The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-08 00:00:00

OFFICIAL REPORT OJT THE CHOLERA
IN TILE BLACK SEA FLEET.

We give today the continuation and conclusion of
Sir W. Burnett's Report, the first portion of which ap-
peared in The Sun of Thursday.
Albion.—About the 11th of July, when at Baljick,
diarrhoea began to prevail amongst the crew of the Albion.
From that date to the end of the month 147 cases were
placed on the sick list ; they were, however, not severe,
of a bilious character, and readily yielded to treatment.
During the early part of August the number of diarrlaceal
attacks increased, and gradually assumed a more severe
form. On the 9th a case presenting all the characteristics
of cholera occurred, and soon afterwards it was followed
by others differing widely in their degrees of severity.
On the 12 or 13th the ship went to sea, with the other
vessels of the fleet, and for three days subsequently the
diseaseraged with great virulence. During that period
the number of attacks amounted to 57, and the deaths
to 36. On the 16th the number of attacks fell to 5, and
on the following day, when she again anchored at Bal.
jick, to 4 ; so that the violence of the malady had greatly
abated two days before she returned to the anchorage.
The disease reached its maximum of severity on the
nights of the 14th and 15th : out of 25 cases which oc-
curred at the latter date, 22 proved fatal. There is no
means of accounting for the great fatality on that day,-
unless by supposing that the emanations from these
previously affected had accumulated, and acquired a
much more deadly influence from imperfect ventilation
in consequence of the state of the weather. The attacks
in many instances were so sudden, that many men fell as
if they had drunk the concentrated poison of the upas tree.
The surgeon remarks that the attacks were neither more
general amongst one class of men than another, nor were
they more numerous among the weak than the strong, for
Many of the healthiest and most robust of the ships'
company suffered. There was, however, only one case
amongst the boys, and one amongst the officers ; but as
to why, there is no means of explaining. It may have
been the result of mere chance as regards the former ;
but as regards the latter, they were perhaps less exposed
in the badly ventilated parts of the ship, and possibly
their mode of living may in some degree have rendered
them less susceptible of the exciting poison. Whether
the men had been much employed on shore, or had com-
munication with the shore through boats, is not stated.
Trafalgar.—ln the nosological return from the Tra-
.falgar, the surgeon remarks that " on the 6th of August
we were congratulating ourselves on the healthy state of
the crew, there being only 23 men on the sick list, while
the land forces on shore at Baijick were suffering most
severely. From the Ist to the Bth of August the ther-
mometer averaged 75 degrees on board, the barometer
29.37 degrees. The weather was close and sultry,
und the wind blew from the southward, partly off the
land, until the Bth. On that evening it shifted, and
blew a very hot blast from the shore over the encamp-
ment lately occupied by the French. On the morning
of the 9th two cases occurred ; the man first attacked
had been on shore during the preceding day, and had
eaten freely of plains. Two other cases occurred the
same evening, and during the night there were about
six." At daylight on the 10th the ship sailed, in com-
pany with the Vengeance and London, and though
attacks both of cholera and diarrhceas continued to
occur for a few days, still the force of the disease ap-
pears to have been checked by the sea atr, and the ship
returned to the anchorage on the 17th comparatively free
from it. Altogether there occurred 164 cases of
diarrhoea, and 116 of cholera ; 33 of the latter termi-
nating in death. The progress and decline of the dis-
ease will be best shown by giving the daily number of
deaths :
On the 9th (the day on which it broke out) there were
2 deaths; 10th, 7; 11th, 7; 12th, 3; 13th, 4 ; 14th, 4;
15th 4 • 16th, 2.
Of those attacked on the 9th, 7 died ; 10th, 12 died ;
11th, 7 died ; 12th, 2 died ; 13th, 5 died ; 14th,
none.

In fact, the attacks subsequently, though numerous,
were principally of a diarrhceal nature. After the ship
returned to Baijick, there were four additional deaths ;
two of the patients were attacked on the 21st, one on
the 22d, and the fourth on the 24th ; and three occurred
between the 9th and 29th September, when the ship was
off the coast of tao Crimea, though these cases appear
to have been contracted at Baijick also, viz:, one on
the 3d, one on the 6th, and one on the 7th September;
at all events the disease was developed on these days.
Thus the total loss from cholera in this vessel during
the months of August aud September amounted to 39
men.

