How.

Sir William Pym asserts that there were five or six other cases.* ever this may be, it would seem that none proved fatal. The disease must therefore have been of a much milder character, than that in the Eclair. The Growler arrived at Portsmouth on the 29th of September. Subsequently she moved round to Woolwich to be paid off. While she lay there, two men, engaged in clearing out the hold (which, it is stated, gave out a very offensive smell,) and who had been sleeping immediately over the scuttles of the forehold, were seized with fever on the 10th Oct. ; the cases were severe, and the patients were sent to the Marine Hospital on shore. Both died " with all the characteristic marks of yellow fever: " so says Dr. Stewart. Sir W. Burnett states that "the matter vomited approached to the appearance of black vomit, but not entirely so." The latter gentleman goes on to say that "the fever was most decidedly not of an infectious nature; no farther case having taken place in the Growler herself, or in any of the attendants at the hospital."

There is a communication, dated the 20th October, from the store-keeper of Woolwich Dockyard, that a quantity of the slop-clothing, &c., returned from the Growler had a most offensive smell. The stores were immediately ordered to be sent down to the quarantine station at Stangate Creek, to undergo the necessary purification.

It may be well here to notice that "since the arrival of the Eclair and Growler," we quote from a letter of Sir Wm. Burnett of the 29th Oct., "H.M.S. Ardent has also arrived with her crew in a state of perfect health, and without a single vacancy in her complement. I have also further to state, that by a report from the surgeon of Her Majesty's ship Penelope, the squadron employed upon the coast had not been visited by any unusual sickness during the previous six months (the period included by the return,) and that the number of deaths from all causes did not exceed that of the most healthy years; nor is there the slightest reason to presume that any disease of a contagious nature prevailed in any part of the station."

Let us now see what measures, quarantine and other, were advised and adopted respecting the Eclair when she arrived in England.

Dr. Salter, of the Motherbank Quarantine office, was the first to report upon the state of the vessel. In his certificate, dated Sept. 28th, he states "that as many as 60 have died of fever, and that as many as 7 are still suffering from that disease. Three of the cases have occurred within the last week, and the type of the fever is of the most severe form—that accompanied with black-vomiting. Under these circumstances I have recommended the superintendent not to release the vessel. I cannot but consider the disease as contagious." Next day, Dr. Richardson, Inspector of Haslar Hospital, visited, or rather went to, the Eclair, by the command of the Port Admiral. In his report, dated Sept. 29th, it is stated that

* In one account we read that "there had been occasional attacks of fever for many months; viz., in May, 12 cases; in June, 7; in July, 5; in August, when they had been at Ascension, and only returned to Sierra Leone on the 26th of the month, 3; in September, 12; and in October, 2." No particulars, however, are given of the type of the fever, the mortality, &c.

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"65 of the crew have died of the bilious remittent fever, endemic on the coast of Africa, that 5 of them died since the Eclair left Madeira, and one last night."

"Notwithstanding," continues Dr. Richardson, "the extraordinary mortality that has swept off so large a proportion of the crew of the vessel, I entertain no fears of her being the means of introducing epidemic disease into this country; and were the sick placed in well-ventilated wards, with fresh bedding and the other means of cleanliness afforded by an hospital, I anticipate no further risk to the attendants than would occur in wards set apart for cases of typhus fever; the decision on this point must rest, I conclude, with the Board of Quarantine; and should they decide on giving the Eclair' pratique, I should recommend the sick being removed to a wing of Haslar Hospital to be appropriated exclusively for them; and, lest alarm should be excited by any of the remainder of the crew being taken ill, it might be advisable to keep them on board their own ship for eight or ten days.”

6

On the morning of the 30th, Mr. Arnott the distinguished surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital, was sent down by Government, along with Sir Wm. Pym, the Superintendent-General of Quarantine, to determine what measures should be taken. Mr. A., who had visited the Eclair before Sir W. arrived, had most judiciously arranged with the Admiral at Portsmouth to separate at once the sick from the healthy, by removing all the latter on board a frigate in ordinary. This most sound advice was not, however, carried into effect; as Sir Wm. Pym, taking into consideration the very sickly state of the crew, and the difficulty of communicating with the vessel at the Motherbank in boisterous weather, thought it better to order her round to Stangate Creek. What was done there with the crew, we have already seen. The report of Sir W. Pym and Mr. Arnott is dated

Oct. 3rd.

On Oct. 7th, Sir Wm. Burnett, the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Navy, addressed to the Admiralty a letter, wherein he expresses a confident opinion that "the fatal fever on board the Eclair had been originally occasioned by the effects of malaria and exposure in the rivers, by the long continuance at Sierra Leone, and the many irregulari. ties committed by the ship's company in that port." Sir Wm. continues: "It is necessary that I should add, that a fever, not originally of a contagious property, may become so when the sick are crowded together in a small, ill-ventilated place."

