The Board of Health and the cholera : a memoir of the saline treatment.

  • MacMillan, James.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Board of Health and the cholera : a memoir of the saline treatment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    assertion, has not only no parallel among the calm proceedings of scientific and learned bodies, but which can scarcely be paralleled for these qualities among the mendacious bulletins of Napoleon himself.* I am referring now to a declaration made by the Board of Health in the month of January * It would seem that the Board of Health's fatuous bias has not been confined to the Cholera ; vide the following extract from the Morning Chronicle of August 8th, 1851, referring to the examina- tion of Dr. Challice, of London, in regard to a case of poisoning from the use of Thames water:—Dr. Challice was requested to wait on the Board, and he had an interview with that body tete-a-tete. It may be here necessary to observe, that, notwithstanding its collective style, the Board of Health consists virtually of a single individual— not, however, unprovided with assistance. After a confidential conversation of considerable length, Dr. Challice took his leave, in the expectation of a summons to give formal evidence on some future occasion. No such invitation ever arrived; but a Blue-book appeared, in which judicious selections from the conversation were printed verbatim, while the remainder was altogether omitted. A short-hand writer had been present without the knowledge of the witness—who, indeed, was not aware that he was giving 'evidence.' If we are not misinformed, the same contrivance has been adopted during still more confidential conversations; but the case to which we refer is sufficient to destroy all faith in the statements authenti- cated by the Board of Health. If extracts from conversations are to be published to the world as evidence, the involuntary witnesses ought to be subjected to some cross-examination, or at least to be allowed the opportunity of correcting their statements. It is to be hoped that no important duties will henceforward be entrusted to a body capable of allowing such proceedings.