The influence of a quantity of greenwood recently taken on board a ship navigating the tropical seas, in producing destructive fever, is shown in the most striking manner by the history of the “Regalia,” and by that of the “Vestal.”[[33]]
[33]. For these cases see the Second Report on Quarantine, pp. 64, 299.
Further evidence will be found in the Medical Department of the Navy to show “that the hold of the ‘Eclair’ was in a pestiferous state;” and Dr King states, that long after the people left the ship in England, and when the engines were removed, mud, some inches deep, was found under the flooring.
“I should scarcely have noticed the above circumstance,” he says, “but for some remarkable occurrences which took place in the same vessel at a subsequent period, which confirmed me in the opinion I had previously formed that the origin and continuance of the fever on board depended solely on local causes.
“The ‘Rosamond,’ formerly the ‘Eclair,’ was commissioned at Woolwich on the 5th of November, 1846, for the Cape of Good Hope station, but none of the former crew rejoined the ship. During the time of fitting out, four cases of typhus fever occurred, and were sent to the hospital, where two of them died, but it is necessary to mention that typhus was prevalent at Woolwich at the time. The steamer left England for the Cape on the 23rd of February, 1847. Three days after sailing, one of the men was affected with slight febrile symptoms, and he continued more or less indisposed for a number of days, but occasionally felt so well that he returned to his work. After the ship entered the tropics, however, the disease began to assume a new and alarming character; and when off the Island of St Nicholas, and almost in sight of Boa Vista, the man died, having had for two days previous black vomit and other characteristic symptoms of Yellow Fever. Within a few days afterwards the ‘Rosamond’ arrived at Ascension, where I was then stationed; and Commander Foot having communicated to Captain Hutton, the superintendent of the island, every particular respecting the illness and death of the seaman, I was ordered, with Dr Sloane, the surgeon of the hospital, to make a report on the case, and at the same time to suggest measures for the benefit of the ship without endangering the health of the people on the island. Having obtained from Dr Slight, surgeon of the ‘Rosamond,’ every information relative to his late patient, we stated our opinion that the disease the man died from was sporadic Yellow Fever. * * * On the following morning I went on board with the view of learning something to enable me to form an opinion as to the sanitary condition of the ship, and for the purpose also of inspecting the sick, as the surgeon informed me he had then a suspicious case, with symptoms of a low kind of fever. I had barely time to take a cursory view of the after parts of the ship, when my attention was called to the patients, who were all mustered in the steerage, and I found the man the doctor had alluded to in such a precarious state that I recommended him to be sent on shore immediately. The only other severe case was that of a supernumary lad, who was taken ill the same morning, but the indications of a low malignant fever were so apparent even at that early stage, as to induce me to express my opinion to the surgeon that he would not probably survive 24 hours. As it was most desirable to prevent a panic among the ship’s company, I went on shore to consult with Captain Hutton, and make arrangements for their reception. * * * The patients themselves attributed their illness to foul air in the forepart of the ship; one of them said he suffered so much from an abominable stench in the boatswain’s storeroom, that he represented the circumstance and obtained permission to cut a hole in the floor, which exposed to view a considerable quantity of soft mud, and five or six buckets full of it mixed with decayed shavings, and emitting an offensive odour, were removed at the time.
“It appears then, that besides an unusual number sleeping in the fore-cockpit, some of them at least had been exposed to a morbific miasma, exhaled from a festering mass of filth in the bottom of that part of the ship. The quantity of mud, no doubt, was small in comparison with what had accumulated when the vessel arrived at Spithead from the coast of Africa, yet the malaria eliminated from that small and circumscribed focus was equally virulent in its operation, and produced the same disease in a few who were placed within the sphere of its influence.”
Such is a brief narrative of the circumstances connected with this ship and her crew.
But it has been alleged that while the landing of the crew of the “Eclair,” at Boa Vista, afforded no benefit to the ship’s company, it inflicted a grievous evil on the inhabitants of the island; that several individuals in contact, or close proximity with the sick, became affected with the same kind of fever; that from these individuals the malady spread to others with whom they came in contact, and from these again to others, as from so many centres of contagion, until the disease became general over the island, thus affording a positive instance of the importation of epidemic disease. The alleged facts on which these representations rest are the following:—
It is stated, that during the occupancy of the Fort by the crew, there was a small Portuguese guard stationed there; that this guard was several times relieved; that at the time when the “Eclair” left the island, the guard consisted of one negro and two European soldiers; that within three days after the sailing of the “Eclair” both Europeans were attacked with fever similar to that from which the crew of the “Eclair” had suffered; that the negro soldier, who, with his comrade—the man sent from Boa Vista to nurse the two Europeans—on returning from the small island to Porto Sal Rey, had been—“as a matter of precaution”—“restricted for [‘about 8’ or] 17 days to the occupation of a small hut at the northern end” of the town, was afterwards attacked,—though not confined to bed until the day following his return to barracks; and that a woman (Anna Gallinha), who lived next door to this hut, was the first person who was attacked with fever in the town. It is further stated that a man (Pathi), who had been a labourer on board the “Eclair,” was also attacked with fever, according to one account, on the day after the “Eclair” sailed; but according to another account, on the third day after that event.
Such are the alleged facts, and the only ones bearing directly on the communication of a specific contagion by the crew of the “Eclair,” collected by Dr M‘William by personal inquiries on the spot; and these, in his opinion, present a chain of evidence sufficient to establish a positive instance of the importation of epidemic disease.