The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-04-23 00:00:00

CONTAGION AND SANITARY LAWS.

Ireton a COSILESTOYDENT.I
• It is well and truly obenwed. in an able article on Ceintoglicin and
Fanitary haws, in the ith Number of the Iretintinst e r !nine, that
"a in the whole lunge of physical and move agencies. there is not one
capable of engin humble beings, feelings and actions of such
grows aeilisloem, and therefore capable of rendering human being.l
• so utterlybate,as the belief of the common doctrine of contagion.
This eosition.the ine,cnioes writer has aptly ?Operated by ex-
• artirdati of the conduct of neighbours, friends, and relations, to in.
•tlindoala %offering under epidemics, in various countries. It may
be exertplitiod on a larger scale, by an instance of the interdiction
of intercourse between two populous cities. in an otherwise highly
ennotiteued community. In the autumn of 1820, a fever broke out
in Phil-delohia. On the 18th of August the Mayor oi. New York
tamed a proclamation, interdicting all intercourse with Philadel.
phia, by land and water for thirty days ; and assigned as the
season, that that city was then the seat of pestilential yellow fever ;
ither•by necessarily implying that New York was not. On the
I lei of Septembeo at a Court of the General Sessions of the•
l'oace, the (hand Jury made a presentment of the sueets Ranker
and Lombardy, as a nuisance, in consequence of the representa-
tions of the resident physicians; in which they say, " The Grand
jury went in a body, on Wednesday last, to examine the state of
the above-named rereets. They not cnty viewed the condition of
the streets, but entered many of the houses and yards; and they
lament to state, that both within anti without doors, they found an
accumulation id variety of disease, filth, misery and depravity,
net ally distressin to humanity, and disgraceful to our species,
but which a imminently dangerous to both the moral and
physical well- of this community, as offering encouragement
c,..zi
to the growth of every vice, and the commission of every aunt r
end as affording all the materials mast likely to kindle and kelp
• olive any .park of pestilence which might chance there to light."
. It would have,been been better if the Grand Jury had only pre.
dented us with their facts, and reserved their comments. The
*geodes -which they hare described, constitute causes of pestilence
• eufficieutly powerful to produce disease, and neither requiring nor
Admitting of aid from imaginary ignition, by imaginary " sparks
Of p atllettee which mightthanee there to light." At this moment,
reel ~ no doubt, almost at all times, whole families may be found,
• . in the environs of tat. Hiles's, and in other parts of Landon, shill-
, holy circumeranced, sheeted with typhus fever, distinctly and
y from being more miserable than their neighbours, whilst
them neighbours, generally, even in the same tenements, and in a
Matto! free inteneume with the sick remain in health.
4 petit to return to Armoric& It was afterwards made to appear
• that, since the 91st of August, a fever hadvrevailed at New York,
rem at the very period in which the interdicting), by the hleyor of
that city. was in force against the inhabitants of Philadelphia. The
(rand Jury, the Corporation, and the multitude, were, from pre-
judice and habits, on the aide of contagion; but, afraid of being
themselves excommunicated by other CitltSAS they had excommuni-
cated Philadelphia, they pronounced the prevailing epidemic not
ti be yellow fever, because it had not the yellow suffusion, which
• oerasionnlly exists as a symptom of typhus ; and not to be coots-
&us krone 0 had not the yellow eiTnsion, and for a reason much
better, that the Members of the Grand Jury. in examining
Thantier.street, were not contestant& Politically and comma-
-- daily, the decision was of great -Importance to New York which,
LI a different one, might have tun the risk of
apsution • by
all entertaining sof the other cities the Union,
yel-
low fever. The non-enotagionbt phyalcisns New York, who,
nein thelinfted finites generally, compose the great majority, per-
sisted ;hi maintaining that the epidemic of that year was the usual
malignant fever of the country, commonly called yellow fever. It is
at great an arm that yellow suffusion forms the distinctive mark of
any peculiar fever as that fevers exhibiting that sym possess
contigious properties. It is, on the contrary, an o attend-
ant on every tette, or form of fever, is every climate and country.
It accompanies intermittent, remittent, continued fever. It occurs
in America, England, Spain, Germany, Turkey. In England, it
has been observed in summer, amongst the marines exercised on
booth Sea Common, in the neigithourliond of the morass near Ports-
mom h, as mentioned by 1)-. Lind ; and more recently amongst the
Harine aniline, who suffered so much from remittent and inter.
r tsttent at tort Moocher'. It Is a singular anomal that, although
t:te majority of nor.contogionist physicians in the United States is
ir. the proportion of ten to one, if not of thirty to one, the system of
Sanoary Lows is still suffered to exist in some degree in that
causer,.
The matrons"y respecting the fever of New York, of 1820, as
was reasonably, to be expected, considering the circumstance of
the interdiction of Philadelphia, did not end with the malady. On
the 9th of November of that year Dr. Hossack, a highly respect-
*He Physician. Professor or the lnatiottes and Practice of Me-
drcine in the University of New York, and holding a situation of
feint Mnder the Quarantine System, pronounced a discourse on the
Mesas of improving the Medical Police of the city. In this dis-
course, published at the request of the Corporation, the Learned
Professor takes occasion strenuously to advocate pestilential cons
tatian, the existence of which would have rendered touch of his
con excellent rnatnr told advice inapplicable and new, and MOM
rigid, and more extended measures of pestilential police indispen-
sible. Professor liossack rine= to think that the question of peso
otlootial contagion ought to be decided by the joint influence of
