Questions of the Board of health in relation to malignant cholera, with the answers of the Special medical council : together with a Report upon the causes of the cessation of cholera at Bellevue.

  • New York (N.Y.). Board of Health.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Questions of the Board of health in relation to malignant cholera, with the answers of the Special medical council : together with a Report upon the causes of the cessation of cholera at Bellevue. 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.

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    The Special Medical Council, to whom was referred the communication of your honorable Board, proposing certain queries, to which an answer was requested, beg leave to report the following answers :— QUESTION 1. Whether the Malignant Cholera, as it now exists in the city of New- York, can be prevented by sanitary or Qvarantine regulations ? From the limited period during which we have had an op- portunity of acquiring from our own observation, a knowledge of the laws which govern the Malignant Cholera, we are reluctant to express an opinion upon this subject. But inasmuch as that duty is enjoined upon us, we beg leave to say, that many statements, apparently entitled to credit, have been made, which go to show that the disease is transmissible from one place to another, by persons affected with it. Until these facts can be thoroughly investigated, the Council are unwilling to put forth an opinion which would be at variance with the great weight of medical authority on the subject; at the same time, we feel bound to declare our conviction, that no Quarantine regulations, hitherto em- ployed or known to us, have been, or, we fear, are likely to be effectual in excluding the Malignant Cholera, from any populous town or village on this continent. QUESTION II. When it comes, what are the best means to mitigate its malignancy ? On the part of the authorities, the strictest attention should be given to the removal of all the common causes of disease; all local sources of impure exhalations, such as privies, sinks, sewers, pools of water, should be cleansed; the dwellings of the poor should be thoroughly cleansed and