But at this point the presumed chain of evidence stops; the chain is suddenly snapped; there is no further link traceable; there is nothing really connecting the illness of Gallinha with the next cases, or with the general spread of the disease which rapidly followed, and we need hardly state, that in order to prove the spread of a pestilence by contagion, communication, either direct or indirect, must be proved to have existed between all the persons attacked.[[34]]
[34]. The widow of the next victim (Affonso) denied his having had communication with Gallinha; and Dr Almeida “found about 20 people sick” in Porto Sal Rey only three or four days after Gallinha’s death. It is evidently more rational to ascribe these numerous attacks to epidemic influence, which it is admitted was now present, than to contact with this woman, for the fact of which there is in truth not a shadow of evidence.
For the only other case of fever that is stated to have occurred shortly after the sailing of the “Eclair,” namely, that of the labourer (Pathi) who had been employed on board the ship, will scarcely be considered as affording an additional link; since admitting that this man contracted his fever while employed on board the “Eclair,” his case would be merely one of infection from going on board a foul ship, a generally recognized cause of fever:—
“Whenever,” says Dr Stewart, “fever has prevailed much in ships on the West India and African stations, strangers going on board of those ships have been particularly liable to its attack; but on sending fever cases from those ships to the hospitals and private houses on shore, it has not been found that the disease extended from them.”
But as in the locality of the dwelling of Gallinha, so in the district in which this man lived, there were local causes abundantly sufficient to account for the endemic origin of his disease. He resided in Rabil, one of the hamlets in the neighbourhood of Moradinha, at some distance from Porto Sal Rey. Of this locality Dr King says:—
“If there is one spot more than another in the whole island where, from its physical peculiarities, endemic fever might be expected to begin first, and end last, that locality is Moradinha, and the villages in its vicinity, in one of which Pathi resided.”
It may be observed further, that whatever may have been the cause of this man’s fever, it is admitted, that for three weeks at least it was communicated to no one else in the house at Moradinha, where he was attacked, and remained for eight days, and not to any one else in that neighbourhood for 11 weeks; that his illness was extremely slight, and that on his return to his own house no disease broke out for some time in his family. According to Dr M‘William, the first member of his family that was attacked was one of his children, who was taken ill “on the tenth or eleventh day” after his return, the illness of this child being gradually followed by that of two other children. But Dr King affirms that these children were not taken ill until “about a month” after their father’s return, and that it was not until the succeeding month (the middle of November) that his wife was seized, “when the disease was general throughout the island.” It is also particularly to be observed, that a child in another family at Rabil, having no communication with the family of Pathi, died about the same time as Pathi’s first child, and that the disease broke out at least as early at Rabil as at Porto Sal Rey.
Lastly, it may be urged in opposition to the opinion that the contagion was communicated by the crew of the “Eclair,” that the small island on which the sick were landed and to which they were confined was a mile distant from the town of Porto Sal Rey, and that on reference to the map attached to Dr M‘William’s report, it is obvious that the North-east trade wind must (according to the theory of Sir William Pym, as applied to the Neutral Ground at Gibraltar in 1828) have dispersed the contagion if in existence, or carried it in a contrary direction from Porto Sal Rey.
For a more minute examination of the cases of the guards at the Fort, and of Pathi and others, as presented by Dr M‘William, we refer to the Note of Dr Browne, Appendix No. III. (p. 306),[[35]] who has there shown the real value of these cases, considered as links forming a chain of circumstantial evidence.