The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-04 00:00:00

AIORBUS.

RET UR PRESENTED TO PAR EMMEN].

Dr. Witler having been instructed by the Clerk of the
Privy Council, in a letter dated January 14, to obtain the
most correct information as to the characteristic symptoms,
history, prevention, or cure of the cholera, sent his first
report from Moscow, dated March IS, and his second from
Petersburgh, dated the 29th of April. The following are
copies:—

SECOND REPORT FROM OR. WALKER ON THE

TO C. C. GKEVILLF, ESQ.

St. Petersbnrgh, April 17 (29).
Stit,-1 had the honour of rel.orting to you from Moe.
vow, for the information of the Lords of his Majesty's most
Hon. Privy Council, upon two of the points respecting
the disease prevailing in this empire, and stated my con
viction that it was not the plague, but the same disease
with the •cholera morbas that had ravaged the territories
of the East India Company. I also stated, that I deemed.
it absolutely necessary, for the purpose of procuring further
information on the other points laid flown in my in-
structions, that I should proceed further than Moscow. I
was afterwards induced to change the plan detailed, in so
far as not to go to Nishni Novgorod, as I found, from in-
quiries which I was afterwards able to make at Moscow,
that I was not likely t 9 get any information there worth
the great delay which, from the season of the year, 1 must
incur by going there. As the disease appeared to be at an
end at Moscow, and as various official documents which I
had required for assisting me in the duty intrusted to me,
could not he ready under two or three weeks, I deter-
mined therefore to set out immediately fur Jaroslaw,
and the rest of the places which I- had mentioned in my
letter that I intended to visit. I was excessively delayed
by the badness of the toads, having been, for instance,
nearly six hours in going the first stage of not quite
toles from Moscow. On my arrival at .Taroslaw, 1 found
that the disease had already ceased in ths! town of Vo-
logda ; and that, wit!, the badness oh the roads, and ow-
cer fain quarantine, and perhaps two, I should be detained
much beyond the time I waa, by my arrangement with
Lord He)tesbuty, warranted to employ, and 1 therefore
gave up my intention of going to Vologda, and pro.
ceeded along 'the Volga and toad by which the disease ap-
proached St. Petersburgh last year. The roads were in
such a shocking state, that I could travel only very slowly ;
and being detained also four days lay the breaking up of
the ice on the rivers, I was 13 days in coming from ,Taros_
law, a distance which, either in winter or in summer (evert
with the halts necessary for my inquiries), would not have
sa,steantato
oefo Itthl Me 11:1111fCoartnei
atthi
oenre:vuili
it
es
1,011 mhavv,(l:lbvene
required above half that time. I was exactly seven weeks
absent from St. Petersburgh.
collectoLser-
from others respecting that most important
tvoatlioln
point, the contagious or non-contagious nature of the
disease.

In Moscow by far the greater part of the medical men
are of opinion that the disease is not contagious, but pro-
duced by same peculiar state of the atmosphere, not cog-
nizable by either our senses or by instruments; that this
was proved by almost every person in the city feeling
• during the time some inconvenience or other, which wanted
only the exciting cause of catching cold, or of some irre-
gularity in diet, to bring on cholera; that very few of those
initnediately about the patients were taken ill. That per_
sons had put on the clothes of patients who were very ill
or had died of cholera, had lain in their beds, or even
alongside of corpses, had bathed in the same water where
very bad cholera patients had been bathed just before, and
that none of these persons were taken ill. That a strict

investigation had boen made into what were reckoned the
first four cases occurring in Moscow, and that it was
proved that they had neither themselves been in any in-
fected place, nor had communication with :my one coining
irom such a place. I confess, however, lam not quite
satisfied with thia, because—first, in a place of such an
extent as Mc.szaw, every one can conceive it perfectly pos-
sible that there may have been cases before th, se without
its being known, and I have the cettainty myself of its
being possible, for it occurred to inn while I was there, to
know of four eases that had never been reported to the
police, nor seen by a medical man.
2. One of the four cases had only a few days arrived
from Simbirsk, so that he might have brought the seeds
of the disease with him, because the disease was in the
district of Simbirsk in the end of August, and he died in
Moscow, I think, on the 16th of September.
3. This investigation was not made by medical men,
but through the police, which I du not reckon the proper
method, et,i the people are so afraid of them, that it is next
to impossible to get at the troth.
am also not quite satisfied that there were so few of
the .attendants in the hospitals taken ill, for I have a
printed statement (or rather a copy of it) of one hospital,
and oral information of two others, in which the attendants
were taken ill in a far greater proportion than out of hos-
pital. I bad, of course, immediately on my arrival in
Moscow, requested such a statement of each hospital, and
as all the cholera hospitals, except two, had already been
shut ins senile time, I expected it would have been fur-
i\ithod immediately, as 1 found that all the medical gentle-
men expressed, and indeed showed, the utmost readiness
to communicate every information, and a statement was
already printed of the patients in each hospital, but in
which that most important point of the number of at-
tendants taken ill was not attended to. Not having re-
ceived it, after repeated applications, I had it mentioned
three days before I left Illoscow, to the Governor Prince
Dirnitri Gallitzin, who, in toy presence, desired the Se-
cretary of the Medical Council to write to the different
' gentleman, that ho ordered it to be furnished without de-
lay. It is now four weeks since I left Moscow, and I have
not yet received it, so that I am not able to adduce the ex
pe'•-
-i-n“e in the hospitals es in favour of eitkrr opinion,
and begin to fear that accurate accen.ants may not, have
I!Rem kept of thos.e. cases. Still all these gentlemen (the.
I anti-cantagianists) acknowledge, that where a number of
clud:;xa patients are collected together, it is perfectly po-
sible that the disease, like some others, may become con-
tagious. I did not )earn that the c3ntagionists in Mos•
cow had ally strong particular instances to prove the
communication of the di.e.a.,t from one individual to
another. Indeed, one gentleman confessed to me that he

