Curiosities of Medical Experience Part 17

My late friend, staff-surgeon Tully, thus describes the situation of the Island at this period: "The warm season was now rapidly advancing, the thermometer having risen several degrees at the latter end of May, and unfortunately, through the superst.i.tious prejudices of the natives, considerable dependence was placed upon the anxiously-looked-for alteration in the state of the atmosphere, and every day was consequently expected to diminish the danger. This belief was too generally inculcated not to be productive of much mischief, as most persons felt a.s.sured that, if they could avoid danger until the summer heat set in, the evil would cease, and that the greatly-dreaded disease would then die a natural death. The consequence of this unfortunate belief was fatal--the freedom of intercourse produced by this blind confidence, led to a very general contamination, and men every where exposed to the baneful influence of the plague, became the active agents of the dissemination throughout the whole island."

While the plague was thus raging at Malta, it made its appearance amongst the inhabitants of the Morea, having, it is supposed, been introduced from Romelia, by a man of the name of Kalangi, who was taken ill on his arrival, and died in two days. The following day his wife and daughter were attacked by the malady, which rapidly extended to Tornovo, and all the neighbouring towns. During the years 1813 and 1814, the banks of the Lepanto and the sh.o.r.es of Albania were nearly depopulated.

In 1815 the fatal scourge broke out in the island of Corfu, in the village of Marathia. None of the medical men who attended the sick during this period, attributed the invasion of the disease to contagion.

The doubt that had arisen in the minds of several experienced pract.i.tioners in regard to the non-contagious nature of the plague, is a matter of vital interest, since it not only concerns the health of nations, but in a commercial point of view it becomes a question of political economy of the utmost importance, as the severity of the quarantine laws, which must materially effect the prosperity of trade, would become useless if it could be proved that no contagion is to be apprehended from a free intercourse. It is somewhat curious that Dr. Mead long ago expressed his decided opinion that whenever the doctrine of non-contagion should be revived in England, (and it will be so, he adds, even a hundred years hence,) it will always excite alarm amongst those nations who are more prudent than ourselves, and less eager to entertain every kind of wild and visionary speculation.

The contagionists affirm that the destructive ravages of the plague of Ma.r.s.eilles in 1720, when 60,000 inhabitants were carried off, arose from neglect in enforcing a rigid separation of the diseased from the healthy part of the community. The mortality in the plague of Messina, in 1743, during which 43,000 people fell victims to the disorder, is also referred to similar causes. They also maintain that the London plague of 1593, which destroyed 11,503 persons, was ascertained to have been introduced from Alkmaer; that the pestilence of London in 1603, which carried off 36,269 inhabitants, was brought from Ostend, and further that in 1636, the scourge which destroyed 13,480 victims in our metropolis, had been imported from Leyden. In 1665, when its still more fatal ravages swept away 68,596 citizens, it had also been traced to our foreign intercourse.

Dr. Merlens who has accurately described the plague that raged at Moscow in 1771, a.s.serts that it was introduced by a communication with the Turkish army. Notwithstanding which, by keeping the patients strictly guarded, the city was maintained free from infection, while the disease raged around in every quarter.

Mr. Jackson gives a similar account of the plague at Morocco; and he adds, that daily observations convinced him that the epidemic was not caught by approach, unless that approach was accompanied by an inhaling of the breath, or by tending upon the infected person. With such a discrepance of opinion, we cannot be surprised at this anxiety to impugn the doctrine of those pract.i.tioners who maintain, that contagion is not to be dreaded, and that severe sanitary precautions are therefore vexatious and oppressive.

If the progress of the disease, say the non-contagionists, depends upon personal contact with infected persons or goods, its ravages would never cease in those countries where no precautionary measures are taken to prevent communication between the infected and the healthy; that in Turkey for instance, where these precautions are not resorted to, there would be no cessation of the malady until it had swept away the whole of the population.

