§ SIR JERVOISE JERVOISEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the statement in the Weekly Report of the Registrar General, November 17th, 1866, that Dr. Frankland bad investigated some of the physical properties of Cholera-stuff (Cholerine), is exactly true; and whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce any measure tending to obviate the loss, alarm, and injustice consequent on the theory of the infectious nature of certain diseases, when unsupported by demonstration?
§ MR. WALPOLEsaid, in reply, that whether the Report in question was scientifically true he could not say; but the Registrar General had informed him that it was a very valuable one, that it had been drawn up by an eminent chemist, and that he considered the publication of it would tend to put the public on their guard, with a view to exercising greater care to destroy what was supposed to increase the number of cholera cases, he was not aware that it was the intention of the Government to introduce any measure on the subject.
§ SIR JERVOISE JERVOISEsaid, he would also beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether his attention has been called to the Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council (1866), in which he states, pp. 39, 40, the mode in which Cholera contagium is generated; whether the discoverer has divulged his method of obtaining this deadly agent; and, if not, why not; and, whether the Annual Report of the Medical Officer, which was not accessible to Members till towards the end of July in the last, will be so at an early period of this, Session?
MR. CORRYsaid, in reply, that the opinions expressed in the paragraph referred to by the hon. Gentleman were not the result of any single discovery, but of scientific investigations carried on by many medical men of eminence, almost ever since the first introduction of the cholera into Europe. The Report of the medical officer of the Privy Council was not likely to be ready earlier than last year, as a great deal of extra work had been thrown 1447 on the department in the preparation of appendices relating to the outbreak of cholera.