Transcribed from the [1831] Rowell and Son edition by David Price. Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.
ADDRESS
TO THE
INHABITANTS OF RUGBY
ABOUT THE
CHOLERA MORBUS.
Friends and Fellow Townsmen,
A Meeting of the Inhabitants of this town has been called to consider the best means of saving us from the attacks of the Cholera Morbus, which has overrun so many parts of Europe. You will be likely to hear a great deal about this disorder, and you will naturally be anxious to learn about it. The following is the best account of it that I have been able to collect, and I give it you, without either making more or less of it than the truth will warrant.
CHOLERA MORBUS means in English “a disease of the bile.” Those common bowel complaints which occur every Autumn are instances of Cholera; the bile is out of order, and the natural action of the bowels becomes disordered. But the Cholera which has been so much talked of on the Continent of Europe is called Spasmodic Cholera, that is “a disease of the bile attended with spasms or cramps.” To say the truth however, it does not appear that Cholera is a very proper name for it; for it seems much more a disease of the blood than of the bile. It is by no means always accompanied with disorder in the bowels, but it is as if a man’s life blood were suddenly poisoned; as if it were choked up so that it could not flow freely, and therefore there is a great feeling of weight and pressure about the heart and chest. The powers of life seem palsied, the legs and belly become cold and cramped, and the pulse so weak that you can scarcely feel it. A man dies of the disorder keeping his senses to the last generally within twenty-four hours, unless you can succeed in restoring the natural action of the blood, and so relieving him from the cramps, and chills, and oppression under which he had laboured.
This is a new disorder in this part of the world, and one asks naturally how and where it first broke out. It was first observed at a place called Jessore in India, about a hundred miles north east of Calcutta. This was in August, 1817, that is, more than fourteen years ago. How it arose, nobody can certainly tell. Some say that the rice on which the natives chiefly live, was very bad that year, and bred the disorder in those who ate it. But however this be, the disease has ever since been travelling about in various directions in Asia, till in the Autumn of last year, 1830, it made its appearance in Europe, and broke out at Moscow in Russia towards the end of September. From thence in the present year it has spread to St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire; to Berlin, the capital of Prussia; to Vienna, the capital of Austria; and latterly to Hamburg, in Germany, a great city near the mouth of the river Elbe, opposite to the eastern coast of England. It is now said to have crossed over to England within the last week, and to have appeared at Sunderland, in Durham, and at Newcastle upon Tyne, in Northumberland.
The question now is, how does it travel? Is it carried in the air, or is it caught by one person from another? There are a great many things to be said on both sides, and no one seems yet to have settled the point. On the one hand, as it may be caught by one person from another, it seems quite right to keep a strict watch over all ships coming from those places where the Cholera is known to be prevailing, because the inconvenience of delaying the ships for a little while is nothing in comparison of the mischief of letting in so bad a disorder. But on the other hand, supposing the disorder to have once reached this country, the case then becomes different: for as it may be in the air, our fears of one another may be all utterly useless, and they bring with them a great and certain evil, that of making us neglect the common duties of kindness, and run away from our friends when we might be of service to them.
At any rate this much is certain,—that whether it be in the air or whether it be caught from those who are ill of it, there are a great many persons who will neither take it one way or the other. If it is in the air, all people living in the same place must be equally exposed to it, but we see that at Vienna, out of a population of nearly 300,000 persons, only 2,800 have taken the Cholera: at Berlin, out of a population of 200,000, the deaths have been about 1,184. Or supposing that it is caught by one person from another, still we find that few only catch it; for of these 1,184 persons who have died at Berlin, more than 700 lived in 400 different houses, which 400 houses were inhabited by above 16,000 people. You see at once that they must have been very crowded, for this is at the rate of 40 inhabitants to every house, and yet out of these 40 persons, placed in circumstances the most likely, one would think, to make them catch it, not so many as two died from it. It should be added that there are in all about 7000 houses in Berlin, so that in 6600 of these there were not more than 400 deaths, and as the whole population of the City is only 200,000, it is plain that the houses in which the deaths took place must have been much more closely inhabited than is generally the case, for allowing 40 persons for every house in the whole town would make the population 280,000, instead of 200,000.
It is quite clear then that all persons will not, or more properly speaking that only a very few persons will take the Cholera. And now the great point remains, what can we do to hinder ourselves from taking it either from the air or from other sick persons? To this question experience has shown that the following answers may be given:—
1st. By avoiding drunkenness, and even the use of spirituous’ liquors altogether. It is agreed on all hands that persons known to have been in the habit of drinking freely have been particularly attacked by the Cholera. But then in order to escape this danger it is not enough to leave off drinking at a minute’s warning when the disease is actually amongst us. We must leave off drinking beforehand, that so our bodies may have time to get into a healthy state while the disease is yet at a distance from us.