To these arguments, plausible as they may appear in theory, it has been replied, that the plague to a certain extent has never ceased to exist in the Ottoman empire, but breaks out occasionally after temporary intermissions. As to the permanence of the diseases it is well known that like all other epidemic or endemic diseases, the plague may also be subject to atmospheric influence and be arrested in its progress without human aid. Sir James M'Grigor ill.u.s.trates this fact in his "Sketches of the Expedition of the Indian Troops to Egypt." When the disease first broke out in the army, the cases sent from the regiments were from the commencement attended with typhoid symptoms; while those from the Bengal volunteer battalion, and the other corps encamped near the marshes of El Hamed, were of an intermittent and remittent type. The cases that occurred in the cold and rainy months of December and January, were of an inflammatory character, after which, as the weather became warmer, the disease at Cairo, Ghiza, Boula, and the isthmus of Suez a.s.sumed the form of a mild continual fever. The plague of London in 1665, was in like manner distinguished by a peculiar const.i.tution of the atmosphere.

It has also been doubted whether the plague be contagious in every instance of its appearance. Various persons have inoculated themselves with its virus with impunity, though several were ultimately victims of the bold experiment. In Egypt Dr. White inoculated himself ten times, but died of the disease after the eleventh trial.[16]

The atmosphere of contagion it appears is limited, and strict attention to keep up a line of separation generally proves effectual in arresting or checking its progress. Contact appears necessary to extend the malady, and a direct absorption through the skin forms the ordinary means of transmission. When the cutaneous pores are closed by oil, or any other substance of the kind, an exemption from the fatal scourge has been frequently observed. Mr. Baldwin states, that among upwards of a million of inhabitants carried off by the plague in Upper and Lower Egypt during the s.p.a.ce of four years, not a single oil-man, or dealer in oil, had suffered. Mr. Jackson made the same observation in the plague of Tunis.

Dr. a.s.salini, an intelligent medical officer of the French army in Egypt, does not attribute this exemption to the stoppage of the pores, but as the result of profuse perspiration which the inunction of oil produces. The _zeit jagghy_ or olive oil, is considered a specific by most of the Asiatics; and my late friend Mr. Tully observed that all the attendants upon patients suffering from the plague, who carefully smeared their persons and their clothes with this substance, were exempt from the infection. The same observation was corroborated by Sir Brooke Faulkener, during the plague of Malta.

Various have been the remedial means proposed in this terrific malady, and preservatives against it have been recorded in the following distich:

Haec tria labific.u.m tollunt adverbia pestem; Mox, longe, tarde,--cede, recede, redi.

The celebrated plague-water was composed of master-wort, angelica, peony, and b.u.t.ter-bur, viper-gra.s.s, Virginia snake-root, rue, rosemary, balm, carduus, water-germander, marygold, dragon-blood, goats'-rue, and mint, infused in spirits of wine.

It appears manifest from all the evidence adduced by the contending theorists, that we may come to the following corollaries:

1. Plague may generally be considered as arising from contagion.

2. The spread and decline of the disease is influenced by local peculiarities and revolutions in atmospheric const.i.tution.

3. It appears probable, that under peculiar local circ.u.mstances, it may have arisen spontaneously, without having been introduced by contagion; but this invasion must be considered of very rare occurrence.

4. Although transmitted by contagion, a certain distance preserves the healthy from the contamination of the diseased.

5. The enforcement of a limit of separation must be considered indispensable in all our sanitary regulations, in the framing of which great attention must be paid to discriminate between contagion and infection--two sources of distemper essentially different from each other.

Although these precautions are pointed out by the result of long and unbia.s.sed experience, they will in all probability be solely applicable to the plague: for we have every reason to believe that these sanitary measures will not prove efficient against the invasion of cholera, the yellow fever, and other diseases, which are by no means proved to be infectious or contagious. Without entering into the discussion, I feel no hesitation in giving it, as my decided opinion, that the cholera and yellow fever are not contagious.

ABSTINENCE.

Hippocrates a.s.serted that most individuals who abstain from food for seven days, die within that period; or, if they survive this time, and are even then prevailed upon to eat or drink they still perish. Various instances of persons who have lived much longer without sustenance have been observed. In the records of the Tower we find the history of Cicely de Ridgeway, who was condemned to death for the murder of her husband in the reign of Edward III., and who remained for forty days without food or drink. This being ascribed to a miracle, she was of course pardoned. From the result of this starvation, the story may be considered fabulous for two reasons: first, from the improbability of the alleged abstinence; and, secondly, from the selection of forty days, a period clearly fixed upon for miracle-making, being the exact number of days our Saviour fasted.

