wholesome, and encamped at St. Helen's. From this time the disease may be said to have ceased in it almost entirely.* A great number of the men, however, were afterwards affected with diarrhoea and other premonitory symptoms; but, by these being promptly checked, there was no further extension of the pestilence amongst the troops. None of the officers or of the medical men, and scarcely any of the hospital attendants suffered. Few women, comparatively, were attacked; and children were almost entirely exempt. Nearly the whole population of Montreal experienced the influence of the epidemic.

În Canada, as in other countries, the season preceding the appearance of the Cholera had been marked by unusual sickness. Typhus and Scarlatina, of a bad type, had been very prevalent. There was also much blight, and a greater mortality than usual among many of the domestic animals. A report got abroad in the Spring that some cases of malignant Cholera had occurred at Chippewa; but it turned out that the disease, which had proved so rapidly fatal there, was a concentrated form of Remittent Fever. It appears, however, from the testimony of Dr. Robertson-one of the most experienced physicians in Montreal-that he had seen, in the month of April, several cases in which (to use his own words) "the symptoms were exactly the same as those subsequently witnessed during the prevalence of the malady;" and another of the resident physicians confirmed the accuracy of this statement.

Dr. Stewart very reasonably concludes, from the circumstances now briefly alluded to," and from the rapidity with which the disease showed itself at Quebec, Montreal, and other places in the country, distant from each other, at about the same time that the diffusion could not be well ascribed to the operation of personal communication." He speaks also of "the want of proof of any person having landed from any vessel on board of which Cholera had existed on the passage, before the appearance of the disease in the country," as a circumstance that was quite opposed to the doctrine of importation. The only vessel up to that time, on board of which the disease was reported to have existed, was at the moment moored off the quarantine station, situated several miles below Quebec. It is a circumstance, too, that deserves to be noticed, that a vast number of emigrants (it is said upwards of 30,000) had arrived in Canada from Europe before the Cholera broke out.

Now, with respect to the sentiments of the resident medical men as to the mode of the diffusion of the Cholera, Dr. Stewart says: "In Canada, and I believe I may say in North America generally, the majority is in favour of non-contagion ;" and again, "the doctrine of non-contagion is most generally supported." His own opinion is, that it may acquire an infectious property under circumstances unfavourable to health: in other words, he is a contingent infectionist. He expressly tells us that nothing

* The entire number of cases of Cholera in the troops forming the garrison of Montreal from the 12th of June to the 30th September, was 107; of these, 39 proved fatal. Eleven only of the 107 cases occurred after the 1st of July.

He mentions several instances of particular houses or dwellings appearing to retain so strongly the pestilential miasms, that persons taking up their abodes in them became speedily affected with the disease.

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had been witnessed in Canada, to warrant the suspicion of the disease being transmissible by fomites. One of the closing remarks of his exceedingly elaborate and very valuable report is, that "this pestilence would seem to bid defiance to all attempts to arrest its progress.

The Government of the United States, we should remark, had attempted, in the first instance, to prevent the introduction of the Cholera into their territory by quarantine establishments along their side of the St. Lawrence; but it was soon convinced of their utter inefficacy, and at once abandoned them. The first case or cases that occurred in New York could not be traced to any distinct source or cause of contamination. So the Cholera Gazette of Philadelphia informed us at the time. This official document alludes to the introduction of the pestilence into the New World in these terms:

"From the numbers of emigrants who about this time (June, 1832) had landed at Quebec and arrived at Montreal from England and Ireland, a first impression was created that they had been the means of transmitting the epidemic across the Atlantic. A more close investigation into the facts connected with the commencement of the disease in those cities, served to destroy this supposition. It could not be traced to importation. The emigrants and lower classes of Canadians were attacked simultaneously in both cities."

