicker and less mobile,*easily stops up the blood vessels. * * All other remedies which have been extolled as specifics against it, such as sulphates, muriates, cajeput oil, and the like, completely disappointed our expectations, and were therefore abandoned." The editors of the Morning Advertiser and the Standard &t once saw the importance of the suggestion of calomel and aloes, and quoted the pamphlet; the former journal most freely. I have since had reason to believe that many thousands in the metropolis were benefitted by it. The exposure which the Board of Health suffered at my hands in the columns of the Morning Advertiser opened the eyes of thousands, and tens of thousands of persons to their danger, and which was thereby happily averted. With a remedy so simple, so easy of access, so cheap, and so ready for administration to all classes of the community, why is it not officially made known to the world in the Gazette! Hundreds of thousands of human beings are annually carried off with cholera, in one quarter of the globe or another. lias it not therefore become an imperative duty on the part of this Government, who on the onset so grossly misled other nations as to " the means of prevention and method of cure," to afford the utmost publicity to any beneficial result of subsequent practical experience ? METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. 45 Or is it to be as Dr. Saunders says, that " what docs not seem to have emanated from those chieftains (the College of Physicians), if the whole race of men should perish, must be circumspectly suppressedor strenuously opposed!" The reply of Sir Robert Peel to my letter, and the neglect with which my " means of prevention and method of ewe" was treated by the Bpard of Health, appears the more extraordinary from the fact (and which I have only within the last few months discovered), that in the year 1823, during the Millbank Penitentiary Fever and Dysentery, the differences of opinion amongst medical men as to the use of calomel in that disease ran so high, that, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, he wrote to Sir Henry Halford, the President of the College of Physicians, to appoint a Committee, to "report" to him " the probable efficacy of that course of medical treatment."1 Doctors Roget and Latham, who had been appointed, under peculiar circumstances, to attend the sick, of that prison, finding the treatment usually recommended in such diseases unavailing, resorted, upon general principles, to the use of mercury ; and the mercury so administered, proved to be an efficient remedy. But considerable differences of opinion respecting the propriety of this mode of treatment prevailed amongst the members of the Faculty, who were examined before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, on the epidemic of that establishment. When before the Select Committee, Dr. Latham was asked— " Have you any observations to make upon what has been said ?" To which Dr. Latham, for himself and Dr. Roget, upon the grounds upon which they had prescribed, replied— " One word only : after the hinting, hesitating, and disapproving, that have proceeded from our learned brethren, for so many days past, we think it but right 46 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND that we should state our unanimous conviction upon this matter ; and the unanimous conviction of my colleague and myself is, that if we had not treated this disease upon general principles, and that if, in particular, we had not pushed that one remedy of mercury to the full extent to which we have pushed it, every one of the individuals who have been effected with dysentery in the Penitentiary would have inevitably perished. We have stated it as the result of our observation, that there are certain dysenteries (and the dysentery of the Penitentiary is one of them), which are as actually controlled by mercury as that disease is certainly controlled by it, for which mercury is a reputed specific ; that the symptoms of this disease will as certainly disappear, or are abated, when the mouth becomes affected, as sores disappear, or amend under the same circumstances ; and this is what we have witnessed, with a very few exceptions, in the Penitentiary. Further I would state, this is no new opinion; for I must be allowed to observe that ice know (if some of the gentlemen who have been examined here do not know) that this remedy has been employed for ten or fifteen years, by the most intelligent medical practitioners in every quarter of the globe, for the cure of this self-same disease. Therefore, when it is hinted that this remedy has never before been employed for such a purpose, we can only say, that if indeed it had never been so employed, we necessarily become entitled to the reputation of great discoveries in physic, to which reputation, however, we resign all claim."—Minutes of Evidence, pp. 141, 142. In consequence of the differences of opinion here alluded to by l)r. Latham, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Sir Robert Peel (then Mr. Peel) wrote the following letter, on the 23d of June, 1823, to Sir Henry Halford, the President of the College of Physicians :— " In consequence of the illness which has long prevailed at the Penitentiary, and the differences of METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. 