We have a better authenticated case in the one mentioned by Dr. Eccles in the Edinburgh Medical Essays for 1720. The starved person was a beautiful young lady, about sixteen years of age, who, in consequence of the sudden death of her father, was thrown into a state of teta.n.u.s (lock-jaw) so violent as to render her incapable of swallowing for two long and distinct periods,--the first of thirty-four, and the second of fifty-four days,--during which she neither experienced a sense of hunger nor of thirst, and when she recovered, she was scarcely reduced in size. Sir William Hamilton saw a girl, sixteen years of age, who was extricated from the ruins of a house at Oppido, in which she had remained eleven days: an infant in her arms, but a few months old, had died on the fourth day, as the young are not so able to endure abstinence. Dr. Willan attended a young man who had abstained from any sustenance except a little water flavoured with orange-juice for sixty days: death ensued a fortnight after. Fodere mentions some workmen who were extricated alive from a cold damp cavern, in which they had been immured under a ruin for fourteen days. Cetois, a physician of Poitiers, relates a still more singular case of total abstinence in a girl, who, from the age of eleven to that of fourteen, took no nourishment.

Ann Moore, called the fasting woman of Tutbury, was to a certain extent an impostor, for although there was no truth in her a.s.sertion that she lived an incredible time without food, yet it appeared evident that her chief, if not her only support, was tea. That fluid is sufficient to maintain life appears evident from two papers inserted in the Philosophical Transactions; one of them giving an account of four men who were compelled to subsist upon water for twenty-four days, and the other of a young man who tasted nothing but the same fluid for eighteen years. An imposition having been suspected, he was shut up in close confinement for twenty days as a trial, when he uniformly enjoyed good health.

Another wonderful instance of the same kind is that of Janet M'Leod, published by Dr. M'Kenzie. She was at the time thirty-three years of age, unmarried, and from the age of fifteen had had various attacks of epilepsy, which had produced so rigid a lock-jaw that her mouth could rarely be forced open by any contrivance; she had lost very nearly the power of speech and deglut.i.tion, and with this all desire to eat or drink.

Her lower limbs were retracted towards her body; she was entirely confined to her bed, slept much, and had periodical discharges of blood from the lungs, which were chiefly thrown out by the nostrils. During a few intervals of relaxation, she was prevailed upon with great difficulty to put a few crumbs of bread comminuted in the hand into her mouth, together with a little water sucked from her own hand, and, in one or two instances, a little gruel; but, even in these attempts, almost the whole was rejected. On two occasions, also, after a total abstinence of many months, she made signs of wishing to drink some water, which was immediately procured for her. On the first experiment the whole seemed to be returned from her mouth, but she was greatly refreshed in having it rubbed upon her throat. On the second occasion she drank off a pint at once, but could not be prevailed upon to drink any more, although her father had now fixed a wedge between her teeth. With these exceptions, however, she seemed to have pa.s.sed upwards of four years without either liquids or solids of any kind, or even an appearance of swallowing; she lay for the most part like a log of wood, with a pulse scarcely perceptible from feebleness, but distinct and regular. Her countenance was clear and pretty fresh; her features neither disfigured nor sunk; her bosom round and prominent, and her limbs not emaciated. Dr. M'Kenzie watched her with occasional visits for eight or nine years, at the close of which period she seemed to be a little improved.

A Dutch girl of the name of Eve Hergen is reported to have lived from the year 1597 to 1611 with no other support than the scent of flowers. The magistrates of Meurs suspecting imposition, had her closely watched for thirteen successive days, without being able to detect any fraud. Over her picture were affixed some Latin verses, of which the following translation was given in a book called "An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of G.o.d, by George Hakewell, 1635:"

This maid of Meurs thirty-six yeares spent, Fourteen of which she tooke no nourishment; Thus pale and wan, she sits sad and alone, A garden's all she loves to looke upon.

