Quarantine and the plague : being a summary of the report on these subjects recently addressed to the Royal Academy of Medicine in France, with introductory observations, extracts from Parliamentary correspondence, and notes / by Gavin Milroy.

  • Milroy, Gavin, 1805-1886.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quarantine and the plague : being a summary of the report on these subjects recently addressed to the Royal Academy of Medicine in France, with introductory observations, extracts from Parliamentary correspondence, and notes / by Gavin Milroy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    To recognise the settlement of these points to be a necessary preliminary to any satisfactory adjustment of the question of Quarantine, is obviously to take for granted that the disease, to which they refer, is one that is trans- missible not only by persons, but also by goods, under all circumstances and at all times ; a position that few unprejudiced men in the present day are likely to maintain. As a matter of course, the British and French governments, unable to act independently, were obliged to give in to the lagging policy of the Empire ; Prince Metternich having intimated that six * months at least would be required to obtain the information which he deemed necessary. But neither France nor England has meanwhile been idle in the good cause of Quarantine reform, resolved that all just or alleged causes of delay should be removed as promptly as possible. The former summoned her enlightened Institute to her aid, and the latter dis- patched Sir William Pym to visit all the lazarettos and quarantine estab- lishments in the Mediterranean. It is to the important information derived from these two quarters that we now solicit our reader’s most serious attention. In August 1844, the Royal Academy of Medicine in France appointed a Commission to examine all the varied questions connected wdth the Plague and with Quarantines. This Commission was composed of the following members—men, we may remark, of the highest professional and scientific attainments—MM. Adelon, Begin, Dubois (d’Amiens), Dupuy, Ferrus, Londe, Melier, Pariset, Poiseuille, Prus, and Royer-Collard. M. Ferrus was named the president, and M. Prus the secretary and reporter. The Commissioners were engaged in their deliberations for upwards of twelve months, and had every facility granted them by the French government, to render their enquiry as complete and as accurate as possible. At length, the report was drawn up and read at the sittings of the Academy, on the 5th, 10th, 17th, and 24th of March and the 5th of May of the present year. It is certainly a very elaborate and instructive work, replete with most valuable facts and data, which cannot fail to be truly acceptable to every enquirer upon the great questions under consideration, whether he admits the soundness of the conclusions adopted by the majority of the Commis- sion or not. Although the Plague has so often ravaged the World and there has been no lack, as a matter of course, of books and memoirs published at different times upon the subject, it must be confessed that the number of instructive and really accurate narratives of well-observed facts is by no means very considerable. The epidemics, of which we have the most trustworthy histories, are the following:—that of Nimeguen in 1535, described by Diemerbrock; that of London in 1665, described by Sydenham and Hodges; that of Marseilles in 1720, by Chicoyneau, Verney, Deidier and Bertrand ; that of Transylvania in 1755, by Chenot; that of Moscow in 1771, by Mertens, Orrceus, and Samoilowitz; and those of Egypt in 1798, 1799 and 1800, which have been so well described in the writings of Desgenettes, Larrey, Pugnet, and Louis Frank. But, however valuable the records of the epidemics now mentioned may be, it must be admitted by all who have attentively studied the history of the plague, that it is only within the last ten or twelve years (as