On the 22d of October, Sir Wm. Pym wrote to Government on the subject of the late fever. The opening paragraph of his letter runs thus: "In consequence of the arrival lately of men-of-war steamers from the coast of Africa, whose crews had suffered from the disease known as the Yellow, Bulam, or Black-vomit fever, a disease of a highly infectious nature, much more to be dreaded than the plague, and, if imported into this country during the summer months, would occasion a most frightful mortality, and would for a long period of time prove disastrous to commerce, in consequence of the rigid quarantine which would be established in all parts of Europe, but more particularly in the Mediterranean, upor all vessels arriving from the United Kingdom. It is a disease of a warn climate hitherto unknown in England, and imported by means of an arti ficial warm climate having been kept up during the vovage by the fires of No. 105.

the steamers." To guard against the risk of importation, Sir W. Pym went so far as to propose that Government should give instructions to detain in future all men-of-war, and especially steamers, on the African and West Indian stations until the 1st of Nov.; so that they might not arrive in England before the winter months, at a season, "when the degree of cold would be such as is considered sufficient to destroy the infectious nature of the disease.'

When this proposal was submitted to Sir W. Burnett for his opinion, it met with his strongest and most decided opposition; in which, it is but right to state, the Lords of the Admiralty expressed their entire concurrence. We shall make one or two extracts from Sir W. B.'s letter on the subject. After deprecating the proposal to detain men-of-war until November on the coasts of Africa and the West Indies, as fraught with great danger to the crews in consequence of the sudden transition from a tropical to a cold climate, he says.:

"It is perfectly evident from the history of the Eclair, and her proceedings on the coast, that the fever in question arose from causes totally distinct from infection, and that it was in fact the usual remittent fever of the coast, produced originally by the influence of marsh miasmata, heightened by the exposure of the men in boats, when absent from the ship for many days together, to miasmatic influence, and to the subsequent irregularities which the men committed in Sierra Leone, when they unfortunately obtained leave to go on shore, and where great excesses were committed-which combination of causes has never yet failed to produce a fearful increase of febrile disease, particularly on the coast of Africa. I may here add, that the increased mortality, which took place whilst at Bona Vista, is no longer a mystery; it was caused, I regret to say, by the most intemperate use of spirits I ever heard of. My informant told me that a bucketful of spirits had been offered to him. I do not mean to deny the possibility of this or any other fever becoming infectious under such circumstances as attended that in the Eclair; but there is not the least proof that it was so, while there are circumstances and proofs that inevitably lead to a contrary conclusion. But be this as it may, I have no hesitation in declaring my firm belief that the sick men of the Eclair, when that ship arrived at the Motherbank, might have been landed at Haslar Hospital, and placed in the well-ventilated wards of the establishment, without the public health suffering in the smallest degree.” *

This opinion has been previously expressed, as we have seen, by Dr. Richardson.

Sir W. Burnett goes on to say: "It is a fact well known that, during the autumn of every year, merchant ships arrive in our harbours loaded with the produce of the coast of Africa, having perhaps lost great part, nay in some instances the whole, of their crew by fever of the country: or some are still labouring under fever when the ship arrives in the Thames, and are sent to the hospital in that state: yet no instance is known of any infection having been produced by such procedure; in fact, it is perfectly certain that it never did take place."

It was but fair that Sir Wm. Pym should have an opportunity of replying

*At the same time Sir Wm. suggested that his patent solution of Chloride of Zinc, which so instantaneously destroys foul smells, should be introduced into the hold, and applied freely to other parts of the vessel.

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to the assertions and arguments of his opponent. In his reply, he con tends that there are two distinct forms or types of fever prevalent on the coast of Africa: viz., the common Remittent, and the true and proper Yellow or Bulam fever.

The former is the same as the Walcheren fever, the malaria fever of the Levant, the jungle fever in India, &c. One attack does not protect from a second; and those who recover from it, suffer almost invariably afterwards from ague. It is not infectious.

The latter is a disease sui generis, is in no way connected with malaria or unhealthy situations, is unknown in the East Indies, is peculiar to the West Coast of Africa, is highly infectious, and therefore has often been imported into the West Indies, Spain, the island of Ascension, &c. Its peculiar symptoms in fatal cases is the vomiting of a black, coffee-ground looking matter: "this symptom does not exist in the remitting fever." Those who have recovered from it (the former) are protected from a second attack ;* nor do they ever suffer from ague during their convales.

cence.

