An inquiry into the propagation of contagious poisons, by the atmosphere

by Somerville Scott Alison

He swallows his spare repast and falls asleep at his fireside, but having no change of clothes, and those which he has on being wet with perspiration or with rain, are allowed to dry upon him. In the mean time the heat of the fire proves sufficient to create a steam on the side next it, and the house of course being open to the wind, currents of air, chillingly cold, pervade the apartment, and strike upon that side of the poor inmate which is most remote from the fire, and thus he of a thousand misfortunes and privations is actually steamed on one side, and perished with cold on the other. Persons placed in such a situation can scarcely, for any length of time, escape disease, and it is consonant with my knowledge to say, that the condition of a great proportion of the labouring classes is not one tittle better. Fever and many other diseases will continue to assail our labouring population as long as their food is insufficient, as long as they are barely covered during the inclement season, and as long as their habitations scarcely own a roof or a door, as long as the wind and rain enter at a thousand crevices; and while the cheerful and salubrious light of heaven is denied admittance by the old hats, bunches of straw, and rubbish which so frequently, in the absence of glass, fill up the space originally intended for a window. Yes, so long as every energy is exerted, and every moment that can be cheated from rest, to obtain that wherewith a supply of the necessaries of life may be procured, and when every other consideration sinks and gives way to the more pressing wants of nature, will disease prevail.

Such is the destitution among many of the labouring class, and the vast amount of disease which prevails among them, is the necessary consequence.

The following facts illustrate well the influence which scanty food, insufficient clothing, and the privations attendant upon poverty, exert in the production of disease.

During the last three months (10th February 1839), the fishermen and potters living in Prestonpans, have been in a very destitute condition, the former, partly from the very boisterous weather which has prevented their going regularly to sea, and the latter from the closure of the potteries at which they were employed. During that time, these two classes of people have been suffering much from fever, about ten of their number having died in that short period; while the people, amounting to 750, including children, connected with Prestongrange colliery, who are well employed, well paid, and well fed, though inhabiting the same locality, and the houses stretching from Prestonpans to Musselburgh Links, have been almost entirely free of that disease, fever having affected two of those families only, in the course of the same time; and while fever is still prevailing extensively among the potters and fishermen, the people connected with the colliery have been entirely free of that disease since about the 7th of last December. On these facts I am well informed, being the medical attendant of the colliery.

Let us mark the operation of the same or similar circumstances upon soldiers; the consequences of exposure to cold, to the inclemency of the weather, of the want of sufficient clothing, and of habitations, among young and robust men, employed in the most active and spirit stirring occupations, connected with the most kindling and heart-rousing anticipations, and flushed with the glory and honour of victory.

Let the case be that of Napoleon’s Grand Army in Russia, perhaps the most remarkable recorded in human history, and that, perhaps, will equal any that will yet mark the future career of man, in the total discomfiture, in the unspeakable sufferings, in the awful destruction of human life, and, in short, in the triumph of nature over humanity, which, from beginning to end, attended the disastrous retreat of that mighty congregation of France’s bravest sons.

Let the case be that of the retreat of the Grand Army from Moscow, which, alas, was one horrid series of unprecedented disasters, of wreck upon wreck, whose course was one prolonged deathbed—one white, one snow-white shroud—one extended grave, which barely spared enough to convey the fatal tidings, and which received heroes by thousands, valour and all that is ennobling in the mass, which monuments can never note,—and broken hearts and broken ties, those of husband, of father, and of comrade, for which tears have flowed, but which tears can never bind again.

“At every step he (the Emperor) saw his soldiers, stricken by cold, extenuated by hunger and fatigue, falling half dead into the hands of the Russian cavalry.

“Around these (their bivouacs) hunger and cold rivetted those wretched sufferers. It was impossible to tear them away.

“Above sixty thousand men well clothed, well fed, and completely armed, attacked eighteen thousand half naked, ill armed, famished men, encumbered by more than fifty thousand stragglers, sick and wounded. For two days the cold and misery were so intense that the old guard lost a third, and the young guard one-half of their effective men.