The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-20 00:00:00

The

ussia.

The Lord President of the Council has received
from the medical officer of the Privy Council the
following letter in regard to the Russian epidemic :
Whitehall, April 19.
My Lord,—l have the honour of reporting to
your lordship that the information which, under your
directions, I have been receiving during the last fort-
night, on the subject of certain diseases prevailing,
or said to be prevailing in the North of Europe, is
now so far completed by a telegram yesterday re-
ceived from Dr. Whitley at St. Petersburg, as to
render possible a judgment, which I think may not
be premature, on the very important question,
whether this country, in its intercourse with the
North of Europe, is exposed to more than its ordi-
nary risks of being infected by disease.
The very alarming rumour which excited your
lordship's vigilance on the present subject, was to
the effect that a disease of the nature of plague,
coming from beyond the Ural Mountains, and caus-
ing depopulation in its course, had not only reached
St. Petersburg, where it was said to be causing fear-
ful ravages, but had spread beyond the Prussian
frontier, and was prevailing, though in a less de-
structive form, at Dantzig and various other places
in North Germany.
Telegraphic inquiries, however, which Earl Rus-
sell at your lordship's request caused to be made of
her Majesty's ambassadors and consuls in the coun-
tries to which the rumour referred, led almost imme-
diately to the establishment of two facts, which,
while they fully accounted for the existing rumour,
divested it in great part of its extremely alarming
character. In the first place it was ascertained, that,
though undoubtedly St. Petersburg was suffering a
very great excess of sickness and mortality, yet, at
least the main part of the epidemic disease which was

prevailing there consisted only of such fevers as are
well known in this country. And, in the second place,
it was ascertained that, though a very frightful dis-
ease was indeed prevailing in parts of North Ger-
many, and particularly about the Lower Vistula,
this disease was altogether different in kind from the
fevers which were prevailing in. St. Petersburg. In
proportion as time has permitted the ordinary postal
communications to take place, the above-stated two
facts have been established more in detail. And it
may now, I think, be fairly;assumed that there is no
other important fact to be added to them.
First, as regards St. Petersburg, the epidemic
which is prevailing in that city consists of two forms
of fever which are known in this country as relaps-
ing fever and typhus. Of relapsing fever (which
also, from the circumstances under whichit prevails,
is familiarly known by the name of famine-fever)
we have had no large experience in this country
since the years 1846-48, when, in consequence of
Irish distress, the disease first became epidemic in
Ireland, and next raged in Liverpool, and many
other of our chief towns to which its contagion was
brought by Irish immigrants. Typhus, on the other
hand, is probably never absent from among us.
During the last two or three years, there has been
an almost unprecedented amount of it in London,
and, as your lordship is aware, inquiries relating to
very large epidemics of it in Liverpool, Greenock,
and Bristol have during the last few months been
required of the medical department of the Council-
office. In times when relapsing fever prevails (and
always they are times of national scarcity) typhus
always, or nearly always, co-exists with it. It was
so at Liverpool in 1847, it is so at St. Petersburg
at present. The mixed epidemic, wherever it occurs,
testifies to the miserable state of a starving and
over-crowded proletariat; and there seems reason to
believe that if the St. Petersburg epidemic is of more
than common severity, this is only in result of ex-
tremely aggravated conditions of privation, over-
crowding, filth, and district-unwholesomeness, ope-
rating on large masses of the lowest population. It
is probable that the relapsing fever has caused par-
ticular alarm in St. Petersburg from the fact that
the disease had never before prevailed there, nor
indeed been much known anywhere in Russia. But
it is a disease greatly less dangerous than typhus.
To persons whom they respectively have attacked
in this country, typhus has been seven or eight times
as fatal as relapsing fever.
Both typhus and relapsing fever are communic-
able from person to person by means of the general
exhalations of the sick ; and the danger of such
contagion acquires its utmost development when

masses of ill-fed population are crowded together in
places which are unsusceptible of ventilation.
It seems probable that the fevers' now prevailing
in St. Petersburg are not only extensively diffused,
but in their respective kinds are of fully average
severity. The relapsing fever is causing more than
its usual proportion of deaths, and is notably at-
tended with those inflammatory swellings which are
known by the name of buboes. Although the re-
ports which are before me do not state the relative
frequency with which the lattersymptom is observed,
yet from the fact of its being mentioned in a very
general report on the epidemic, I infer that it has
been more than commonly frequent, and doubtless
it was from this circumstance that there arose the
rumour of plague. It is therefore requisite to men-
tion that buboes are by no means exclusively charac-
teristic of plague, that severe typhus in this country
is not very infrequently attended by them, and that
also in our other forms of fever they are sometimes,
though far less frequently, observed. The great im-
portance, however, of the question which is involved
in that system of buboes was a main reason for
your lordship's thinking it desirable to have an
English physician's report on all the elements of the
St. Petersburg epidemic ; and it was therefore that
under your lordship's orders I instructed Dr. Whit-

ley to proceed to St. Petersburg for the purpose of
making personal examinations in the matter. He
arrived at St. Petersburg on Saturday night last,
and his telegram which I yesterday received informs
m© in positive terms that " nothing resembling
plague has been observed."

As regards the disease which is prevailing in parts
of North Germany, the case is very widely different.
That disease is one of which hitherto England has
had no general experience. Even in foreign medical
literature mention of it is but comparatively recent,
and the knowledge which relates to it is incomplete.
It is a febrile nervous affection of a very painful
and very dangerous kind. By us, for practical pur-
poses, it may be regarded as a new disease ; but, in
truth, it has for the last 28 years been prevail-
ing very extensively in successive small epidemics,
both in Europe and in America, throughout the en-

tire breadth of the north temperate zone. Having
regard to the probability that sooner or later this
disease may show itself in England, I have thought
it convenient that, both for your lordship's present
reference, and for such further use as you may deem
expedient, there should be compendiously stated the
main facts which are yet known with regard to the
disease's nature and laws of distribution ; and I have
accordingly. prepared a special memorandum in
which, by reference to foreign authorities, I endea-
vour to fulfil that object.
Both on account of the alarming rumours which
were connected with the present epidemics in North
Germany, and also with a view to collect the latest
and fullest information concerning the habits of so
important a disease, your lordship (as in the case of
the St. Petersburg fevers) deemed it right that an
English physician Should be sent to observe and re-
port ; and, under your lordship's orders, I instructed
Dr. Sanderson to proceed for this purpose to those
places about the Lower Vistula where the disease
was chiefly prevailing. From him, during the last
few days, I have received telegrams and letters which
leave no doubt as to the identity of the prevailing dis-
ease, and establish, as I have already stated, that it
has no dependence on the fevers of St. Petersburg.
In the special memorandum to which I refer, I
have stated what I can learn withregard to the com-
municability of the nervous disease. Your lordship
will observe that, though I hesitate to speak of the
disease as incommunicable by personal intercourse,

I show reason for believing that under ordinary cir-

•
cumstances it is not thus communicable in more

than a very low degree. And Dr. Sanderson writes
to me, in relation to the present epidemics, that he
finds "no reason for regarding the disease as per-
sonally communicable ;" that he has "met no single
instance in which more than one member of the same
family has been attacked ; nor has there been any
diffusion of the disease in any of the hospitals."
From the foregoing statement your lordship will