It is unnecessary to do more than merely allude to the curious circumstance in the history of the Pestilential Cholera, that it did not visit Spain till the close of the year 1833, and beginning of the year 1834-in which year it also re-appeared in this country and in North America-nor Rome till 1837. How, pray, can we account for these seemingly most capricious outbreaks of the disease upon the theory of importation? Had the communications between France and Spain been so admirably guarded for upwards of a year and a half, that the distemper, which was raging in Paris in the Spring of 1832, was thereby kept from Madrid till the early part of 1834?-or how came it to pass that it took several years more to make its way into Italy ? Was it shut out by the quarantines on the coast and military cordons on the land? But, without dwelling upon these vagaries in the history of Cholera, let us for a moment call the reader's attention to the curious circumstance of the singularly isolated development or appearance of the disease on board the Dreadnought, Hospital Ship, in October, 1837, of which so interesting an account has been given, by Dr. Budd and Mr. Busk, in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. Surely no one can, with "unbiassed mind," read their narrative without repudiating for ever the opinion of infection being the chief agent in the introduction and propagation of the malady. Yet, Dr. Copland clings to his favourite doctrine with the most devoted tenacity; but only by shutting his eyes against facts which cannot be gainsaid, and his good sense against his reasonings which it must be most hard even for him to resist. That he is perfectly sincere in his own opinions, we doubt not for a moment; else he would never have committed himself to such confident and authoritative statements as those with which the whole article abounds. For example, in closing his remarks upon the interesting subject which has chiefly occupied our attention, he lays down the following position as one which he has satisfactorily made out:

"This disease is never produced without the presence of a certain leaven or morbific matter, which, emanating from the bodies of the affected, and floating in the air, is respired by those about to be attacked. This is the clear and only inference, connected with its transmission, that can be deduced from the body of evidence now placed before the reader. Those who argue against its transmissible nature, cannot show, since the irruption of the pestilence in India down to its arrival in this country and transmission thence to America, a single instance of its appearance in any place without the previous communication with an infected place or persons, of a nature to propagate the malady."

In another passage, he does not hesitate to assert that the disease" has entirely avoided those who placed themselves altogether apart from the rest of the community ;" and that it has been "barricaded in some towns and shut out from certain districts and streets."

Now, first of all, we would remark that the opening position here laid down must strike every one as very strange :— Cholera never produced without the presence of a poison proceeding from the bodies of the sick! How, pray, was it first generated? If, as Dr. C. supposes, it was a new disease in 1817,-produced, be it remembered, no one knows how-what is there to prevent its arising in like manner during other seasons, and in other places similarly situated? Whether the remark of Dr. Copland, that "there is no evidence to account for the generation of the cholera poison in the first instance, and there is as little of its reproduction de novo on subsequent occasions," is meant by him as an answer to this objection, we do not quite understand. However this may be, it is pretty obvious that Dr. C. is not inclined to push his views upon this point too far; for, in the very next page, we find him saying that "whether this principle (of infection) originated with the first irruption of the malady, or has been reproduced on numerous occasions subsequently-the disease which reproduces it proceeding from a very different cause-is a difficulty which will not be easily solved." With respect to the second position, the weight of the proof, it will be observed, is adroitly turned over by Dr. C. to the adversary, instead of his even attempting to show how the pestilence reached a vast number of places which he has enumerated. But we have not far to go in search of evidence against his view of the question. Two pages further on from the passage just cited, we read:

"The non-infectionists argue that numerous instances of Pestilential Cholera have occurred, which could not be traced to exposure, communication, direct or indirect, with those previously affected. This may be the case in a few instances; but how difficult it is to prove mediate infection, or that which takes place through the medium of fomites; and it may be asked, on how many occasions are persons liable to be affected by an infectious principle, without being able to account for the manner in which it took place, or to refer to the individuals whence it emanated, or to the media through which it was conveyed?" True, most perfectly true; and the obvious inference, therefore, must surely be, that such diseases are propagated in other ways besides that of infectious emanations direct from the bodies of the sick. We verily believe that our author stands almost alone among the members of our profession in the extreme and extravagant opinion which he has avowed, that "the extension of Pestilential Cholera in different countries has been entirely owing to the neglect of quarantine and other means of prevention." There is little chance of almost any

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Extreme Opinions of the Author.

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one assenting to so wild a fancy as this; but there is a chance that some medical men might still recommend a partial degree of restraint, and the partial adoption of prohibitory measures (notwithstanding the utter failure of all attempts of the kind), in the event of a second invasion of Europe by the Epidemic Cholera-an event which seems, from the recent accounts of its progress westward, to be any thing but improbable. This, indeed, has been the chief reason of our having devoted so much time and trouble to the investigation of the question upon the present occasion, seeing that, ere long, it may engage the thoughts not of the medical profession alone, but of the public generally. The authority of Dr. Copland is deservedly so high, and his great work is so generally known and esteemed, that it was nothing more than a duty to sift and determine the value of opinions, upon a subject too of such deep and universal interest, to which we knew a very wide currency would be given. Whether we have shown cause for contesting their accuracy and disputing their validity, we gladly leave to others to decide; nor do we feel much doubt as to the verdict that will be returned, notwithstanding the ungracious insinuation of our learned opponent, that his views can only be resisted "by the interested, by the prejudiced, and by the insufficiently informed."

