ART. II.-Petition addressed to the Chamber of Deputies, by M. Chervin, while Member of the Royal Academy of Medi cine, in order to direct that the Results of the Official Inquiry which the Government has made in the United States, on the conduct of this physician, his moral character, and the question of the contagion or non-contagion of Yellow Fever, &c. be published at the expence of the Administra tion. Paris, 1833. Pp. 138. 8vo.

M. CHERVIN, the enlightened and indefatigable champion

of non-contagion, once more appears to defend his doctrines. It will be recollected, that, in the thirty-fifth volume of this Journal, notice was taken of his former publications. Since then, he seems to have continued in the pursuit of this one object, the overthrow of the doctrine of contagion, and the destruction of the pernicious quarantine restrictions which form part of the police of every state.

The letter before us, is in the form of a petition to the chamber of deputies, setting forth, 1st, the author's complaint of injustice done him by the Minister of the Interior and the Director-general of quarantine; and 2d, the necessity of a prompt reform of the sanitary system of France.

M. Chervin has had his patience put to a severe trial by the opponents of his doctrine; and if we may credit his statement, which there is every reason to do, the arm of power has been stretched forth to deprive him of justice. It would answer no good purpose to enter into a statement of all the disappointments and neglects which he has endured. To these, and much more, every man must be prepared to submit who attempts to impugn established opinions, however opposed they may be to reason and experience.

It was natural to expect, however, that M. Chervin, conscious of having done more for the investigation of the question of contagion than all the public boards and committees combined, should feel hurt at finding himself treated with suspicion and neglect; while the subordinate agents of government were intriguing to deprive him of the merit and reward of his labours. It is but justice, however, to M. Chervin, to state, that, however hurt his feelings may have been, he has not given way to the petulance of ill humour, but has contented himself with a statement of facts and inferences, which must make more impression than the most clamorous demand for justice. In discussing this portion of the work, we have no hesitation in saying, that the character, both moral and professional, of the au

thor is above all suspicion, and that the hints, insinuations, or open calumnies of envious or interested individuals, can have no effect when opposed by the ample testimony borne to his merits by unprejudiced men of science, by one of the legislative assemblies of his country, and even by the minister of whose injustice he complains, in refusing him access to certain papers connected with his researches.

We now proceed to that part of the work which is of more general interest, in which he shows the necessity of a reform of the quarantine laws.

He calls upon the chamber to investigate the truth of the doctrine of the contagiousness of epidemic diseases, and to inquire whether the restrictions to which the doctrine has given rise should be maintained, modified, or abolished.

The diseases, to prevent the importation or propagation of all or most of which, quarantine regulations have been adopted by European states, are small-pox, typhus fever, leprosy, cholera, yellow fever, and the plague.

Small-pox he allows to be contagious; but contends, that vaccination is a surer and less expensive mode of avoiding the evil than the plan now adopted; and, if any legislation be required, it should be directed to the securing for each individual this valuable prophylactic.

From numerous observations made by him on isolated cases of leprosy, and on patients afflicted with it, confined in lazarettos, he maintains, that it is altogether uncontagious. If it were a contagious disease, it would long ago have spread itself among the population of the sea-ports, and of Paris, whither so many affected with the disease repair for relief. Moreover, in the West India Islands belonging to Great Britain, those afflicted with leprosy are not isolated, and yet the disease is not more common there than in places where the strictest measures of quarantine are established against it.

As to typhus fever, he contends, that, as it is the offspring of filth, poverty, and over-crowded districts, all that is to be done is merely to attend to cleanliness and the general health. Should any legislative measure be deemed necessary, it ought to be directed to the separation of the diseased, and not to cooping them up in lazar-houses and quarantine-stations, the means most likely to engender, to aggravate, and to perpetuate the disease

Experience has shown, that the most vigorous measures for cutting off all intercourse with infected districts have been of no avail in preventing the spread of cholera, and that districts, in which no attempts were made to repel its invasion, were unvisited by this dreadful scourge.

While yellow fever is regulated by different laws than those VOL. XL. NO. 117.

се

which govern cholera, it defies all cordons sanitaires, lazarettos, and quarantine-stations. No precautions have any effect in ar resting its progress. The contagionists, indeed, assert, that some populations have escaped yellow fever by isolating themselves; but they forget, that many others have had the freest intercourse with infected districts without the slightest instance of an attack occurring. The facts collected by M. Chervin, during ten years spent in visiting different countries, are more than sufficient to demonstrate, that all preventive measures are ineffective against the invasion of the yellow fever,—it being evidently produced by an effluvial affection of the air in certain localities, and not by any contagious principle capable of being imported to great distances from its source.

With regard to the plague, M. Chervin repeats what he said in a letter to the Minister of Commerce in 1830. He has no fixed opinion on its contagion or non-contagion,-having never seen it. The majority of European physicians reckon it contagious, and most of those who, having seen both the yel low fever and the plague, assert, in the most positive manner, the non-contagion of the former, believe the latter to be conta gious. If, however, there be numerous testimonies to the plague's being contagious, and capable of being imported, he contends that the opposite doctrine is supported by other facts, which are entitled to as much consideration, coming as they do from men who have had the best opportunities of observing this disease. If facts be reported demonstrative of the contagion of the plague, it must be allowed that the same might be said of yellow fever; for where could we find more positive proofs of the contagion of the latter than are to be found in the report of the medical commissioners sent to Barcelona? But most of the facts therein reported have been proved to be possessed of no reality; and others have been given in a manner so inexact, that no value can be attached to them.

