The cholera not to be arrested by quarantine: a brief historical sketch of the great epidemic of 1817, and its invasions of Europe in 1831-2 and 1847: with practical remarks on the treatment, preventive and curative, of the disease / [Gavin Milroy].

  • Milroy, Gavin, 1805-1886.
Date:
1847
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cholera not to be arrested by quarantine: a brief historical sketch of the great epidemic of 1817, and its invasions of Europe in 1831-2 and 1847: with practical remarks on the treatment, preventive and curative, of the disease / [Gavin Milroy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    occasions-—but even the development and spread of malignant fevers and other communicable diseases might be prevented. Now, this is a great and dangerous mis-statement, and one there- fore against which the unprofessional reader, more especially, requires to be put upon his guard. There is no necessary con¬ nexion between the existence of the most offensive stench and the presence of febrific miasmata; and the one nuisance may be most satisfactorily extinguished, while the other remains little, if at all, abated. Indeed, the very possession of an efficient stench- destroying agent may not unfrequently lead, in certain circum¬ stances, to the very serious evil of getting rid of a temporary nuisance, while the removal of the radical mischief is wilfully overlooked or neglected. The only genuine disinfectant is, after this main point has been attended to, an abundant supply of fresh water and of pure air. In a sanitary point of view, as respects the diffusion of pestilential diseases, frequent ablution and free ventilation are worth all the chemical preparations in the world. A proposal has at times been made to employ fumigations of Chlorine, and other active gases, with the view of destroying the aerial miasm on which a disease like Epidemic Cholera is supposed to depend; and some fond writers have even gone so far as to promise the arrest, nay even the extinguishment, of the pesti¬ lence in this way. This suggestion would scarcely deserve a com¬ ment, were it not that, unfortunately, great publicity was given to a recommendation of it, by a chemist of eminence, a month or two ago.* Could we, indeed, localize and confine the atmospheric poison to a spot, and subject it to the action of an acrid fumi¬ gation, it is not at all improbable that we might succeed in the philanthropic attempt to destroy it; but, until this problem be solved, it would be in vain, I fear, to trust to the fanciful ex¬ periment. The only use that such means as acrimonious chemical vapours are likely to have, is to necessitate a free perflation of fresh air wherever they are employed ; and then perhaps the ancient expedient of burning green wood, and similar materials, might answer nearly as well. The consideration of the above matters leads us, by a natural * The f‘ Times’* newspaper for October 12th,