On the origin, habits & diffusion of cholera and what may be done to prevent or arrest its progress and to mitigate its ravages / by Sir J. Fayrer.

  • Fayrer, Sir Joseph, 1824-1907.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the origin, habits & diffusion of cholera and what may be done to prevent or arrest its progress and to mitigate its ravages / by Sir J. Fayrer. 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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    Before leaving this subject, it is necessary to refer to outbreaks of cholera on board ship. Cholera has fre- quently broken out in vessels in the harbours of affected ports, but has disappeared soon after the ship has gone to sea. On the other hand, in passenger, eniigrant and troop- ships, it has made and makes its appearance from time to time, within certain periods after leaving the port,—these periods varying from two or three days to as many weeks. But, as the people on board have all been exposed to the influence of cholera before they left, we must assume that cholera was latent in them when they left. In some cases, where the port of embarkation was not affected though the passengers came from a cholera affected district, and the disease spread to the crew, it is to be re- membered, that the ship started from a country in which the epidemic influence was present, though not ostensibly in the port of embarkation. This ship-cholera seems to give some support to the doc- trine of contagion, but the truth most probably will be found to lie in the fact that the individuals attacked were cholerised before they left the country, and that insanitary local causes on board the ship developed that which was dormant in the individuals. Dr. Sutherland, with reference to this subject, writes :— The ship or the men must have been in a cholera locality. The men are the chief agents. They become cholerised, so to speak, and whether the disease lies dormant or shows itself, depends on other conditions being superadded. It would be another thing if cases such as these introduced an epidemic into a perfectly uncholerised country. But this has never happened; the aztra must be there before the ships. We cannot tell yet what cholerisation is. We are seeking to know. But we do know that it is set up indi- genously and without external importation. He adds :—i. A ship lying in an epidemic port may become part of the epidemic port after it has sailed, provided there be men on board who have also been in the locality. 2. A ship sailing on the free open sea may en- counter a travelling epidemic and be struck thereby. This has happened in the Bay of Bengal, in the face of the Monsoon. 3. An epidemic may outstrip a steam ship, as happened at Malta, in 1865. 4. No cholera-struck ship ever landed an epidemic. 5. What is called the incubation period of cholera is not fixed but variable, and may require nothing but change of temperature to develop it.