The recent diffusion of cholera in Europe.

  • Great Britain. Local Government Board.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The recent diffusion of cholera in Europe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    / / // ^ lie recent OifFusion of Oliolera in Europe. To the President of the Local Government Board cur, 1 BE(^ leav,e tcJ. ^ring under 3r°ur notice the accompanying Report, which I have received from Mr. John Netten Radcliffe, on last year’s diffusion of Asiatic Cholera in parts of Continental Europe; a diffusion which, as you are aware, became dunng the summer so extensive as to excite much alarm in this country and ended ,Ch> ^ present Eme> the consequences cannot be said to have The Report is mainly founded on communications which the Lords of the Council, as administrators of the Quarantine Act and, till recently, of the Diseases Prevention Act, have received from other departments of Her Majesty’s Govern- “enE T1™ regard to the movements of Cholera in foreign countries. In the Medical Department, I have for some years assigned to Mr. Radcliffe the duty of examining all such communications, and noting their results : a duty which he has discharged with much care and learning; and no doubt you will remember, as lounded on this class of communications, and as having been laid before Parliament in the Appendix to my Eighth Annual Report, Mr. Radcliffe’s lucid exposition of the steps of the great Cholera-migration which infected Egypt and Turkey in the middle of 1865 and rapidly led to our own considerable visitation of 1865-66. In Mr. Radcliffe’s present Report the special interest attaches to his important suggestion that a new route is in rapid course of development for the conveyance U K .1? ChoJera \nto Europe; and that probably the Continental infection which attracted public notice here last year, but which seems to have beo-un two years previously, entered Russia in 1869 by this, their comparatively undeveloped, new channel of intercourse. The route to which Mr. Radcliffe refers as one of vastly increased and increasing traffic, is that which, traversing: Trans- caucasia from east to west, and having Tiflis at about its mid-point, brings the Black Sea into free relations with the Caspian and with Northern Persia; a route which within the last few weeks has had a railway opened for its western half and of which the eastern half is in course of having the same accommodation’ provided for it. It must, I fear, be admitted as a reM arM nM inconsiderable danger, that in proportion as movement becomes quicker from Persia and India towards the great market-places and railway-centres of Europe, Europe may be found to have lost one Cholera protectl0ns lt has h,therto enjoyed against frequent incursions of Asiatic If this consideration is highly important to England, evidently it is of still greater and more immediate importance to the more eastward countries of Europe - and those countries if the danger is as estimated, are, of course, most deeply concerned in the object of devising securities against it. Possibly Mr. Radcliffe’s line of study whL T^eeoaatliC^Pated -inu°neL °r more of those countries ; and possibly Russia, hich if Mr. Radcliffe is right, has already so severely suffered through the new c lannel of infection may now be on her guard against future like importations. ■ nee however, nothing to any such effect appears in any of the communications v ich have reached this Department, and since it would, I believe, be of interest to • oreign epidemiologists, observant of the migrations of Cholera, that they should have before them ,n Mr. Radcliffe’s Report, if they do not already otherwise know, e facts which he brings into prominence, I would venture to suggest that the eport might perhaps with advantage be brought under notice of the other Govern- ments concerned in the subject-matter; and I would accordingly propose for your appioval that, with this object, it should be submitted for Earl Granville’s consideration. 1 have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, a/it iti , , . , „ . „ JOHN SIMON. Medical Department of the Privy Council and Local Government Board. June 8, 1872. [417]