If, then, in the nineteenth century, facts be so imperfectly observed by a commission selected from the first medical body in France, it is possible, he contends, that those in favour of the contagion of the plague are exaggerated, if not imaginary, since they were collected at a distance, and at periods more or less remote, either by men who were not in the profes sion, or by those whose observations were made under the influence of a doctrine lately taught universally in the most celebrated schools. Taking into consideration, on the one hand, the manner in which the plague generally acts in the countries subject to its ravages, and, on the other, what has passed for more than a century in the great sanitary establishments of the Mediterranean, in the lazarettos of Marseilles, Toulon, Malta, Leghorn, and Trieste, where the produce from the

Levant is received, M. Chervin argues that we may, without showing too much scepticism, regard the contagious nature of this disease as a doubtful fact, which ought forthwith to be investigated, while, till the question be settled, every precaution ought to be taken. As this will best be done by instituting a set of experiments directed to the point at issue, M. Chervin points out what he conceives to be the proper mode of conducting these experiments, and offers to be the subject of these himself. In his scepticism regarding the contagious nature of the plague, he is borne out by the opinion of the Royal Academy of Medicine, which, when consulted by the Minister of the Interior on a new mode of disinfecting cottons coming from Egypt, replied, that it ought first to be ascertained if they were infected, and proposed that a set of experiments should be instituted for that purpose at Marseilles. M. Chervin immediately offered to the Academy to submit to all the experiments which it might deem proper, and begged that body to lay his proposals before the minister. This was accordingly done, but no notice was taken, either of it, or of the suggestion of the Academy.

These arguments of M. Chervin, which we merely state, are certainly very much of the nature of special pleading. We believe, that no doubt can be entertained of the contagious property of plague; but we also believe it to be well established, that this property does not operate at all times, and on all persons, with the same energy and virulence, and that its contagion requires a concurrent state of the atmosphere to give it effect. It is on this account that even experiments expressly undertaken, will not determine the point, unless they are performed at periods when the atmosphere is otherwise favourable, and in subjects who might be supposed susceptible.

It is remarkable, that neither M. Chervin nor the French government seem to be aware of the excellent and rational method of disinfecting cotton, whether raw or wrought, proposed by the ingenious Dr Henry of Manchester.

It must be considered that the sanitary system being adopted by all European states, no one state can modify its restrictions without the concurrence of the rest; for that might occur which happened in 1825, when France forced Great Britain, and the Low Countries, to re-establish their quarantine regulations, under the pain of being reckoned pestilential countries. In a note we are informed by M. Chervin, that M. Boisbertrand has boasted of having thus controlled Great Britain and Holland, though only director-general of quarantine in France. On such trifling circumstances does legislation, even in free and independent countries, sometimes turn. Because a a man, whose interest it is to support the doctrine of contagion,

without which the situation held by him would be altogether useless, chooses, by way of keeping up his own importance, and prolonging his possession of a lucrative office, to keep in the dark, and work on the fears of the ministry, whose servant he is, two mercantile nations are forced, for the sake of their commerce, to countenance to the utmost extent what in all probability is a delusion, and to submit to fetter their trade to avoid the greater evil from intercourse. There is no wonder that we have so many contagionists, when those who have fostered the fears and prejudices of mankind find themselves rewarded with situations of honour, power, and profit, while the philosophic inquirer after truth, opposed and thwarted on all sides, is treated with neglect, contempt, or insult, and too often left, even after the complete establishment of his doctrines, to the approbation of his own conscience, unrecompensed for the loss of health, time, and money. Both in this country and in France there are examples of men profiting by the pernicious errors which they have fostered, and enjoying wealth, power, and patronage; while the disinterested advocate of science and humanity is left to brood in obscurity over disappointed hopes, unrequited labours, and wounded feelings.

We pass over the narration of the various quibbles and subterfuges of which M. Chervin accuses the ministers of having recourse to for the purpose of evading his reasonable demand of the means of performing the experiments necessary to ascertain the contagion or non-contagion of the plague-nor shall we enter upon his demonstration of the absurdity of the sanitary regulations issued regarding cholera in France, even after the government had been made aware of the decision of the most able of the faculty, and put in possession of numerous direct and unequivocal proofs of the non-contagious nature of this pestilence. The readers of this Journal have had, we conceive, sufficient evidence placed before them in its pages to enable them to form an opinion on this subject. We hasten, therefore, to lay before them a view of the rapid sketch which M. Chervin has given of the evils produced by the doctrine of contagion.

From Volney he quotes a fearful picture of the misery and destruction produced by the prevalence of this opinion during the epidemic which ravaged Philadelphia in 1793. The wife deserted the husband-the parents abandoned their children— the dead remained uninterred in the deserted houses-the city became a desert-and the unhappy fugitives, driven by force from the villages where they sought refuge, encamped in the open fields. Carey, in his short account of this malignant fever, affirms, that of those who fell victims to the disease," it is not improbable that a-half or a-third perished merely from want of