THE CHOLERA.—QUESTION. (Hansard, 15 May 1866)

§ MR. SANDFORD

asked the Vice President of the Privy Council, What precautionary measures Her Majesty's Government have taken against the spread of cholera? He knew that it was the fashion in this country to deny the effect of quarantine; but in reply to that he would point to the case of Sicily, which, though the cholera was raging all over the basin of the Mediterranean, had enjoyed an absolute exemption from the scourge by means of the stringent quarantine regulations they had adopted. The kingdom of Greece had also enjoyed the same immunity through the same means; and therefore he thought they would agree that this was a considerable evidence in favour of the system. He might be told that the operation of quarantine would be detrimental to commerce. Of course it would; but he thought that even the claims of commerce ought to give way when human life was at stake. From all he heard—and he derived his information from the public journals—it would appear from the state of Liverpool, either that there was a great defect in the law or a defect in the arrangements for putting the law in force. It appeared that a vessel 987 named the Helvetia returned to Liverpool, cholera having broken out among the emigrants who were on board of her. One would have thought that the first duty of the local authorities would be either to keep the passengers on board, or to remove them to a hulk, or to place them in some isolated spot on shore. Instead of that, however, the passengers were sent to the workhouse. Now, if there was any course that could be taken to propagate the disease it must be that. He would contrast the power existing in this country to check the progress of this scourge at the outset with those which were issued by the authorities of Bavaria. The instructions issued there, and sent home by our Secretary of Legation, were that every householder and head of a family should give information to the police of any case of cholera that occurred in his house within three hours of the fact, and certain distinctly prescribed measures were at once to be put in execution and continued for three weeks from the occurrence of any outbreak. Among other regulations was one that no bed or body linen which had been used by the infected should be washed with other linen or used in any way till it had been thoroughly disinfected. Now, if there was one regulation which he would venture to urge the adoption of more than another, it was that of ordering clothes to be disinfected or destroyed, for he was told that the recent outbreak in Asia Minor could be distinctly traced to the fact of clothes belonging to cholera patients having been sent from a vessel to be washed on shore. He hoped Her Majesty's Government would excuse him for reminding them of the course they pursued in reference to the cattle plague. If they had only displayed a certain amount of energy and decision at first, he believed they would have arrested the ravages of that pestilence, and if they were content now to sit with folded hands until this pestilence should have decimated the population of these islands, they would incur a most serious responsibility.

MR. H. A. BRUCE

said, the powers of Her Majesty's Government with respect to cholera were founded upon the 6 Geo. IV.; for, though that Act was directed not against cholera, but against plague and yellow fever, its terms were so general as to be applicable to precautions againt cholera. For internal arrangements there was the Diseases Prevention Act, the provisions of which, in the event of 988 any contagious disorder appearing imminent, the Privy Council had the power of enforcing throughout the whole kingdom. With respect to the exercise of these powers, the subject had, on this as on previous occasions, been one of very anxious consideration. The Privy Council had, no doubt, considerable latitude, but he did not think it would be expedient to use the powers confided to them so far as to establish a system of strict quarantine. His hon. Friend had mentioned Sicily as a case in which strict quarantine precautions had prevented the introduction of cholera. Now, during the whole of last summer, the cholera raged with more or less virulence in France and Holland; and it must be remembered that to exercise a really effective quarantine it would have been necessary to suspend all communication with infected countries—that was to say, that from last summer up to the present time no ship should have been allowed to land passengers on the shores of this country without previously undergoing a quarantine of at least ten days. Even then there appeared to be no absolute security; for in the cases recently reported, in which ships arrived at Halifax and New York with cholera patients on board, the lisease did not break out until six days after the vessel's departure from Liverpool. The passengers had come from Holland, had passed through England, and had remained some little time in Liverpool, and they had been six days at sea; so that the least time that could be assigned for the appearance of the cholera in these instances, supposing it to have been contracted in foreign countries, was ten days. We were accustomed to think of cholera as marked by clear and unmistakable symptoms, and the stage of collapse was, no doubt, one about which there could be no mistake; but the earlier stages of the malady were not so easily discoverable. A person might have the disease lurking in his system for many days without suspecting it. He suffered but little pain, and the symptoms were such as persons often experienced without any interruption of their ordinary vocations. It would, therefore, be impossible, unless communication were absolutely forbidden between England and the infected countries, to expect that quarantine laws would prevent the introduction of the disease. This being the case, Her Majesty's Government had to consider to what extent the powers intrusted to them ought to be exercised; and they considered 989 it with reference not only to the present case, but to what had been done on previous occasions. In 1852, when a visitation of the same nature was expected, the Government of Lord Derby issued an order, or rather general directions, similar to those issued by the Privy Council last week. They were to the effect that, as cholera had appeared at Dantsic and other ports of the Baltic, vessels coming thence should be examined, and that any person found to be suffering from it, or to hare suffered from it, should be removed to some hospital-ship, and that all passengers who were free from the disease should be allowed to land. In 1859, under similar circumstances, the Government again decided on regulations of a like character. In August last the cholera again made its appearance, and a circular was addressed by the Privy Council to all seaports, stating that they were desirous to interfere as little as possible with the interests of commerce, and, as it was doubtful whether strict quarantine regulations would afford any security, recommending certain general precautions and regulations to be enforced by the local authorities. During the last month a sailor who had landed in London from Rotterdam and had gone by railway to Bristol had died at that port of cholera. But the case was an isolated one. More recently, on the appearance of the disease among emigrants at Liverpool, an Order in Council was issued giving local authorities power to examine vessels and to isolate persons suffering from illness, allowing other passengers to land. Now, the only ship that had arrived in this country under those circumstances, as far as he was aware, was the Helvetia. It started from Liverpool with a crew and passengers numberng about 950, about 450 being Germans and Dutch, and 400 Scotch and Irish. Before reaching Queenstown the cholera had broken out, and the healthy passengers wished to land; but by a somewhat arbitrary exercise of power they were not allowed to do so, and the ship was sent back to Liverpool, whence a telegram reached the Government, asking what precautionary measures were to be adopted. A medical inspector of the Privy Council Office was immediately despatched, and two ships were there provided, the sick being taken on board one, and the healthy, as far as possible, on the other. The numbers, however, were too considerable to be accommodated in those ships, and, con- 990 sequently, about 400 were landed and placed in a depot at Birkenhead belonging to the Emigration Board, where they remained while the ship was being disinfected. He hardly gathered from the observations of his hon. Friend that he would have prevented the landing of these 400 persons. He must remind him that this country had never adopted in all their strictness the laws of quarantine. They must depend upon the conduct of the local authorities, and in this instance he thought the local authorities had done all that was possible for them to do. The disease had been confined almost wholly to foreigners, only four Irish and one Scotchman having been attacked by it, and as far as he had learnt it bad not up to the present time spread among the inhabitants of the town. All the seaports and many of the considerable inland towns had been informed that should they desire it they could have the Diseases Prevention Act enforced, and the regulations which it would then become the duty of the Privy Council to enforce had been submitted to them. Many of those towns had already applied to have the Act put into force; but he was sure that the hon. Member would agree with him that the best security against the disease was to be found in the energy of the local authorities, in the supply to their towns of pure water, and by thoroughly cleansing and draining their streets and houses. He trusted that the country would benefit by the experience of past years, and that the local authorities would second the efforts of the Privy Council to prevent the visitation of the dreadful disease.