Is the cholera spasmodica of India a contagious disease? : the question considered in a letter addressed to Sir Henry Halford, Bart., M.D., President of the Board of Health, &c. &c. &c. / by William Macmichael.

  • Macmichael, William, 1783-1839.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Is the cholera spasmodica of India a contagious disease? : the question considered in a letter addressed to Sir Henry Halford, Bart., M.D., President of the Board of Health, &c. &c. &c. / by William Macmichael. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    means adopted to put a stop to the progress of the disease, the relation cannot fail to be thought inte- resting. ‘ The plague,’ says he_, ‘ was likewise at Eham, (Eyam,) in the Peak of Derbyshire, being brought thither by means of a box sent from London to a tailor in that village, containing some materials relat- ing to his trade. There being several incidents in this latter instance, that will not only serve to establish in particular the precepts I have been giving, in relation to goods, but likewise all the rest of the directions that have been set down for stopping the progress of the plague from one town to another, I shall finish this chapter with a particular relation of what passed in that place. A servant, who opened the aforesaid box, complaining that the goods were damp, was ordered to dry them at the fire ; but in doing it, was seized with the plague, and died : the same misfortune extended itself to all the rest of the family, except the tailor’s wife, who alone survived. From hence the distemper spread about, and destroyed in that village, and the rest of the parish, though a small one, between two and three hundred persons. But notwithstanding this so great violence of the disease, it was restrained from reaching beyond that parish by the care of the rector ; from whose son, and another worthy gentleman, I have the relation. This clergyman advised, that the sick should be removed into huts, or barracks, built upon the common; and procuring by the interest of the then Earl of Devonshire, that the people should be well fur- nished with provisions, he took effectual care that no