“The inhabitants in general are firmly persuaded that the fever was imported by the ‘Eclair’ and afterwards spread throughout the island by contagion from one person to another. I have taken considerable pains to trace out and discover the supposed morbid concatenation, but in vain. It becomes, therefore, a duty to express my opinion decidedly, that there is no satisfactory proof of the disease having been propagated by contagion, or from a specific poison which is said to emanate from the bodies of the sick, the dying, or the dead.”
The case of the “Eclair,” as has been already stated, is the one on which the greatest reliance is placed in proof of the importation of epidemic disease.
It is needful to advert to one instance more of alleged importation; namely, the introduction of the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1828 into the Garrison of Gibraltar by the ship “Dygden.” This case has been more rigorously examined than any other, and on that account it exhibits a better specimen than can usually be obtained of the manner in which the evidence for these cases is commonly got up.
The most positive assertions having been made that this epidemic was introduced into Gibraltar by a ship from the Havannah, the “Dygden,” the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir George Murray, appointed a Special Commission to inquire into the facts of the case; consisting of the Judge Advocate, the Colonial or Civil Secretary, the Captain of the Port, and head of the quarantine department, the Town Major, or head of the police, the Principal Medical Officer of the garrison, and a Staff Surgeon. It was the desire of Sir George Murray that the Governor should act as president, on the ground that “as the proposed investigation is merely to ascertain a fact, it may be more properly accomplished by the careful examination of impartial witnesses than by the application of scientific research;” but Sir George Don, “not finding himself equal to the task,” appointed, by desire of the Secretary of State, conveyed in a subsequent despatch, the British Superintendent of Quarantine, Sir William Pym, to preside in his place.
The facts alleged and attempted to be established before the Board with a view to prove that this epidemic was imported by the ship “Dygden” were, that this ship had arrived from the Havannah with Yellow Fever on board; that while in quarantine in the bay, she was visited from the garrison by a family of the name of Fenic, and that the first cases of the epidemic occurred in this family.
The first witness called to prove this alleged visit to the ship was a woman of the name of Villalunga, who stated that she lived in the yard of Fenic’s house; that Fenic was a cigar-maker, that she assisted him in making cigars, that she heard the boy (Fenic’s son) say that he, his sister, and his father had been on board the ship in the bay on Sunday, the day before the boy was taken ill, and that the boy told her that they had been on board “to eat, drink, and make merry,” and “that his father had sold tobacco on board the ship.”
The next witness brought forward was a child Caffiero, 11 years old, who stated that he was in the habit of playing with the two Fenics: that he lived very near them; that he played with them every day before their death, and that he saw them every day when they were sick in bed.
On these statements the Judge Advocate, Mr Howell, observes:—
“The only evidence which up to this period (April 10th) had been given to connect the illness in Fenic’s family with a visit on ship-board, is the hearsay tale told by Villalunga, nor did she give to Fenic and his two children any companion in their alleged Sunday excursion.” * *