On the infectious origin and propagation of cholera / by Alexander Bryson.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the infectious origin and propagation of cholera / by Alexander Bryson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Medway Union, where he died on the following day. In the course of a day or two afterwards, the man wlio attended him in his illness was seized with the disease, and died of it also. These appear to have been the first cases which occm-red in Chatham; and Mr; Drummond justly observes in his report, that the occurrence of the one case so soon after the other is strong evidence in favour of the infectious theorj'. No other case occurred in the workhouse for nearly a month afterwards, although, on the day following that on which the musician was found by the road-side, the 30th of July, three fatal cases were reported to have occurred in Churcli-lane, adjoining the marine barracks, and others im- mediately followed in other parts of the town. But it did not extend to Brompton nor to the Brompton barracks, which are considerably elevated above the rest of the town. In the latter, there were nearly 4,000 men, who almost entirely escaped, while the marines in a baiTack at the base of the same height, and close to the :\Iedway, suffered severely. It would thus appear, tliat cholera must either be pro- pagated by a specific personal virus; or, if it arise from terrestrial or atmospheric causes, that these are developed in circumscribed spots, and do not pervade the atmosphere generally, nor exist in it, unless in a modified form, for any great length of time. Otherwise, scattered cases would have occurred simultaneously all over the town, but more especially in places immediately to leeward of those in which cases were of daily occurrence. This view of the ques- tion is further strengthened by the following circumstance. Mr. Drummond observes that from this period (the ;50tli of July,) garrison orders were issued, prohibiting any com- munication by the men in the several barracks with either of the towns, and this measure for a time seemed to preserve tliem from the epidemic. A large number of cases were treated in Melville Hospital • but here, as at Plymouth Hospital, although, including patients, nurses, medical officers, and others, there were about three hundred persons within the walls of the establisli- ment, and although tliere was constant and free communi-