“Liverpool. (Mr. Henry Taylor, reporter.) A nurse attended a patient in
Great Howard Street (at the lower part of the town), and on her return
home, near Everton (the higher part of the town), was seized, and died.
The nurse who attended her was also seized, and died. No other case had
occurred previously in that neighbourhood, and none followed for about a
fortnight.
“Hedon. (Dr. Sandwith, reporter.) Mrs. N. went from Paul, a village
close to the Humber, to Hedon, two miles off, to nurse her brother in
cholera; the next day, after his death, went to nurse Mrs. B., also at
Hedon; within two days was attacked herself; was removed to a
lodging-house; the son of the lodging-house keeper was attacked the next
day, and died. Mrs. N.’s son removed her back to Paul; was himself
attacked two days afterwards, and died.”
It would be easy, by going through the medical journals and works which
have been published on cholera, to quote as many cases similar to the
above as would fill a large volume. But the above instances are quite
sufficient to show that cholera can be communicated from the sick to the
healthy; for it is quite impossible that even a tenth part of these
cases of consecutive illness could have followed each other by mere
coincidence, without being connected as cause and effect.
Besides the facts above mentioned, which prove that cholera is
communicated from person to person, there are others which show, first,
that being present in the same room with a patient, and attending on
him, do not necessarily expose a person to the morbid poison; and,
secondly, that it is not always requisite that a person should be very
near a cholera patient in order to take the disease, as the morbid
matter producing it may be transmitted to a distance. It used to be
generally assumed, that if cholera were a catching or communicable
disease, it must spread by effluvia given off from the patient into the
surrounding air, and inhaled by others into the lungs. This assumption
led to very conflicting opinions respecting the disease. A little
reflection shews, however, that we have no right thus to limit the way
in which a disease may be propagated, for the communicable diseases of
which we have a correct knowledge spread in very different manners. The
itch, and certain other diseases of the skin, are propagated in one way;
syphilis, in another way; and intestinal worms in a third way, quite
distinct from either of the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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