NOTES ON THE CHOLERA SEASONS OF 1832-4. 19 



preventive measures adopted, that in August the Board of Health 

 published the following statement : " To satisfy the most sceptical on 

 this subject they consider the importance of it will fully excuse them 

 for subjoining the information so kindly permitted by Dr. Short, Sur- 

 geon of the 79th Regiment, to disclose for our guidance the course 

 pursued in the York garrison, and which has been attended with such 

 happy results, not one case of cholera having therein occurred." Here 

 follows a detailed account from the Dr. of the method adopted, which 

 it is unnecessary to insert here, and though the precautions, &c., used 

 under a military regime, could not be of universal application, yet 

 they plainly prove how efficacious secondary agents may be in allevi- 

 ating the direst ^asitations. Meanwhile the Town of York presented 

 a most melancholy spectacle. Business was well nigh suspended, the 

 prevailing panic keeping away all visitors from the country ; and one 

 might almost say, that the stillness of death reigned in its deserted 

 streets, traversed continually by the cholera carts conveying the dead 

 to the grave and the dying to the hospital. 



It was impossible at the time, and still more so now, to find anything 

 like an accurate estimate of the number of cholera victims, and the 

 relative proportion of the cured and the dead. The reports of the 

 Board of Health published at the time, cannot be considered more 

 than an approximation. It was then a subject of complaint th.at sev- 

 eral medical practitioners furnished either imperfect details or none at 

 all- Numbers were buried by their friends without any record being 

 kept, and many were the victims of quackery and out of the pale of 

 medical practice, so that the only accessible reports were necessarily 

 extremely defective, falling probably nearly half below the truth as 

 regards the number of cases, and much more as to the number of 

 deaths. The Board sat daily from 3 to 5 p. m., and left nothing un- 

 done within their power which could either arrest the progress of the 

 pestilence or mitigate its rigour. The following are specimens of their 

 reports : — 



"York, Aug. 3rd, 1832. 



Cases remaining in Hospital 32 



New cases 14 



Cured 3 



Died 3 



Remaining 40 



