The following statement from the Duke deMortemar will be considered probably, very curious, considering that, as already stated, he seems to believe in something like contagion—and for no earthly reason, one may suppose, than from his inability to satisfy himself of the existence of another cause—as if it were not sufficient to prove that in reality the moon is not made of green cheese, but one must prove what it is made of! But, to the quotation—"The conviction now established, that intercourse with sick produces no increase of danger, should henceforth diminish the dread of this calamity (the cholera). It differs from the plague in this, that it does not, by its sole appearance, take away all hope of help, and destroy all the ties of family and affection. Henceforth those attacked will not be abandoned without aid and consolation; and separation or removal to hospital, the source of despair, will no longer increase the danger. The sick may in future be attended without fears for one's self, or for those with whom we live." How delightful is the simplicity of truth! Why, Sir, a morceau like this, and from an honourable man, let him call himself contagionist or what he may, is more precious at this moment than Persian turkois or Grecian gems. Make me an example, men say, of the culprits "who let the cholera morbus into Sunderland," concealed in "susceptible" articles!—yes, and that we may be on a level in other matters, destroy me some half dozen witches, too, as we were wont to do of yore. But let us have more tidings from Russia to comfort the country of our affections in the hour of her affliction, when so much craft and subtlety is on foot to scare her. Dr.Lefevre, physician to our embassy at St.Petersburg, has just given to the public an account of his observations there during the epidemic, from which the following extracts are made:—

"As far as my practice is concerned both in the quarter allotted to me, and also in private houses in different parts of the town, I have no proof whatever that the disease is contagious.

"The first patient I saw was upon the third day of the epidemic, and upon strict inquiry I could not trace the least connexion between the patient, or those who were about her person, with that part of the town where it first appeared—a distance of several versts.

Pt_1
[Pg 51] "As regards the attendants of the sick, in no one instance have I found them affected by the disease, though in many cases they paid the most assiduous attention, watched day and night by the beds of the afflicted, and administered to all their wants.

"I knew four sisters watch anxiously over a fifth severely attacked with cholera, and yet receive no injury from their care.

"In one case I attended a carpenter in a large room, where there were at least thirty men, who all slept on the floor among the shavings; and, though it was a severe and fatal case, no other instance occurred among his companions.

"In private practice, among those in easy circumstances, I have known the wife attend the husband, the husband the wife, parents their children, children their parents, and in fatal cases, where, from long attendance and anxiety of mind, we might conceive the influence of predisposition to operate, in no instance have I found the disease communicated to the attendants."—p.32,33.

"The present disease has borne throughout the character of an epidemic, and when the proofs advanced in proof of its contagion have been minutely examined, they have been generally found incorrect; whereas it is clear and open to every inquirer, that the cholera did not occur in many places which had the greatest intercourse with St.Petersburg at the height of the malady, and that it broke out in many others which have been subjected to the strictest quarantine."—p.34.[16]

Hear all this, Legislators! Boards of Health throughout the country, hear it! Then you will be able to judge how exceedingly frivolous the idle opinions and reports are which you have obtruded so industriously upon your notice.

But one more short quotation from Dr.Lefevre, a gentleman certainly not among the number of those who stand denounced before the professional world as unworthy of belief. He says:—"As for many reports which have been circulated, and which, prim facie, seem to militate against the statement [communication to attendants, &c.]. I have endeavoured to pay the most impartial attention to them; but I have never found, upon thorough investigation, that their correctness could be relied upon: and in many instances I have ascertained them to be designedly false."—Designedly false! Alas! toute Ça on trouve dans l'article Homme; and any body who chooses to investigate, as I have done, the history of epidemics, will find that falsehoods foul have been resorted to—shamelessly resorted to—by persons having a direct interest in maintaining certain views. Enough, then, has been said to put Boards of Health, &c. on their guard against admitting facts for their guidance from any quarter whatever, if the purity of the source be not right well established. There is too much at stake just now to permit of our Pt_1
[Pg 52] yielding with ill-timed complaisance to any authority without observing this very necessary preliminary.

One word, and with all due respect, before closing, on the subject of Dr.James Johnson's "contingent contagion," which, though occurring in some diseases, and extremely feasible in regard to others, will, if he goes over the evidence again, I am sure, be shown not to apply to cholera, which is strictly a disease of places, not persons, and can no more be generated by individuals than ague itself can. I can only say of it, with the philosophic poet, that—

Mr.Searle, an English gentleman, well known for his work on cholera, has just returned from Warsaw, where he had the charge of the principal cholera hospital during the epidemic. The statements of this gentleman respecting contagion, being now published, I am induced from their high interest to give them here:—

"I have only to add my most entire conviction that the disease is not contagious, or, in other words, communicable from one person to another in the ordinary sense of the words—a conviction, which, is founded not only upon the nature of the disease, but also upon observations made with reference to the subject, during a period of no less than fourteen years. Facts, however, being deservedly of more weight than mere opinions, I beg leave to adduce the following, in the hope of relieving the minds of the timid from that groundless alarm, which might otherwise not only interfere with or prevent the proper attendance upon the sick, but becomes itself a pre-disposing or exciting cause of the disease; all parties agreeing that of all the debilitating agencies operating upon the human system, there is no one which tends to render it so peculiarly susceptible of disease, and of cholera in particular, than fear.

"The facts referred to are these:—during two months of the period, that I was physician to the principal hospital at Warsaw, devoted to the reception and treatment of this disease, out of about thirty persons attached to the hospital, the greater number of them were in constant attendance upon the sick, which latter were, to the number of from thirty to sixty, constantly under treatment; there were, therefore, patients in every stage of the disease. Several of these attendants, slept every night in the same apartments with the sick, on the beds which happened to be unoccupied, with all the windows and doors frequently closed. These men, too, were further employed in assisting at the dissection of, and sewing up of, the bodies of such as were examined, which were very numerous; cleansing also the dissecting-room, and burying the dead. And yet, notwithstanding all this, only one, during the period of two months, was attacked by the disease, and this an habitual drunkard, under circumstances, which entirely negative contagion, (supposing it to exist), as he had nothing whatever to do with the persons of the sick, though he occasionally assisted at the interment of the dead. He was merely a subordinate assistant to the apothecary, who occupied a detached building with some of the families of the attendants; Pt_1
[Pg 53] all of whom likewise escaped the disease. This man, I repeat, was the only one attacked, and then under the following circumstances."

Here Mr.S. relates how this man, having been intoxicated for several days—was, as a punishment locked up almost naked in a damp room for two nights, having previously been severely beaten.

From the foregoing facts, and others pretty similar in all parts of the world where this disease has prevailed, we are, I think, fairly called upon to discard all special pleading, and to admit that man's best endeavours have not been able to make it communicable by any manner of means.