On the epidemics of the Bengal and North-West Presidencies / by K. MacKinnon.

Date:
[1854?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the epidemics of the Bengal and North-West Presidencies / by K. MacKinnon. 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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    Cholera, observer appears to me to draw the fair and logical distinc- tion between actual sequences and coincidences and surely the ultimate conclusion of one Avho reasons, so fairly, after great opportunities merits much consideration. & O touches doubtingly on its contagious nature and perhaps he is right. For we no sooner mention the subject than we are abroad in a sea of contradiction. No man can resist the evidence that has been collected pro. but I am decidedly con. “ It most decidedly is not a contagious disease in the com- “ mon acceptation of the word ; the fact of the Artillery get- “ ting it last year after the 70th going to their end of the sta- ff tion, is just one of those facts that a contagonist would very “ ligitimately lay hold of, but do you suppose that there was “ not constant intercourse between those men before the “ latter were moved? Fll be bound to say that there were a men of the 70th every day in the Artillery barracks and “ every night too before the latter Corps was moved, and vice “ versa, such at least has always been the case hitherto and we “ have no reason to suppose it was otherwise at the time we “ speak of, still there is no doubt of the fact and it will rest “ with you to give that fact its due weight, but the facts with- “ in my own experience of its won-contagious nature are too “ sti’ong to admit of my opinion being changed, here are “ one or two of them—In 1848, I had Cholera in the Fu- “ sileers from May till September, during the whole of that “ time I may say the hospital was never free of some cases, “ and at times it was crowded with them as you know. Well, “ my rule was never to have the Cholera ward without one of “ the subordinate Medical establishment in it, they were re- “ lieved every four hours, and so were the ward coolies some- “ times; the whole establishment may have been said to live in “ the wards, the coolies for hours together never left the beds “ of the patients, the Medical Officers did nothing but admi- “ nister to their wants, and yet not one man, European, half “ caste, or Native ever showed the least symptom of Cholera. “ I took most particular care to have them mustered and “ looked at—but there was not in that year even a case of “bowel-complaint among them. Now recollect that I had “ often not less than 100 men thus exposed and all this time “ their fathers, mothers and brothers were dying daily in the “ bazars. I used to give these men leave daily to go to bury f or burn their relations, but not one of them even showed a “ symptom of the disease though they lived in the head- “ quarters of it. In 1849 the result was exactly the same. * v