47 opinion which have been expressed by medical men of considerable eminence with respect to the causes of the disorder, and the nature of the remedies which it is proper to apply, I am induced to request that you will bring the subject under the consideration of the College of Physicians, and that you will have the goodness to move the appointment of a Committee, for the purpose of visiting the Penitentiary, and of reporting to me their opinion of the nature of the disorder which prevails in that establishment, and upon the probable efficacy of the present course of medicinal treatment." The Committee appointed consisted of Sir Henry Halford, President; Doctors Henry Ainslie, Edward Ash, W. G. Maton, Thomas Turner, and Pelham Warren ; and who reported upon the two questions submitted to their investigation as follows :— " From the testimony of the medical officers, compared with the details given uniformly by the patients themselves, of the former stages of the disease prevalent amongst them, that the disorder has been of a dysenteric character. But we have to observe, that the patients are now far advanced towards recovery, and that the several symptoms which distinguish dysentery prevail no longer. Many, however, still continue ill of a milder complaint of the bowels. Upon the second question we report, that the treatment by mercuri/, adopted in this disease, appears to have been very successful." Of this fact Sir Robert Peel could scarcely have been ignorant. The very recollection of the report of the Committee of the College of Physicians surely ought to have convinced Sir Robert Peel of the vast importance of the important facts and truths I had the honour to submit to him to prove the infallibility of calomel in the cholera morbus, the leading feature in which disease is, the most determined and destructive dysentery that has ever appeared in the world. It must also seem most extraordinary that the 48 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND London Board of Health of 1831, with Sir Henry Halford their President, should so far have lost sight of, and repudiated, the use of calomel in cholera, » which was nothing more nor less than a somewhat more determined stage of the same disease, and for the treatment of which when the usual remedies resorted to were "unavailing," " the treatment by mercury" had been very successful! Some discoveries may lay dormant for ages without any positive mischief resulting to mankind from their non-application. But the case is widely different with regard to duly ascertained and positive means for the preservation of the health and the lives of communities. While all the world is progressing, the College of Physicians are standing still. Hence extensive and numerous injuries to many of the best interests of communities daily take place. By maintaining obdurate silence and refusing to promulgate truths, they render themselves morally responsible for all the injury which other nations in consequence sustain. Every day, every hour, wherever cholera prevails, the neglect is productive of an immense sum of sickness, misery, and mortality, all of which would be prevented, if they would only get the better of vulgar prejudices, and assume the attitude of philanthropists and philosophers. Dr. Latham says, "this remedy," calomel, "has been employed for ten or fifteen years, by the most intelligent medical practitioners in every quarter of the globe." From this it would appear, that those who do not use it are any thing but "intelligent medical practitioners" In this we perfectly agree with the heroic Doctor. Dr. Latham, however, does not go sufficiently far back by which we may trace the rate the College of Physicians keep pace with the i"est of the world, in adopting "great discoveries in physic." It appears that Dr. Maclean, in the years 1788 and 1792, METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERAÏ 49 made " a great many experiments to ascertain inductively the value of mercury as a remedy in various diseases in which it had probably never before been employed." In a treatise which he published in 1796 on the subject, after stating the result of his experiments, he says—" From that period (1792) my confidence in the power of mercury, for the cure of all diseases of indirect debility, became so decided, that I determined to apply it in every case in which the ideas of my patients would admit of the practice, even in diarrhœa and dysentery, the diseases in which the theory seemed the most difficult of reconciliation." Dr. Maclean proved in the year 1796 the utility and vast importance of calomel in dysentery. Many of the College of Physicians in 1823 doubted its efficacy. The Board, from the College of Physicians, were at last obliged to admit, that it " had been very successfully adopted in this disease." It is now forty-seven years since it was discovered, thirteen since they admit the successful application ; and to this hour they have not adopted or publicly countenanced it. Indeed it appears that it was only in the year 1832 that the Board of Health began to think seriously of the utility of calomel, or mercury, in the disease, for in their circular of January 1832 of Queries to Medical Practitioners they say, " Note whether any persons under mercurial salivation have been attacked by cholera ! " Surely there must certainly be something extremely wrong in all this ? While the College of Physicians will not openly avow a conviction of their former ignorance, by admitting the value and vast importance of calomel, we find a late fellow of the College of Physicians, Dr. W. Saunders, in his work, " Ob-sei'vations on the Hepatitis of India, and on the prevalent use of mercury in the diseases of that country," positively complaining that it had become " domiciliated even in the nurseries ! " But so completely did the Doctors' disgrace, with £ 50 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND regard to the use of calomel at the Millbank Penitentiary Epidemic, which was " scurvy and dysentery" one of them, Sir William Blane, assumed that " mercury was prejudicial in scurvy ; and he would