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[Pg 25] I am by no means prepared to assert, because I cannot possibly know to the contrary, although from the analogy of other disease I do not believe it, that the Cholera Morbus may not become contagious under certain conditions of the atmosphere, but these cannot be made subject to quarantine laws, and I am fully prepared to acknowledge, that as in the case of other epidemics, it may be made contagious through defective police; but independent of these, it possesses other powers and qualities of self-diffusion, which we can neither understand nor controul. Such, however, is not the case with that other phantom of our quarantine laws—the yellow fever—which can never, under any circumstances of atmosphere, without the aid of the last be made a contagious disease. I speak thus decisively from my experience of its character, as one of the survivors of the St. Domingo war, where, in a period of little more than four years, nearly 700 British commissioned officers, and 30,000 men were swept away by its virulence; as also from subsequent experience, after an interval of 20 years, when in the course of time and service, I became principal medical officer of the windward and leeward colonies, and in that capacity, surveyed and reported upon the whole of these transatlantic possessions.
It was my intention, in these times of panic, to designate to my countrymen, in as far as I could, the true essential intrinsic contagions of the British Isles, (for such there are, and terrible ones too,) which prevail under all circumstances of season, atmosphere, and locality, as contradistinguished from the factitious ones, of our own creating, and the imaginary or false which often spread epidemically, (for there may be an epidemic as well as contagious current of disease)[27] although they possess no contagious
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[Pg 26] property whatever; as well as the foreign contagions, which if we relax in due precaution, may, at any time, be introduced amongst us—but the unreasonable length of this letter, for a newspaper communication, warns me to stop.
[27] For as long as men congregate together, and every supposable degree of communication must of necessity be constantly taking place amongst them, to distinguish a spreading epidemic from a contagious disease when it first breaks out, must obviously be a matter of impossibility; and upon this point the contagionists and their antagonists may rail for ever,—the one will see nothing but contagion, whether in the dead or the living body, and the other will refer every fresh case to atmospheric or terrestrial influence, and both with as much apparent reason as they possibly could desire: but the candid impartial investigator, who waits to observe the course of the disease before coming to a conclusion, and refers to the facts furnished in the Cholera Hospitals of Warsaw and the sick quarters of Sunderland, will never be deceived in regard to its real nature, nor propagate the appalling belief that Cholera Morbus can be made a transportable and transmissible contagion.
I have written thus earnestly, because I deeply feel what I have here put down. It is possible I may have made mistakes, but if I have, they are not intentional, and I shall be happy to be corrected, for I do not live at the head quarters of communication, and my broken health prevents my frequenting in person, the field of investigation. In candour I ought to declare, that the establishment of quarantine against this new and hideous pestilence in the first instance, was the most sacred duty of Government, but now that its true character has been made known, and the futility of quarantine restrictions demonstrated, I feel equally bound, as one of the lieges, to enter my humble protest against their continuance.
Should I write again, I shall still adopt the same popular style, for no other can be adapted to a newspaper communication, and the subject-matter is as interesting to the public, and every head of a family, as it can be to the professional reader; and, in thus making use of your columns, as I can have no motive but that of ardent research after truth, I know that I may always rely upon your assistance and co-operation.
WILLIAM FERGUSSON,
Inspector-General of Hospitals.
Windsor, Nov. 26, 1831.