Report of the committee appointed by His Excellency the governor, to inquire into and report upon the probable cause or causes of the recent outbreak of cholera in the island of Mauritius in March 1856.

  • Mauritius
Date:
MDCCCLVII [1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the committee appointed by His Excellency the governor, to inquire into and report upon the probable cause or causes of the recent outbreak of cholera in the island of Mauritius in March 1856. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    The coniposition of the General Board of Health has since been modified. The Health Officer whose presence would be of great utility, if not indis- pensable, is now a member of it; bat the change is, perhaps, not sufficiently radical, and there is room to examine whether it might not be desirable to modify still further the composition and organization of the Board. The Honorable the Colonial Secretary, chairman of the General Board of Health, expressed himself thus : It seems a very natural question put to me as chairman of the General Board of Health what were the reasons which induced the Board to come to the resolution, at the meeting of the 7th of January to the effect that the Hyderee shall be admitted to pratique on the following day.— The fact is, the question of pratique in this case being purely a medical one, I left it to the professional members of the Board to decide. I examined the documents laid before the Board of Health more or less, but this examination also, 1 left in a great measure in the hands of the medical members of the Board. I certainly did form an opinion on the sanitory condition of the Hyderee, but in forming that opinion I was chiefly guided by the opinion of the medical members of the Board. In reply to your question, I have no hesitation in stating that I was struck with the number of deaths and the amount of sickness on board the Hyderee, as being unusually large. The opinion of the medical members of the Board was that there would be no danger in admitting the vessel to pratique, and I beg to observe that, in my opinion, it is absurd to submit such questions of pratique to a Board composed of five members, three of whom are laymen. Being asked whether he had ever an opportunity of expressing officially this opinion, the witness answered : No,—It is only recently v.hen I have feltTuyself placed at the Board of Health with regard to such questions in a most false position, that I have become convinced of the impropriety of submitting such question to a Board so composed. Independently of the opinion of the medical members of the Board, I am guided in some measure in forming my opinion by the documentary *' evidence laid before the Board ; but I should hesitate in differing in opi- nion from the medical members of the Board upon a medical question such as this; and I will even add that whatever might be my own opinion, I would not carry the decision of the Board by my vote in opposition to the opinion of the medical members of it. (App, p, 15.) Such sentiments and scruples are, perhaps, very] laudable; but what can