According to Pliny, the _Astoni_ had no other food than this Batavian maiden, being unfortunately born without mouths. Sauvages mentions an academician of Toulouse who never thirsted, and pa.s.sed his summers, notwithstanding the intense heat, without drinking. In most of the recorded cases of total or nearly total abstinence, water has been found more or less necessary, but not invariably.

That some animals can thrive upon water, and even upon air, is demonstrated by naturalists. Snails and chameleons have been known to exist upon air for years. Garman has found that this nutriment is sufficient for the support of spiders; and Latreille has confirmed the experiment by fixing a spider to a piece of cork, and precluding it from any communication. Every entomologist repeatedly sees insects living in their cases, although pinned down for an incredible length of time. Mr.

Baker relates that he kept a beetle shut up for three years without any food. Mr. Bruce kept two cerastes, or horned snakes, in a gla.s.s jar for two years, without any apparent food; he did not observe that they slept in the winter season, and they cast their skin as usual on the last day of April.

Rudolphi kept a _Proteus Anguinus_ five years, and Zoys had one for ten years living on spring water renewed from time to time. Redi found that birds could sustain the want of food from five to twenty-eight days. A seal lived out of the water and without nourishment for four weeks. Four individuals of a large species of larval sh.e.l.l, (_Bulimus_,) from Valparaiso, were brought to England by Lieut. Graves. They had been packed up in a box, and enclosed in cotton; two for a s.p.a.ce of thirteen, one for seventeen, and a fourth for upwards of twenty months; but on being exposed to the warmth of a fire in London, and provided with tepid water and leaves, they revived and lived for several months in Mr. Loddige's palm house, till accidentally drowned. Dogs can live without food from twenty-five to thirty-six days, but man does not easily support starvation more than a week, except in disease or insanity.

The general effects of long fasting, however, are highly injurious when not destructive. They are chiefly feelings of great debility, fever, delirium, violent pa.s.sion alternating with deep despondency. In general the temperature of the body falls several degrees, although Currie observed the contrary in a patient who died of inanition in consequence of a stricture of the oesophagus; the respiration becomes fetid, the secretion of the kidneys acrid and burning, and according to Magendie and Collard b.l.o.o.d.y, and the stomach is found contracted after death.

Experiments on the duration of life in man and animals deprived of food, show that the warm-blooded animals are best able to support the want of food.

But a phenomenon still more wonderful is the faculty that animals have been known to possess of living when deprived of atmospheric support. A hog, weighing about one hundred and sixty pounds, was buried in his sty under thirty feet of the chalk of Dover cliff for one hundred and sixty days. When dug out, it weighed but forty pounds, and was extremely emaciated, but clean, and white. The animal had nibbled the wood of the sty, and eaten some loose chalk. Lizards, especially the Newt, have been found embedded in chalk-rock, apparently dead, but have rea.s.sumed living action on exposure to the atmosphere. On their detection in this state, the mouth is usually closed with a glutinous substance so tenaciously, that they are often suffocated in their efforts to extricate themselves from confinement. Toads have been repeatedly discovered in a similar situation, embedded in blocks of stone, or in the very heart of trees. Dr.

Edwards, a learned physiologist in Paris, has ascertained that blocks of mortar and heaps of sand possess sufficient porosity to admit enough air to support the life of reptiles; but they all perish if immersed in water or mercury, when surrounded by an exhausting receiver. The duration of existence of the amphibials of the Batrachian family, when plunged in water, depends in a great measure on its temperature. They die speedily if the water be lower than 32 Fahrenheit, or higher than 108; and the longest duration of life is under 32.

How can we account for these anomalies? Various solid substances are known to proceed from invisible elementary principles. Do water and air contain them? Metallic stones of large volume fall from the air: how are they produced? whence come they? How vain and feeble are our pursuits, when the vanity of science seeks to penetrate into the arcana of nature; searching and endeavouring to account for the causes of causation! What absurd and impertinent hypotheses have not been broached on scholastic benches! They remind us of an anecdote related of the old Parisian Academy, when one of its sapient members read a voluminous memoir to prove that tides were provided by the Creator for the purpose of bringing vessels in and out of harbour; when one of the Encyclopedian wits gravely observed, that he had no doubt of the fact, since he had discovered, after unceasing and laborious research, that noses were made for the purpose of wearing spectacles!

