128 The Cattle Plague and Scientific Investigation. 



The ultra- contagionist or infectionist goes to the greatest 

 lengths of his imagination in ascribing deadly qualities to the 

 most minute and diluted quantities of the sorts of poison which 

 are under consideration. His opponent, without denying that 

 exceedingly minute quantities of certain substances can excite 

 disease, contends that, with due precautions, actions of con- 

 tagion, infection, etc., may in many cases be so minimized as to 

 be practically harmless, while in another class of instances, in 

 which the poison appears to be diffused over large areas by 

 atmospheric currents, he sees the futility of attempting to ex- 

 clude is by measures of quarantine. 



We shall select an instance of infection run mad from the 

 proceedings of the College of Physicians in 1831, when the 

 Asiatic cholera frighted these isles from their propriety, and 

 when no less a person than Sir Henry Halforcl presided 

 over the august body that took the lead in talking nonsense 

 and exaggerating alarm. In opposition to the more mature 

 opinion of the physicians of Bengal, the medical board over 

 which Sir H. Halford presided declared that plans for keeping 

 out cholera by quarantine had been found effectual. They 

 then recommended the following truly insane measures : — 



" To carry into effect the separation of the sick from the 

 healthy, it would be very expedient that one or more houses 

 should be kept in each town, or its neighbourhood, as places to 

 which every case of the disease, as soon as detected, might be 

 removed, provided the family of the afflicted person consent to 

 such removal; and in case of refusal, a conspicuous mark 

 SICK should be placed in front of the house to warn persons 

 that it is in qiiarantine ; and even when persons with the dis- 

 ease shall have been removed, and the house shall have been 

 purified, the word CAUTION should be substituted, as de- 

 noting the suspicion of the disease; and the inhabitants of such 

 house should not he at liberty to move out or communicate with 

 other persons until by authority of the local board the mark shall 

 be removed." 



The next paragraph of this singular medical document 

 recommended that persons dying of cholera should be buried 

 in a detached ground near the house in which they perished, 

 and that " all persons wJio may be employed in the removal of 

 the sick from their own houses, as well as all who may attend upon 

 cholera patients in the capacity of nurses, should, live apart from 

 the rest of the community." So violent was the mental dis- 

 order at this time afflicting the College of Physicians, that they 

 did not slop at the absurdities we have cited, but advised " all 

 articles of food, and other necessaries required by the family, 

 should be placed in front of the house, and received by one of 

 the inhabitants of the house after the person delivering them 