Furious—The crew of the Furious were likewise at-
tacked with the epidemic on the 9th of August at Bal-
jick. Previously, however, she had visited Constan-
tinople, where she lay from the 17th to the 20th of June,
Some of the crew were allowed one and others two days'
leave, and, as was to be expected after three or four
months' cruising ire the Black Sea, they committed the
usual kinds of excess peculiar to seamen. " Boats from
the shore were at the same time permitted to lie alongside,
in which were -sold several kinds of fruit, bread, and the
poor hard cheese of the country." Yet though the
weather was intensely hot, it does not appear that
their health suffered in the slightest degree. On
leaving Constantinople, she ran along the coasts of
Asia Minor and Circassia, calling at several places
by the way ; and having skirted the coast of the
Crimea, she reached and anchored at Baljick on the
4th of August. The ship's company were subse-
quently employed in clearing out the hold, watering,
and in other duties of a laborious nature. "For some
days previously to the sth, the wind blew from
the westward over an immense tract of level, unculti-
vated land, covered with a wild vegetation; the sky was
obscured with heavy lead-coloured clouds ; the atmo-
sphere, though not very hot, was sickening and ex-
tremely oppressive." At 4 a.m. on the 9th of August
the first case of eholera.occurred, and iu the evening the
disease began to spread with fearful violence ; conse-
quently th vessel went to sea with the fleet, and Conti-
nued cruising for several days successively. The re-
freshing breezes of the open sea soon arrested the pro-
gress of the malady, while those already attacked began
to show symptoms of amendment. Altogether tare
were 7:e cases of diarrhoea and 29 of cholera, 19 of which
proved fatal within a few days from the date of its erup-
tion. Though this vessel could not have been anchored
at any great distance Irons others of the same class, yet
she suffered much inure severely. This can only be explained by sup posing that her crew were more exposed
to the exciting cause, either on shore while watering, or
subsequently in their own vessel, after the cases became
so numerous as to produce an infectious atmosphere
between decks. The effect produced by her
running to
sea was, however, widely different from that whiclioc-
curred in the Britannia ; in the one the disease began
to decline immediately after she left the anchorage
1)7
iu the other, in consequence of imperfectventilatio;n,
became greatly aggrava.ted. it
Tribune—Tile only other vessel in which the epidemic
made its appearance on the 9th was the Tribun. She
arrived at Baljick from liaffa on the 3uth of July ; her
crew appear to have been attacked with diarrhoea about
the same time as the crews of the other vessels present and on the 9th of August there was one death from cho-
lera, and another on the 11th. She went to sea on the
12th, but returned again on the 17th, being then nearly
clear of both forms of disease.
- Rodney—On the following day, the 10th, cholera
made its appearance amongst the crew of the Rodney,
though, as in most of the other vessels, it had been pre-
ceded by diarrhomal attacks. She went to sea on the
12th, and again returned to Baljick on the 20th, having
in the interim lost 7 men by the disease, which appears
to have abated soon after she left the anchorage. She
'also lost one man by cholera in September ; it was sup.
posed that he contracted the disease on shore, while
assisting to remove the wounded from the battle-field of
the Alma.
Ireeuvius—One day later than in the preceding vessel,
the disease declared itself in the Vesuvius. She had been
employed during the greater part of the month of July
blockading the Sulina mouth 6f the Danube • and tip to
the sth of August, when she arrived at 'Baljick, there •
had been no appearance of cholera or any. other sickness
amongst her crew,
While at Baljicle the boats' crews bad communicated
with the shore, where both the disease and, it is to be
presumed, its exciting cause existed at the time ; conse-
quently, on the evening of the 11th, 6 days after her
arrival, diarrhoea broke out on board, and on the fol-
lowing, day, when she again sailed for Sulina, the first
case of decided cholera occurred. Fresh cases made
their
the appearance occasionally afterwards until the 20th,
tvn, a few scattered diarrhccel attacks until the 22d,
l the poison appears to have been exhausted.diarrhoea,total number of c4ses amounted to 12 of diarrhoea, Tits
and.
6of cholera, of which 3 terminated in death. The sur-
geon has mentioned that boats' crews, nrely, the men
who had been exposed on shore at Bef.l?•aakt:asuifered more
the marines
than the rest of the ship's company! -
less than the seamen and stokers ;
cers had cholera, but some of them attacked Is' alMael
rhoee. He did not observe any atmospheric pecayl*
at Baljick, except that the vicissitudes of peculiarity
were occasionally rather sodden ;
al One or wre
occasions a difference of 10 or 12 degrees was observed within the twenty-four hour,. In this, as in tIH
latter vessels, the progress of the disease appears to
bare been arrested by going to sea. It is remarkable
that while the surgeon of the Furious, while anchored
one day betore the Vesuvius, describes the weather as
sickening and oppressive, the surgeon of the latter did
ziot observe any peculiarity with the exception of the
slight changes in the temperature aboveeneetioned. In
this and in similar cases it might not be an unsafe rule
to strike the mean as regards the state of the weather,
but to ignore altogether its influence as a primary agent
in the p.oduction of cholera.
Vengeance—The epidemic broke out in the Vengeance
on the Bth of August, ,but whether at Varna or Baljick,
has been . . lam unable to state, as the quarterly return for July,
August, and September,ie
11 victims received. Eighteen
of her men, however,not '
to the disease between
the 9th and 29th of August.
Retribution and Siciy--11
n 'The next vessels attacked
were the Retribu
ththeefo3romther
Julyl to
anchor with fleet fromaßn3dljiSckid°:
the 12th Aug,,ust ; she went to sea, probably conswe.-
Oa the following day
quence of the prevalence of diarrhoea amongst her cre
degene-
rated into cholera, and the man died ; what influence
• the sea air had on the health of the crew is not stated,
one of these latter cases
but it is to be inferred that it checked the progress of the
disease ; for although the vessel returned to BitTelc) a,7la
afterwards visited Odessa, Varna, and ConstantinoPle,
no other case occurred until the Bth aSe tember, the
.71 Ts IN day after she left Baljick for the Orimsa. pOn the same
day, the 13th of August, the crew of the Sidon were at-
'esct eked, and between that date and the 21st eight men
__.„.4,ArYftre carried off. The clothes and bedding left Is the
anYcl the
sis `edend were buried—that is, thrown overboard—
the :
e_seseTtleat-:. bl-cks were plentifully sprinkled with the solution of
a-i.fai-asOloride of zinc.-ITerrible.---Tsough this vessel appears to have h
' a„,,,aa.expesed during the first two weeks in August to precie:n
altavaaf-..4 Fzr,N- the same epidemic influences as the other vessels son
ee