himself having been so strongly convinced of the contagions
nature of the disease, he supposed that it was not doubted
by any ,(1..7.0, and therefore never thought of searching out
and establishing the facts which could Prove that the
opinion was founded on undoubted facts. One gentle-
man, who was the inspector of the hospital of which I
have a cepy of the printed statement as abovementioned,
was at first a non-contagionist, but found himself forced to
adopt the opposite opinion, because so many of the at-
tendants at the hospital under his superintendence were at-
tacked with the disease.
n the. rest of my journey, however, at Jaroslaw, Minsk,
loga, Ustuskna, Soniina, Titzvin through all which
places the disem made its approaches towards St. Peters-
burgh, 47,',d where, from the small extent of the field of oh-
stlvaSion,, every, case came under more immediate inspec-
tion, fou,nd every where the medical men and others con-
vinced that the disease was brought up to them somehow
or other by the hams which came up the Volga from Nishni
Novgorod, ah...) other places where the disease hail been ;
they aaid, that the first attacked with the disease were al-
ways boatmen, and it was only afterwards that the disease
appeared among the towns-people. Only at Jarnslaw it
was doubtful, whether the first was not a merchant, who
had been to the fair at Nishni. But after the disease got

Ito a town, that it could not be traced from one ,to an-
(idler, and that very often, perhaps most frequently, only
one to a Etmili,.whi!c in others every one was attacked
with it.
ii),.:Cturogacmhotlniii:ii,nva.ghvitihsieserisovirniotelni iatss slow
r atyliacinoc);asni ricptlitr,lot l
ieidep that
t othrr pf.lrnon
party
deny ) along the great liners of water coinrnunicAtion,

