"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.
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[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]
[16] It is remarkable enough that Aretæus, who lived, according to some authors, in the first century, gives exactly the same reason which Dr. Lefevre does for the suppression of urine in cholera. So true it is, that that symptom, considered as one of the characteristics of the Indian cholera, was observed in ancient times.
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, primâ 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
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[Pg 52] yielding with ill-timed complaisance to any authority without observing this very necessary preliminary.