Quarantine regulations as approved by the National Quarantine and Sanitary Association of the United States, 1860.

  • National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quarantine regulations as approved by the National Quarantine and Sanitary Association of the United States, 1860. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    by the powers of quarantine. Equally vain were the like forces on the continent of America. The cholera rode over all qiiarantint restraints, —bid defiance to all such antiquated harriers. About tins, same period of time. CheRVIN, the great student of yellow lever was battling against the quarantine ordinances of France, as worse tnan useless for the protection of the French frontiers against this disease J and the triumph of cholera over the quarantine which was to keep out yellow fever, was regarded by Chervin as a strong argument in iavoi of his views against quarantine, — for the abrogation of the odious ordinance of 1822. Confidence in quarantine regulations tor the prevention of plague was also forfeited in a great degree by frequent recurrences of that disease in places the most rigidly guarded, whilst other places, exempt from stringent quarantine regulations, were tree from this much-dreaded disease. The conquest of Algeria by the French placed the government ot that country under the necessity of reducing, from time to time, the burdens of quarantine which had been previously imposed, even when the States of Barbary were free from the plague. These reforms, however, were strenuously opposed, particularly by the sanitary authorities of .Marseilles, who had been for a long time accustomed to exercise the most arbitrary powers in this regard; also by the Health authorities of Italy, who went so far as to accuse France of opening the port of Marseilles to the plague. In spite of these oppositions, however, reform steadily advanced. Two Commissions confided to M. de Segur Dupeyron, the Inspector of Quarantine, who, though a contagionist, clearly displayed in his reports the vices and incoherences of the system ; a collection of the pub- li>hed opinions of many men distinguished in science, by M. Aubert- Etoche; the exemption experienced by the French mail-boats; and, finally, the remarkable report of the Academy of Medicine, of Paris, upon the plague and quarantines, — all concurred in the propriety of a complete reform.- On the 18th of August, 1847, a royal ordinance of France declared the first recognition of truths based upon the opinions of medical men, that many of the restrictions of quarantine were unnecessarily burden- some, and therefore abolished. Still other reforms were established by decrees, on the 10th of August, 1849, and on the 10th of Decem- ber, i860. But it was not enough for the eminent sanitarians of France to have accomplished a reform in their own country, and for their own commercial ports; this was only a beginning of the work. They proposed to show that it was to the interest of the commerce of other nations to accept the reforms which they had effected for France. And Dupeyron suggested to the Ministers of Commerce the idea of a Sanitary Congress, formed by delegates from the divers powers having seaports on the Mediterranean. The Government adopted his opinion, hut, on attempting negotiations, failed in accomplishing its intended purpose. In 1850, M. Melier, member of the consulting committee on public hygiene, renewed the proposition of Dupeyron, and with more success. Melier submitted a programme, which was agreed to by all the govern-