THE CHOLERA IN ENGLAND.—From the daily bulletins transmitted from Sunderland
by Dr. Daun, the weekly state of this disease, and of the other diseases which are reported in along with it (for what reason we do not know), is as follows.
It will be seen, that of what is now denominated Malignant Cholera, the cases have been at the rate of 3, and the deaths at the rate of 2 per diem; and that the positive increase in the course of six days is 3. There is perhaps more in the mere announcement of these facts, than in a thousand elaborate treatises, to prove that, whether native or imported, the cholera in England is a very different disease from the cholera abroad ; for if any fact be well established respecting it on the Continent, it is its rapidity of progress immediately after its first appearance. With respect to its mortality, we cannot speak with much certainty until we learn the principles on which Dr. Dams and his brethren distinguish between the Common and Malignant disease. What the Doc- tors call " typhus gravior," is that typhus which, in about four out of five cases, kills the patient ; in the same way, "malignant fever" is simply a fever that kills. Thus interpreted, Malignant Cholera is merely the cholera of which the patient dies ; the event, as in the case of pro- phecy, being the only, as it is the most certain diagnosis. Indeed, from the subdivisions " common" and "malignant," there seems no other conclusion deducible. But if this be true, what comes of the quarantine- laws and their utility? If the disease can spring up at Sunderlaud, why not at Wapping ? Excellent as cleanliness and temperance are, neither of them will keep out a contagious disorder ; and if the disorder be not contagious, quarantine cannot keep it out. The one-half of the doctors' arguments neutralizes the other. In the mean time, Government is playing its game of cross purposes as well as the. Doctors. By its interdiction of intercourse with Sunder- land bysea, it enhances the price of coals, in the bitterest month of the year, some eight or ten shillings per chaldron; and thus adds to the actual ex- penses of this great City not much less than forty thousand pounds per week and having thus imposed a tax which might suffice to give every labouring man a coat of super-super, and every labouring man's wife a petticoat of brocade, it stimulates Mayors and Common Councilmen to get up subscriptions of as many pennies as it puts on.pounds in order to remedy the evil it has produced. And all the while that Government go on ministering to the scared imaginations of a- people notoriously given to melancholy anticipation, they do so, good simple souls, merely to prevent panic l In the name of wonder, where was there any panic, when the Privy Council regulations issued, witha view, it would almost seem, to excite it ? But it would not do ; plague-boards and pest-houses have passed away unheeded—the Bill must, be killed by the Lords, the cholera will not do the business.
Remained on the 11th New Cases up to the 17th Total Recoveries Deaths Diarrhoea.
14 ... 53 — 67 29 1 37 Common. Malignant.
6 l 17 17 — 23 18 9 2 3 12 — — 11 4 Cholera.
There has been a meeting in Sunderland with.a view to rppease the public alarm there, and with a view to procure some relaxation of the quarantine regulations. The opinion of the meeting, founded on the report of twenty-eight medical men, was, that the disease which has caused so much speculation at home and abroad, is no other than the disease which always rages more or less at this time of the year.
The inhabitants have formed a Board of Health, to sit daily at twelve O'clock. Drs. Clauny, Millar, and Hazlewood, are the. medical advisers.
The London meeting, to which we alluded last week, took place at the Mansionhouse on Monday. The Lord Mayor was iu the chair. 3fr. William Allen moved the first resolution.—that, from the nature of the communications from Sunderland, there was reason for supposing that the disease there was not Indian cholera.
Mr. Allen mentioned the warm-bath as a remedial application. This Las been mentioned before. It is strange, that while all modes • of beating the patient are had recourse to, vapour-baths, air.baths, and water-baths, the simple expedient of laying the patient on a.couch before the fire never occurred . to the faculty. When people are cold in other cases, they go to the fire ; but when they are cold from cholera, the plan is for the fire to go to them. Several medical gentlemen addressed the meeting on the virtues of temperance ; in favour of which a resolution was moved. We give the Short speech of Mr. Searle, for an obvious reason.—He stated, " that he bad just returned from Warsaw, in one of the hospitals of which he had been one of the principal medical practitioners. Ile therefore spoke to the meeting of what he had himself witnessed. To show that the dis- ease which at that period raged in Warsaw was not contagious, he had to state, that none of those who were in constant communication and contact with the sick, and were employed in handling thebodies of those who died, was affected except one, and that one a drunkard. It was in fact the opinion of all who witnessed the progress of the disease, that it was by no means contagious. It was incumbent upon every individual Who had the power and opportunity, to dissipate groundless apprehen- sions. He had. had fourteen years' experience on the Continent in dis- eases of the kind, and he had never yet met with any thing that led him to think the disease was communicable."
The several resolutions were unanimously agreed to, and a subscrip- tion entered into in terms of them.
The subject was adverted to at the meeting of Common Council on Thursday, when the report agreed on by the Committee of Health was produced by Mr. Pearson, the Chairman. The report mentions a fact, the result of the returns from the several wards, which is peculiarly con- solatory at the- present moment--namely, that " not only that no case of cholera moans, or other epidemic disease, has appeared in the City, but that the general state of public health is in the highest degree satisfac- tory ; and by an examination of the returns of burials within the 114 parishes in the City of London and liberties thereof, the Committee have the satisfaction to report that the number of deaths which have taken place within the City during the last five weeks, as compared with the corresponding five weeks of the three preceding years, have decreased Upon an average of fifteen per cent, upon the whole number ! "
SYMPTOMS OF RECOVERY.—The Marquis of. Londonderry has, with great good sense, published a strong letter of his family physician, in which a very decided opinion is given against the contagiousness and foreign origin of the Sunderland epidemic. To prove that he believes what he publishes, the Marquis has determined not to quit the environs Of the town.
NEWCASTLE.—Government have issued an order, requiring vessels Coming from Newcastle to furnish themselves with clean bills of health !
SPREAD OF THE Eronauic.—A notice from Sheffield speaks of the oc- currence of cholera in that town ; it has also been described as having very recently occurred in Edinburgh. The truth is, that every belly ache is cholera now-a-days, and every sudden death malignant cholera. CHOLERA ABROAD.—Nearly all the Continental lines of quarantine are broken up ; that at Forbach was relinquished a fortnight ago. In Vienna, on the 31st ult., there were 45 new cases (including the faux- bourgs), 24 deaths ; the total number of sick had been then 3,235, the deaths 1,551.—Letter from Paris.
BOARDS OF HEALTH.—These committees are forming generally over the country. Might not the council of each Union form a board, and the members make the reports ?
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