r etic.l authority, and the so!frages of the multitude. It is
curious that tor his medico' authentic', in proof of the contagion
c f the yellow fever of America. he should come to England. Sir
Gilbert Blanc, Dr. Chisholm, Dr. I{-right, Sir Jas. 111•Grigo", Dr.
Pyne, and Sir Jos. Gilpin, are the names he • ularly specafies—
si
:times, which, if authority were of any avail, would assuredly be
t.ncxceptionable. In a matter of science, which can be verified or
disproved only by experiment and induction, it is strange that he
1:70U141 insist upon testimony being a roper species of evidence;
and a disbelief of the truth of the alled etl facts of the advocates
or contegioo, ern those that are pal y impossible, as an im-
peachment of their moral character. t the most extrionlinary
of Dr. Hoessers extraordinary polities is, that the subject ought
• to be submitted to the judgment cf his fellow citizens at large;
col for this opinion he appeals to the authority of Sir What
Blanc, Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, and, more unaccountably still, to
that of 1)r. Maclean. " I must be indulged," says he, "in a re-
Oriente to another writer, to whose opinion still greater value must
I. z strutted by the adversaries of the doctrine of contagion, as he
lras !eel), become and been acknowledged their champion. The
a Ajict of er,itlctuin diteascs,'• says Dr. Charles Maclean (who is
vet a little annoyed that he has to defend his dogmas against the
hole
o College of Ph ns ysicia of London) " is universally ad-
it.ttted to beef very extraordinary Interest and importance, not to
this nation may, but to every individual of the human race. It is
also not disputa, for it is acknowledged even by Dr. P. Russell,
the principal founder of the quarantine regulations of 1800, and a
parson reputed, in such matters, cf very high authority, that the guns-
thin of contagion in epidemic diseases is entirely one of fact, not of
physic. It is consequently a question of which all persons of equal
cdo....ation and uniltretaniliv are as competent to judge as physi-
eons, or even more so. It; proportion as their minds may be more
floe from ore-so:lesiva notions, or false knowledge respecting it."
If these expressions do not virtually exclude the multitude from
sr' conniza-ri of the qeesticen we do not understand the meaning
e' ve oils. t,•I Gilbett. Blir,e. if we mistake not, avowedly prefers
1..n-crs. nut not the multitude, to physicians, as judges; and
Do.oor Onorie, of Liverpool. only says, that " it is folly to pretend
it: o this tt• jeer is of a yrofassional nature, and not cognizable by
at ...ir in :'l ovtar.dnig. It could not have been meant that this
n .f.... unite: tending" was to be unendowed with *liberal educa-
tion ; nor could the observation have been intended to apply to the
iltaiQ of tiot people.
In reply to the discourse of Dr. Hossack, appeared a " Report of
the Medical Society of New York."
The design of this Report is declared to be, to give an explanation
of " the causes and character of the Epidemic Fever which pre-
vailed in Ranckerratreet and its vicinity, in the summer and au-
tuinn of 1020 ;" and in pager, they do not hesitate to declare, as
" the result of, and ea opinions deduced from, an arduous and
Laborious invettigatioe," that they "are cantered of the identity of
thc Bar.cker-street fever, with the malignant fever of authors, ftom
Hippocretes to the present day, and the yellow fere: of tropical
climates end out own harbors."
S.,on after this pamphlet apmred the following notice of it was
published in the Nat l Acute.
" New York, Dec. 22.
" NEt' Pr itt.tc•vtows.—The Modiral Sonny has published
a nepot t or • Ito late epidemic fever inilanckeretreet and its vicinity.
This en a rJnous expot4, and cannot fail to excise surprise, that a
malizin• t :ever, distingnislied as a fatal class of the yellow fever,
sno.. id !,ace originated and existed for nearly two months in our
&•v. ,ad carnett off 150 persons, without am publicity being given
i- the far.. Yet ni it is; the Report is carefully drawn up by a
Commit., of 'LL: Physicians, and signed by them, and the facts
are uths•onti it el by nineteen medical men, who boldly pronounce
tnl!.. fevcr to be hielly malignant. These cases were not reported to
tie. Board of llesith, or noticed by the Public Authorities; and.
athougli i...• sort• sill excite but little curiosity at present, yet it
w!'d b. necessary for the Corporation to turn their attention to the
rimatioe of Wool. r-street in time, anti decrease its population, and
have the hoottre cleansed and purif.cd. These else. are called, by
wore, ino';;,s.aat typhus, and not pillow lever."
eto soon as this leeched Philadelphia, the Editor of the Deno.
erotic Pre,: noticed it in the following manner :
" i . is rot forn•O ten that while we had a location! species of Jet-
loss seer? 1^.•• Bummer, the Constituted Authorities et New York
roe only prohibited all the intercourse with this • devoted city' for
thoey days, but treated such of our citizens as were found there
vith peculiar cruelty. All these tarts, and many others of a simi-
lar character. we nor; call to the public recollection, for the purpose
of •ri vtuing them won their memory, in connection with the too
lowing carte now Alficially made known by the Medical Society of
Nees York. At the time all intercourse was prohibited with this
devoted city, in return for her partiality the year before, at that
veil time the yellow fever was in New York eke, and she actual:yr
buried more people of malignant fever than were buried it
Philadelphia."

An immenss dell of pure gold has within a short time
bac:, been found in the counties of Cabarrus, Montgomery
it-0 Anson, North Carolina. In Montgomery, a new mine
is; been discovered different from any we have heretofore
rlitntioned. The gold is alstrocted from large masses of
which indicate the existence of rich and extensive
Tnb,cs. and strongly resemble those of Pero. We under-
a poor man, on whose land the mine in Montgomery
was discoveral, has within a few weeks obtained about a
I.alif bushel of gold, amounting to vo,ooo dollars. It is
thatsai this extraordinarily good fortune has partially
deranged him.—Amerieen Pape,.