think it more titan probable that it is carried along by
men somehow or other, although it has not been ascer-
taiiwd in what way. It Lai been alleged tbat it follows
the tracts of rivers, not because it is carried by people
ping along them, but because the miasma, or whatever it
is that predisposes to, and excites, the disease, has a great
affinity to humidity. But if this were the case, it should
go along all rivers and streams, whereas I believe it follows
only those where there is navigation ; and it also would
not proceed along the great roads, as we are assured it
lees more than along others which are less frequented.
The question is a very difficult one, and the disease has
manifested the same caprices in its progress in Russia that
it showed in Indio, missing occasionally places that lie di.
rectly in its route, and not attacking them till same time
after ; attacking sometimes the high situated houses in
towns, but more frequently the lower ones.
With respect to the possibility of the disease being com-
municated by clothes or goods, no cases have as yet come
to my knowledge sufficient to prove it. I have heard of
several instances brought forward in support of the opi-
nion, hut they are not fair ones ; as in all of them the per-
sons had either come from places where the disease was,
or it was already prevalent in the place where they were
living. And by far the most general opinion, even among
the contagionists, is, that it is only through the medium of
the body that it is propagated.
So that the result of what information I have been able
as yet to collect on the subject is, that I believe it is ca-
pable .4 being conveyed from one place to another by men,
although it cannot be considered completely proved ;
although there is not evidence sufficient to prove its
communication by clothes or goods, still we cannot say
that it is impossible.
I have mentioned to several an experiment suggested by
Sir William Pym—viz., that condemned felons should be
induced by a promise of pardon to put on the clothes and
use the bedding of persons who had died of cholera, while
every thing should be arranged so as rather to favour the
action of contagion. But I have not found any person
wiring to propose it here, where, besides, there is the
great objection that there is no capital punishment.
Although it does not admit of legal proof, yet there is
no doubt that, from the great difficulty, or indeed impos-
sibility, of keeping quarantine strictly in such a great ex-
tent of country as that where the disease prevailed the last
summer and autumn, numbers of persons and quantities of
goods from infected places evaded the quarantines, and
came even to this city, but fortunately without bringing
the disease.
I may state, that also the Prussian and Austrian medi-
cal gentlemen, who have been sent here by their respec-
tive Governments, have adopted the same opinion with
myself ; the Austrians could speak more decidedly, as they
had seen a good deal of the disease in the southern pro-
vinces, before they came to Moscow.
Although such is my opinion, yet I should not conceive
it necessary to have any quarantine for vessels arriving in
England from Russia, unless the disease prevailed at the
place of loading or in the neighbourhood, and even then
perhaps only in the event of any person on board having
had the disease during the passage. For although there
are not as yet any observations regarding the length of
time that the disease may lie dormant in the system, the
general opinion is, that it does not probably exceed 14
days, and therefore there would be little or no risk in ad-
mitting a vessel that had been at least 14 days on her pas-
sage, without having any sick on board. Persons, how-
ever, might get in a considerable shorter time from here to
England, by the steam boat to Lubeck, if there should not
he any quarantine there.
All sorts of goods, except tallow and linen, are, I am told,
opened out in the most complete manner here, and handled
for the purpose of being bracked, so that if they:could com-
municate the disease, they would in all probability do it
here before they could be sent abroad.
With respect to the present state of the disease, it still
prevails in the southern and western frontiers. A few
eases, eight or nine, occurred in Moscow after I left that
city, and I should not be at all surprised if a case occur
still now and then for some time. Whether it will again
increase with the wares weather is a complete conjecture,
as there are no data to form an opinion about it; but there
is still a sort of apprehension, of which people cannot en-
tirely divest themselves. I found that five cases (and all
l'atal) had occurred in the town of Ustuskna, 460 wersts
from hence, in the course of the ten days, just before my
passing through, i. e. from the 19th to the 20th of March;
but I have not been able to learn whether any cases have
occurred since. That, 1 believe, is the nearest point at
which it has been since the autumn. As the Government
of Vologda, where the disease has prevailed to a consider-
able degree not long ago, has more direct communication I
I believe with Archangel than with this place, it is not
;improbable, I think, that if the disease still spreads, it will
get there before it comes here.
With respect to the progress, nature, treatment, &c., of
the disease, I am busy collecting materials for a complete
statement, which I shall lose no time in forwarding to you
when ready, for the information of their Lordships.
I have, &c. (Signed) THOII AS WALKER.
Postscript.—l find the expressions I have made use of
here have appeared to others not to convey quite the
meaning I myself attach to them. I intended to say, that
I myself am convinced of the contagious nature of the dis-
ease, but that the proofs of its transmission from one indi-
vidual to another are not quite perfect as yet. And be-
lieving so, I cannot, of course, be without some apprehen-
sion that it may also be conveyed by clothes and other ar-
ticles, which have been in more immediate contact with
the sick, although the proofs of this are, as yet, still more
defective. It is a disease sui generis, and must have its
own laws as well as the plague, typhus fever, and other
contagious or infectious disorders, but these laws we do not
yet sufficiently know. Its attacks seem to be favoured
by depressing passions, especially fear of the disease, great
fatigue, low bad living, bad air in crowded dirty dwellings,
drunkenness. I have been informed that in Austrian Gal-
]ieia, where it made its appearance, a better diet furnished
to the lower orders, at the es:pence of the Government,
seems to have contributed as much as any other measure to
prevent the spreading of the disease.
iECOND REPORT OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS ON

