Evils of quarantine laws, and non-existence of pestilential contagion : deduced from the phaenomena of the plague of the Levant, the yellow fever of Spain, and the cholera morbus of Asia.

  • Maclean, Charles, active 1788-1824.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evils of quarantine laws, and non-existence of pestilential contagion : deduced from the phaenomena of the plague of the Levant, the yellow fever of Spain, and the cholera morbus of Asia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    66/488 (page 28)
    for the assistance of some 7neinhers of the bench o/' the bar, accustomed to weigh evidence, and investigate facts, or even of such plain men as compose juries, than medical men^ Elements of Med. Logic, p. 183. Yet, with a surprising disregard of the most fami- liar principles of human nature, it is the literary sup- porters of the doctrine of pestilential contagion, the collegiate successors of the very framers of the existing sanitary laws ; the confidential advisers of Govern- ments in matters of quarantine, and the actual snper- intendants of sanitary establishments, who may be considered as the very high priests of the system, that have been usually consulted respecting the efficiency of establishments, in favour of which, from habit, in- terest, or consistency, they have naturally so strong a bias ! When the benevolent Howard applied for in- formation, respecting the cause of plague, to the phy- sicians of the lazarettos in the Levant, he was uncon- sciously laying the foundation of prolonged delusion. It has been observed of the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, that but few physicians embraced it, at the period of its promulgation, who had attained the age of forty years. But, if great political and legisla- tive measures, purporting to be for the preservation of the public health, had hinged upon the question, whether the blood circulates or does not circulate, would not the statesmen and legislators of the days of Harvey have considered it their duty personally to examine it, as a question of fact or science, without attending to the pre-conceptions of medical men ^ By such a proceeding, cotemporary physicians would have been obliged, by a due regard to their own interests