In consequence of the great extension of our observations on Dr. Copland's article on Pestilential Cholera, we have left ourselves but little space to notice the work of Dr. White on the Plague. But this is not much to be regretted; since, from the very nature of its contents we must have been utterly precluded from analysing its contents at any length. The late plague of Corfu, which it professes to describe, occurred upwards of 30 years ago; and our author, who was superintendent of the infected district of Lefchimo in that island, wrote at that time the present work, without, however, having made up his mind to publish it or not. Why he has deferred its publication so long, is not very obvious. But as it does not contain even so much as an allusion to what has been done by others since the year 1816, we may be very fairly excused from bringing any portion of its details before our readers. To write in the present day of the Plague without reference to the observations that have been made in various countries during the last quarter of a century, more especially during the last twelve years in Egypt, is like treating of diseases of the chest without mentioning the discoveries of Laennec, or discoursing on animal chemistry with the name and labours of Liebig left out.

Although unable, therefore, to report favourably of Dr. White's treatise ourselves, we willingly give him the benefit of Dr. Copland's recommendation, appended to his article on the Plague. It stands thus: "This important work, the result of much experience, appeared as this sheet was going to press. It contains numerous additional proofs of the truth of the doctrines for which I have contended." What the nature of these doctrines is, our readers will easily imagine; for, if Epidemic Cholera be so very infectious-that infection from one individual to another has been the chief agent in its dissemination from the shores of the Ganges to those of the St. Lawrence, from the tropic of Capricorn even to the frozen shores of the Baltic-what must the Plague itself be? It would seem as if the very contemplation of the subject had, in some strange and mysterious way, inoculated our learned author with some of those hot and fiery

www

particles which, according to the doctrines of many of the old physicians, served to inflame the blood and disorder the animal spirits in all malignant fevers. Instead of taking a calm and dispassionate view of the important and much vexed question as to the mode or modes of the transmission of the disease, he treats the whole subject as a special pleader might be supposed would have done, if retained by the employés of quarantine establishments to defend their long enjoyed and now threatened privileges. Mere declamation and bold assertion are substituted for patient enquiry and sober deduction; while unmeasured, and often most unbecoming, abuse is made to take the place of gentlemanly disputation. The whole article teems with exaggerated statements, with not a few errors and inconsistencies intermixed. We have no intention now of canvassing either the data or the conclusions that are adduced. This labour indeed is quite unnecessary after the ample exposition which we gave in our number for last October, of the truly admirable report of the French Academy on the Plague. From the very favourable manner in which that exposition has been received by the medical public, we feel quite assured that the views therein advocated, will be found on further examination to be both most reasonable and correct. The manner in which Dr. Copland has treated the French report is utterly inconsistent alike with good taste, fair dealing, or sound judgment. All the evidence that militates against his views is most religiously left out, and even the names of some of the most distinguished physicians, who, after so nobly devoting themselves for years to the not unperilous task of examining the real not the biblical history of the Plague in the land of its worst malignity, have declared themselves on the opposite side of the question, are not so much as mentioned. It would be easy to adduce passage upon passage from Dr. C.'s narrative, to show that he has quite forgotten the character of an impartial umpire or judge for that of a zealous and somewhat unscrupulous advocate. The whole of the long note at page 207 is a flagrant instance of the veriest lawyerlike quibbling. What shall we say of an author who, in alluding to the influence of epidemic foci-in other words, of localities where (what has been called) an epidemic constitution of the atmosphere prevails-on the diffusion of a pestilential disease, indulges in such language as this?

"Without, however, enquiring into the origin and nature of these foyers '— for such enquiry is never thought of by them (the Commissioners of the French Academy), it being quite sufficient to assume their existence-it must be inferred that they are most unaccountable things, seeing that they possess neither length, breadth, nor thickness, nor other material characteristics, and yet produce material effects; that they are neither recognised nor recognisable, and yet they destroy large portions of the human race; that their existence is an hypothesis, a suppcsition, and yet they produce ruin and devastation; that their hypothetical presence is only for a few weeks or months, and then, after many hundreds of years, never again to return, or then, after short intervals, according to the manner of their reception. How very odd is this occurrence!"

Nay; how very strange is such an unmeaning tirade upon such an occasion! But it is not the French Academicians alone that come in for ridicule and abuse. Every one that does not hold with our author who, be it remembered, never saw a case of plague in his lifetime-is thus summarily disposed of: