Observations on the oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress, addressed to the British Association of Science ... 1838 / [Sir John Bowring].

  • Bowring, John, 1792-1872
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress, addressed to the British Association of Science ... 1838 / [Sir John Bowring]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    receive salaries as officers of the Boards of Health, and are connected directly or indirectly with quarantine establish¬ ments. It is not in human nature that they should be free from “ interest-begotten prejudices.” Gain attaches to the promulgation of certain opinions, and interest insensibly corrodes the clearness of truth. I do not mean to speak reproachfully, or disparagingly of the medical men of the East; I only represent them as subject to the same in¬ fluences which act—often imperceptibly act—upon all men in all places. My experience has led me to distrust much of the evidence emanating from boards of health ; I have found suppression of facts to a lamentable extent on the one side, and exaggerations of facts to an extent almost equally lamentable on the other. The Boards of Health are armed with almost unbounded authority; that uncon¬ trolled power which individuals or bodies of men are seldom willing to surrender. They dispose of considerable funds for the payment of their own supposed services, and the services of subordinates; and it is only to be expected that their testimony should represent those services as im¬ portant ; opinion thus liberally recompensing them, has at the same time been disposed to regard them as bene¬ factors, incurring great risk for the benefit of their race, and their establishments as public blessings. It is natural, therefore, that little testimony should be expected from them, which should lower their authority, diminish their receipts, or throw doubts on the value of their services. The supporters of the contagion doctrines, and of the utility of quarantines, have, at starting, to grapple with one astounding fact,—namely, that among the Mahomedan popu¬ lation of the East—with the very rarest exceptions, and if there be such exceptions, they may be invariably traced to intercourse with, and respect for, the opinions of Europeans —that among the Mussulman population—among whom the plague commits its greatest ravages—who see it—who treat it perpetually—nobody believes in its contagious character. And indeed, deplorable would be the consequences if the fear of