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cholera, several of the European governments, as well as our own, refused to re-adopt
the rigorous restrictions which had been imposed on freedom of intercourse in the first
visitation of the pestilence in 1831-2. These had signally failed as a means of defence,
and they had, moreover, inflicted serious inconvenience and distress, especially upon
the poor and working class of the communities.
iii. " The General Board of Health in this country presented to Parliament in
that year a report recommending the substitution of sanitary precautions in respect of
merchant shipping and of maritime ports, for the ordinary quarantine detention of
infected or suspected arrivals.
iv, "As much difference of opinion continued to prevail throughout Europe
respecting the necessity for quarantine, as hitherto carried into effect in regard not
only to cholera, but also to yellow fever and the plague,—the three diseases against
which it is specially directed—the French Government, in 1850, proposed that an in-
ternational conference should bo held for the examination of the subject by delegates,
medical and consular, from all the leading countries of Europe.
v. " The conference, which consisted of twenty-four members, from twelve of the
chief states of Europe, was held in Paris in 1851, and continued its sittings for eight
months. From the discordance of opinion among the members on various topics which
were discussed, the Conference separated without having arrived at unanimous con-
clusions on several very important points, and the British Government declined to
accede to the report agreed upon by the majority of the delegates.
vi. " At the end of 1852, when yellow fever was prevailing in the West Indies,
several of the royal mail steamers suffered from attacks of the disease on the voyage
from St. Thomas to Southampton, and, in some instances, had cases on board at the
time of their arrival. None of the infected vessels were sent to the " Mother Bank" or
were detained in quarantine at Southampton for more than two or three days. The
healthy passengers and crew were permitted to land, and the sick and convalescent
were removed to suitable accommodation on shore. No detriment to the public
health appears to have followed, either in Southampton or elsewhere.
vii. " On the occasion of the third European epidemic of cholera in 1854-55,
quarantine restrictions were almost everywhere suspended in consequence of the war
in Turkey and the Crimea. It remains, therefore, to be ascertained whether this sus-
pension led to a wider dissemination of the disease, and to a greater mortality from it
in Continental countries.
viii. " In 1857, in consequence of the outbreak of a malignant fever (which had
existed for many weeks before it was officially declared to be the plague), at Benghazi,
on the north coast of Africa, between Alexandria and Tunis, freedom of intercommuni-
cation throughout the whole of the Mediterranean and the adjoining maritime countries
was, for more than two months, interrupted by the quarantine that was generally
established. The disease never extended beyond the Arab district, where it broke
out, and it speedily ceased upon the adoption of simple hygienic measures among the
wretched starving population who were affected.
ix. " The outbreak of Cholera at Mecca and other places in Arabia in the early
summer of 1865, and the subsequent extension of the pestilence, as the season advanc-