We need scarcely say, that Sir W. Pym regarded the "Eclair" fever as belonging to this second class; and by a variety of arguments he contends that it had been kept up and diffused on board by direct contagion. The circumstance of the disease raging with increased violence after the men had been landed at Bona Vista, is fairly urged as a strong proof of this opinion.

Sir W. Burnett, in a subsequent letter, stoutly, but in a somewhat too dogmatic, tone, utterly denies the accuracy of these distinctions attempted to be established between the (alleged) two kinds of fever; contending that "the more ardent form of yellow fever is a mere modification of the bilious remittent, so extensively known over all tropical regions, and hence can have no infectious properties, unless under such circumstances, as an accumulation of sick in a crowded and ill-ventilated space." He proceeds to remark: "With respect to the subject of the importation of the disease into various places, except in one instance, and that even is surrounded with doubts-I mean that of H. Majesty's sloop Bannt-I entirely disbelieve it I have caused the medical reports of the Jamaica Hospital for more than 20 years to be examined; and, though hundreds of patients with yellow fever in all its most appalling forms, including black

* The truth of this is expressly denied by Dr. Bone: "The contagionist doctrine that yellow fever, of which black vomit and yellowness are diagnostic symptoms, affects a person once in life only, as a general rule, is true; for very few persons recover who have vomited black vomit, and of these few it may not be possible to discover any who have subsequently vomited black vomit; but, if it is argued that a person, who has been affected with fever in one epidemic of yellow fever, is not susceptible of fever in another epidemic of yellow fever, or in the same epidemic, the argument is altogether wrong."

There were many circumstances connected with the fatal epidemy which broke out in that vessel that bear a very marked resemblance to those of the fever on board the Eclair. That the Bann, which had suffered dreadfully during the voyage from Sierra Leone to Ascension, introduced the fever into that island, cannot well be disputed by any one who peruses with candour the official Report that was published at the time (1824) by Sir Wm. (then Dr.) Burnett. An ex

vomit, &c., have been treated in that establishment, not one of the medical officers in charge has even hinted at the disease being contagious."

It is certainly the opinion of a large majority of naval and military medical men, that the Yellow Fever of the West Indies is not primarily or essentially contagious; and it is a circumstance sufficiently remarkable in reference to the "Eclair" fever, that not one of the, alas! too many medical officers on board of her seem to have held the opinion that the disease had spread by infection from one person to another. In the official report, that was drawn up and signed by the surgeon of the Growler, and by Drs. Maconchy and Maclure, at Bona Vista on the 12th Sept., wherein they recommended the immediate departure of the Eclair for England, not a hint is thrown out about the contagiousness of the fever. The extracts, which we have given from Sir W. Burnett's letters, abundantly show the drift of his opinions upon the subject. While peremptorily denying the primary contagiousness of Yellow fever, he nevertheless admits that it may acquire this property under certain circumstances. When he wrote, no.

thing was known about the healthy state of Bona Vista after the departure of the Eclair; and he very properly attached great importance to what might take place in that island, as bearing upon the question of the contagion or non-contagion of the fever on board the vessel. The following passage occurs in one of his letters :

"If it can be fully and satisfactorily shown that any person, who had so visited the ship or tents where the sick were placed, contracted the fever in question and communicated it to others, and they to other persons in succession who had never visited the ships or sick, then there can be no reason to doubt the infectious nature of the disease; but if nothing of this kind has taken place, then the conclusion must be that the disease is not infectious, and is therefore incapable of being communicated; in either case settling this long-contested question."

Dr. Stewart also candidly admits (the news of the outbreak of the fever at Bona Vista had just reached England when he was finishing his report) that, "if it shall appear that the fever, with which the inhabitants of Bona Vista are afflicted, first made its appearance after a reasonable interval in any of those who had been in communication with the crew of the Eclair, either in the town or at the fort; or if it first appeared among any of the Portuguese labourers who were employed in the Eclair, and subsequently extended to the families of those labourers, or any of their acquaintance who visited them when ill," he would readily recognize the contagious character of the disease. He had previously leaned, we may remark, to the opposite opinion.

On the 22d of December, Mr. Rendall, the British Consul at Bona Vista, wrote to Lord Aberdeen a letter, wherein, after detailing the circumstances connected with the arrival, stay and departure of the Eclair,

cellent analysis-written by the late Dr. Johnson-of this report will be found in the Medico-Chirurgical Review, for January, 1825. Dr. Johnson wisely belonged to the moderate party, avoiding the excesses alike of the ultra-contagionists and the anti-contagionists, and advocating the doctrine of contingent or adventitious contagion. Many of his observations in the article alluded to will amply repay an attentive perusal.