dismiss a medical officer from the navy who should employ it." So would Dr. Baird, another of the witnesses ; who " had never heard or read of the practice." Now, if they had " never heard or read of the practice" they never could have known the scientific application of mercury in that disease to be followed by failure, or to be absolutely productive of mischief; then, upon what grounds could their priori objections to the practice be maintained ? With what face of brass could they dare venture to dismiss the surgeon, who should successfully use a powerful medicine, the valuable properties of which they were themselves, by their own admission, unhappily ignorant of? " Not only," says Dr. Maclean, " is mercury, in fact, a decidedly efficient remedy in scurvy ; but its use, upon principle, was indicated precisely by the symptoms which would have deterred the school from its employment—the ulceration of the gums." One of the greatest evils to which communities have been exposed, and had to contend against, has been the difference of the opinions of medical men as to the best mode of treatment of epidemic diseases, particularly so of the cholera morbus. This fact is particularly exemplified by the trial by a general court-martial in Port William, Bengal, in 1818, of Mr. Charles Peers, M.D., for the disputes which arose between him and his superior officers. The superior officers insisting on the use of spirits of wine and camphor, or spirits of turpentine, instead of the oil of peppermint ; while Dr. Peers would have it that it was useless, that those upon whom it had been tried had died; while the oil of peppermint had always proved successful. METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. 51 This court-martial, and the proceedings which led to it, are most important, even at this remote period. In the first place, to prove that the public have suffered more from the misconduct of medical men, than from the disease ; secondly, to show that the Board of Health were decidedly wrong in declining to receive information from any persons but medical men ; as they would, in the other case, have obtained knowledge of facts which must Tiave convinced them of the ruinous "advice" they were giving " tofamilies for the prevention and cure of this dreadful malady." " It was," they observe, " important to point out the instant measures which might safely and beneficially be employed"1 for the " means tending to restore the circulation, and maintain the warmth of the body." Accordingly, they recommend, amongst other trash, "frictions withflannels and camphorated spirits." In the letter of Mr. C. Peers to his superior, Mr. Browne, surgeon of the Bengal European regiment, dated "Berhampore Hospital" 29th November, 1817, he says, that " he found patients lying upon bedsteads where they had been for half an hour at least, not only without help, dying as they were, but without their admission being even known, except to those who were in the ward in which they were placed ;" that he " experienced the total impossibility of procuring aid, and what was required for such as were sent to the hospital in a dying state ; " that for want of proper attendance some of the men ;< threw themselves out of the upper window in delirium ; " that he " saw men fomented with their own flannel jackets for want of other ; " that " medicines were put into broken bottles, and half bottles ; " and " there were only two mento attend to the whole hospital, containing about 160 patients ; and these two men had also to supply all the poultices then wanted, great as that number were." E 2 52 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION AND Dr. Peers, in his letter, says: " Without means procurable at the hospital, where they ought always to be ready ; without direction as to what you would wish to be done, I instantly determined upon what I saw indispensable ; and without attending yourself in such a case, or meeting the difficulty, you blamed me for what was unavoidable (using oil of peppermint, instead of camphor liniments), unless I had let the man die unassisted. This, therefore, I beg to say, cannot be passed unnoticed. " At this time, also, another case, of as great, or greater severity, was brought into the hospital in a dooly (palanquin), in which 1 was naturally led to employ the same means which had, to my conviction, so completely succeeded in the former case ; and when you came, at the usual visiting time, and more than an hour after the above-named patient had recovered, you found me employing those means, and, to my surprise, immediately renewed the expressions of disapprobation, in a manner so violent, and in terms which appeared to me so very improper in a public ward, and before a large number of men from other wards, assembled round the patient, attracted by his screams, and endeavouring to hold him during his violent contortions from excess of pain, that I must beg leave to notice them, that they may be retracted in the same public manner. " After you had discanted, at some length, with much apparent violence, on the means which had been employed (though you had avoided directing any other to the contrary), and saw the good effects, by the then quiescent state of the patient, compared with that violence which the surrounding men informed you had required the force of t.ix persons to restrain : you did, before these men, loudly and vehemently reprobate those means, and repeated, that ' camphor lint, or ol. ttrib. would have answered as well,' though you knew what my answer had stated ; and I now METHOD OF CURE FOR THE CHOLERA. 53 repeat, that we had hourly experience of the failure of the former article, and of the latter, there was not (as you also knew) any in the hosr '