Letters on the cholera morbus; containing ample evidence that this disease, under whatever name known, cannot be transmitted from the persons of those labouring under it to other individuals, by contact / By a professional man of thirty years' experience, in various parts of the world [i.e. J. Gillkrest].

  • Gillkrest, J. (James), -1853
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters on the cholera morbus; containing ample evidence that this disease, under whatever name known, cannot be transmitted from the persons of those labouring under it to other individuals, by contact / By a professional man of thirty years' experience, in various parts of the world [i.e. J. Gillkrest]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    judiciously point at the application of dry heat, not baths, which always greatly distress the patient, and, indeed, have sometimes been observed (that is, where the coldness and debility are very great) to accelerate a fatal issue. Of all the arrangements to which a humane public can direct their attention, there is nothing so essential as warmth. I would, there¬ fore, humbly beg to suggest, that funds for the purpose of purchasing coals for gratuitous issue to the poor should be at once established in all directions. Too much, I think, has been said about ventilation and washing, and too little about this. November 10th. LETTER VIII. Already has the problem of the contagious or non-contagious nature of this disease been solved upon our own land; and as sophistry can no longer erect impediments to the due distribution of the resources of this pre-eminently humane nation, it is to be hoped that not an hour will be lost in shaping the arrangements accordingly. What now becomes of the doctrine of a poison, piercing and rapid as the sun’s rays, emanating from the bodies of the sick—-nay, from the bodies of those who are not sick, but who have been near them or near their houses? In the occurrences at Newcastle and Sunderland, how has the fifty times refuted doctrine of the disease spreading from a point in two ways, or in one way, tallied with the facts ? We were desired to believe that in India, Persia, &c., the contagion travelledas the expression is, very slow, because this entity of men’s brains was obliged to wend its way with the march of a regiment, or with the slow caravan: now, however, when fifty facilities for the most rapid conveyance have been afforded every hour since its first appearance, it will not put itself one bit out of its usual course. And then what dangers to the attendants on the sick to the members of the same family-—to the washerwomen—to the clergy¬ men—to the buriers of the dead—even to those who passed the door of the poor sufferer ! Well, what of all this has occurred ? Why it has occurred that this doctrine, supported by many who were honest, but had not duly examined alleged facts, and by others, I regret to say, whose interests guided their statements—that the absurdity of this doctrine has now been displayed in the broad light of day. Make allowance (even in this year of great notoriety for susceptibility to cholera in the people at large in this country) for insusceptibility on the part of numbers who came into contact at Sunderland and Newcastle, with the persons of cholera patients, with their beds, their furniture, their clothes, &c., yet, if there had ever been the slightest foundation for the assertions of the contagionists, what numbers ought to have been contaminated, in all directions over the face of the country, even within the first few days, considering the wonderful degree of intercourse kept up between all parts. But we find that, as in Austria and Prussia, “ la maladie de la terre” is not disposed here to accommodate itself to