Although total abstinence from food for any length of time, excepting with hibernating animals, is a wondrous phenomenon, yet it is singular how little aliment is necessary for the purpose of sustaining life, and even health. Many instances of a frugality bordering upon starvation are known.

The most economical housekeeper on record was Roger Crabb, the Buckinghamshire hermit, who allowed himself three farthings a week.

Dr. Gower of Chelmsford had a patient who lived for ten years on a pint of tea daily, now and then chewing half a dozen raisins and almonds, but without swallowing them; once a month, by way of a treat, she ate a morsel of bread the size of a nutmeg.

The late Duke of Portland, after a long illness, during which he was attended by Dr. Warren, lived on bread and water for six weeks, at the expiration of which he was allowed _one boiled smelt_. Numerous persons have been known to live to old age, in perfect health, who never used animal food or wine; such was Dr. Hecquet, the Sangrado of Lesage, who published a curious treatise on fasting in Lent: Paris, 1709.

The following lines were written on a man named Offley:

Offley three dishes had of daily roast; An egg, an apple, and the third a toast.

Most unquestionably, if this Offley was not a man of hard labour, or who took much exercise, this diet, scanty as it may appear, would have been quite sufficient to support life, for his fare was sumptuous, compared to the diet prescribed by St. Theresa to her Carmelite nuns, and which consisted of one egg, herb-soup, with wormwood ashes and aloes. However, in regard to the wondrous fasting of various hermits and holy men, we must take their histories _c.u.m grano salis_. They clearly belonged to two cla.s.ses,--enthusiasts or impostors: enthusiasm, which is little short of lunacy, enables the monomaniac to endure starvation with ease; and as to impostors, it is probable that, like Friar Tuck they had a _bonne bouche_ in a corner of their cells.

POISON OF THE UPAS, OR IPO.

Such are the names given by the natives of the Molucca Islands and in the Indian Archipelago to a deadly poison which is used to impregnate the heads of their arrows. The tree from which it is extracted is named _Bohou Upas_, _Boa Upas_, and _Pohou Antiar_. Various accounts of its deleterious nature have been given by ancient travellers. Cleyer and Spielman described it upwards of a century back, and state that no antidote to its dreadful action is known, though vomiting, produced by the most disgusting means, was considered the only method of arresting its dire effects.

Spielman a.s.serts that the land for several miles round these trees is desolate and barren, for no plant can grow under their influence. The poison, he states, flows in a milky form from the tree, and no one can approach it at this period, as one drop of the fatal juice falling upon the face or hands produces instant stiffness of every limb, followed by rapid death; it is therefore obtained at the end of long bamboo canes, armed with a pointed tube to receive it when plunged into the bark.

Rumphius confirms in a great measure the above statements, and describes the tree, which he divides into male and female: he adds, that they only grow in the island of Celebes, and that all around the dreaded spot is desert and consumed. A more recent Dutch traveller, Foersech or Fooerch, did not let so fertile a subject escape, and has cultivated most industriously this dreary desert in the following account.

Sterility prevails for upwards of ten miles round this dreadful tree on the part of the island of Java where it grows. When criminals are sentenced to death, they are offered a free pardon if they consent to seek a small boxful of this valuable yet terrific poison. They are first sent to the dwelling of a priest who resides at a safe distance from the spot; there they arrive, accompanied by their disconsolate and wailing families.

They remain with this holy man for a few days, during which he affords them both spiritual comfort and good advice; the latter urging the precaution not to set out until the wind blows in such a direction as to waft from them the floating emanations. On their departure on this dreaded expedition he gives them a small box of silver or tortoise-sh.e.l.l, covers their head and face with a leathern hood with gla.s.s eyes, and protects their hands with a thick pair of gloves of the same material. He then accompanies them about two miles on their sad journey, and then he describes the h.e.l.lish spot where this treasure is to be found as minutely as any one can describe what he has not seen; then, giving the poor pilgrim his blessing, he departs on his return. This worthy man informed our traveller that, during thirty years which he had held that enviable situation, he had sent off no less than seven hundred criminals, of whom only twenty-two returned: and he confirmed the statement by exhibiting a list bearing their names and the offences for which they had been tried.