THE sCBJECT Or THE CHOLERA MORBUS.
College of Physicians, June 18, 1831.
compliance with the further wishes of the
Lords of his ;Majesty's Most lion. Privy Council, that we
should state in detail the reason of the opinion contained
in our report, dated June 15th, we beg to submit to their
Lordships the following statement, observing at the same
time, that the information in the doculnents laid before us
is deficient on some important points, particularly with
respect to the description of the disease.
Our knowledge of the symptoms of the disease called
cholera morbus, in Russia, is derived entirely from a re-
port drawn up by Sir W, Crichton, at St. Petersburgh,
for the medical council of that capital, from reporti of
medical practitioners in different parts of Russia, where
the disease bad appeared. We have, however, no direct
information from any Russian or other physician who had
actually seen the disease. The remarkable facts attending
its progress, and manner of extension over the vast tract
of country in which it has successively appeared are as
follows :—lt showed itself at Astraaan, near the mouth of
the Wolga, on the 20th of July, 1830, itnmediately after
,the arrival of a vessel there from the port of Bahon, ou the
tiestern coast of the Caspian Sea; on board which vessel,
during the passage, eight men had died of the disease.
From Astracan, it spread itself in an eastern direction to
Gourieff, and far up the course of the river Owrab; and
at the same time proceeded northward, in a cause follow-
ing strictly the great tine of river communication a the
Wolga; affecting successively all the principal towns 0,.
each bank of the river, as far to the north as Yaraslov,
and at dates corresponding with the crdinary rate of the
navigation up this stream. The earliest de.ths at each
place usually occurred among the boatmen employed in the
navigation.
It is an important fact, that white thtis ascending the
course of the Wolga in a north direction, et sv.a contem-
poraneously conveyed down the course of the Don i.n a
south-w direction to the ae.a of Azof, and to the coasts
ot the Black Sea, and details rase given, warranting the
belief, that it was carried by personal i4tercourse across the
neck of land which separates these two great lines of water
communication.
The disease ; appeared at Moscow in the first or seconil
week of Octobetp.-
infeeegteedi to have been brought thither'
from Saratoff,
the coldest
rue Wolga. At Mos-
cow it prevailed during' months, having first
appeared in the south part athe Russian do!ninlG4.s,Nr-
ing the hottest season of the year,w Quarantine was esta-
blished
to St. Pstersburgh.
on the road from
petere,nbduerd ;itself Upon this road the disease has nsevte. r
on another line of approach to ; but
ratoff, where no quarantine was estalitiahed,oftl!peledtfeisre:l7sueSatif-
vanced as far as Tikhvin, within 160 miles
where it appears also to have been arrested by quarantine.
It is important to mention here, that the Moravian neco-
lony of Sarepta, on the right bank of ,the Wolga, several
German colonies is the government of Saratoo, around
which the disease raged with great severity, and the school
of Military Cadets at Moscow, were exempted to
rin
from the disease; strict precautions having been used
each of these several instancts to prohibit all intercourse
with the surrounding population.
The mode of ingress of the disease into Podolia and
Voibynia is not equally certain ; but it appears to have
icilov•-ed the great lines of communicatlon between alp

southern parts of Russia and those provinces, and to have
accompanied the march of the armies in this direction.
The disease appeared very early in May on the road
between Posen and Warsaw, and in the army of the
Grand Duke Michael ; subsequently at Praga and Warsaw,
and iu the Polish armies. A report, drawn up by a Board
of Health of Warsaw, and transmitted to the French Go-
vernment, and thence to the English Government, gives a
statement of the numbers infected during seven days in
the hospitals of Warsaw and its neighbourhood.
The latest accounts we have before us are those regard-
ing the extension of the disease to the sea-ports of Riga
and Dantzic, on the Baltic, and the great mortality which
has occurred in the former of these places.
From the progress of this disease, uninfluenced by
latitude or by seasons, through various districts in the
Russian empire, following gradually the courses of great
rivers and roads, in other words, the general line of traffic
mud communication, and from the fact that different towns
situate in its route were exempted from its visitation by
establishing a system of non-intercourse, we are of opinion
that the disease called cholera morbus in Russia is of an
infectious nature. Our decision is corroborated by the
opinion of Sir William Crichton, of St. Petersburgh ; by
the measures taken by the Russian and Prussian Govern-
ments ; by the statement of the English physician, Dr.
Walker, sent from St. Petersburgh to Moscow, who,
after much hesitation, decided peremptorily in favour of
contagion ; by that also of Dr. Albers, sent by the Prus-
sian Government, who first entertained a suspicion that
the disease was contagious, afterwards doubted, and at
last determined upon its contagious nature. We beg again
to call your Lordships' attention to the circumstance, that
neither the statements of Dr. Walker, nor those of Dr.
Albers, nor those of the Report of the Committee of
Health at Warsaw, contain any description of the symp-
toms of the disease.
We have not evidence before us sufficient to decide
whether this disease be communicable by merchandise or
not ; there are some statements which appear to support
the latter opinion, but they are neither numerous nor dis-
tinct enough to convince us that this disease does not and
will not observe the laws which regulate other infectious
disorders.

Should the Government be enabled to lay before us here-
after a more precise account of the disease, and a more en-
largo] statement by which the propagation of its infection
may be distinguished from that of other infectious diseases,
we ,hall be very ready to re-consider our opinion. But
until such information can he obtained by us, called upon
as we are to consider the security of the public, we can give
no other opinion with respect to the transmission of the
disease by merchandise, than that we think the safety of
the community will best be consulted by submitting mer-
chandise to the usual regulations of quarantine; and we
can at present make no other distinction of articles than is
made by the law established for this purpose.
Signed, on behalf of the College, by
HENRY HALFORD, President.
FRANCIS HAWKINS, Registrar.