Observations on the Oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress : addressed to the British Association of Science, assembled at Newcastle, in August, 1838 / by John Bowring.

  • Bowring, John, 1792-1872.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the Oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress : addressed to the British Association of Science, assembled at Newcastle, in August, 1838 / by John Bowring. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    imputed to plague, as any person could be, who had never carefully investigated for himself, but followed the orthodox principles of the schools in which he received his education. Circumstances, how- ever, soon occurred to shake this belief, and judging by the analogy of what I knew of the nature of the contagion of other known con- tagious diseases, I was struck with the idea that the contagious nature of this disease must be very grossly exaggerated, and that it was a dereliction of reason to give credence to the absurd and monstrous stories in circulation among the residents in the Levant. One of the first circumstances which struck me was the superstition and ignorance of the most strenuous supporters of the contagion and quarantine system, and who are, with the exception of the English residents, either bigoted Catholics or of the still more bigoted Greek Church. I found it useless to argue with men, whose credulity was so great that they regarded the mere discussion of the question as something approaching to profaneness, and most of whom if told by a priest, that a miracle had been performed, would, without inquiry, have implicitly believed it. The universal answer to every doubt which I ventured to suggest was, that there could be no doubt of the case at all, every body believed it, and every body always had be- lieved it, and it was not very likely that I should be able by any arguments to satisfy them that there could be any doubt of what had been implicitly believed for ages. Persons of this character are to be convinced only by demonstration, but as it is almost a part of their religious faith to believe in the contagion, even this will not always succeed, and therefore instead of uselessly wasting my time in argument and theory, I determined carefully and impartially to investigate the disease as soon as it should appear and to satisfy my- self, if I could not convince the public, of the true nature and character of this scourge of mankind. An opportunity was soon afforded me, of putting my determina- tion in execution by the breaking out of the plague in this city, in the latter part of the year 1834, and its raging epidemically to an extent almost unheard of even in Egypt, during the first five mouths of 1835. 1 have since had ample opportunity of examining the disease as it has occurred sporadically, as no year has ever passed without several cases of plague coming under my observation. In fact, I have seen it in almost all its characters, and have paid diligent attention to the most minute circumstances connected with