Surgeon General's Office ,90 - h MMED FORCES MEDJCALLIBRARY 7th ST. & INDEPENDENCE AYE., & % WASHINGTON' a, D. C. OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURE AND THE TREATMENT OF THE ASIATIC CHOLERA. / BY If WILLIAM M.D., D.C.L., OXON. &c. &c. &c, "If an offence come out of truth, better is it that the offence come, than the truth be concealed."— .teeome. LONDON: HIPPOLYTE BAILLIERE, 219, REGENT STREET, AND 290, BROADWAY, NEW YORK, U.S. PAKIS: J. B. BAILLIERE, BTJ E HATJTE E E V I L LE. MADBID : BAILLT BAILLIEBE, CALLE DEL PBINCIFE. 1853. 1853 LONDON: Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street. CONTENTS. Introduction ...... i — lxxii Preface to the First Part . . . . 1 — 16 CHAPTER I. Dr. Stevens' theory of Cholera .... 17—21 CHAPTER 11. The Board of Health (1832) theory of Cholera . 22—25 CHAPTER 111. Dr. Stevens' views of the blood . . . 26 — 34 CHAPTER IV. Treatment . 35—43 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. The Cholera in Coldbath-Fields Prison — First visitation, April 5 —May 11. 1832 44—62 CHAPTER VI. Nominal enumeration of the Cholera patients in Coldbath- Fields, Aprils— May 11. 1832 . . . 63—70 CHAPTER VII. Second visitation of the Cholera to Coldbath-Fields Prison, viz., from June 3 to December, 31, 1832 . 71—89 CHAPTER VIII. List of the three hundred and thirty-nine cases of Cholera in the,. House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields, during its second irruption, from June 3 to December 27, 1832 90—102 CHAPTER IX. The Board of Health take official notice of the Cholera in Coldbath-Fields : how they inspected the Prison, and the Report they made 103—160 4 CONTENTS. ADDITIONAL observations relative to the CASES OF CHOLERA THAT OCCURRED IN THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION AT COLDBATH-FIELDS IN 1832. CHAPTER I. A farther examination into the nature of the evidence that Dr. Barry brought forward to prove that not one case of Cholera could have been in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields, from the Ist to the 28th of June, 1832 163—184 CHAPTER 11. State of the Prison on the 27th of June, 1832 . 185—199 CHAPTER 111. On the state of the patients with Cholera that were in the Prison on the 28th of June, or the day when the Government official inspectors inspected the Prison, but not the patients that were in the Prison on that day . 200 — 264 CHAPTER IV. On the number of the Cholera patients that were in the Prison from the 30th of June to the 12th of July inclusive 265—279 5 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. On the means that were used in the Prison, in 1832, for the purpose of converting the greater number of the three hundred and three cases of true Cholera, into patients with mere premonitory symptoms . . . 280 — 294 CHAPTER VI. On the state of Cholera in the Prison from the 30th of June to the 27th of August, 1832 . . . 295—302 CHAPTER VII. On the cases of Cholera admitted into the Infirmary of the Prison on the 28th, the 29th and the 30th of August, 1832 303—320 CHAPTER VIII. On the cases of Cholera that were in the Prison of Coldbath- Fields from the last day of August, to the twenty-seventh of December, 1832 ...... 321—368 CHAPTER IX. On the result of the new practice in Cholera at the Free Hospital in Greville Street, in 1832 . . 369—389 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. On the results of the saline treatment in the Cholera patients in Bridewell, in 1 832 390—400 CHAPTER XI. On the results of the saline treatment in the cases of Cholera in St. Luke's Hospital, in 1832 . . . 401—409 CHAPTER XII. On the result of the new practice in the City Hospital, Abchurch Lane 410 — 422 CHAPTER XIII. On the results of the saline treatment on the Cholera patients in St. Giles's Hospital, in 1832 . . . 423—433 CHAPTER XIV. On the result of the new practice at Warrington, in 1832 434—438 CHAPTER XV. On the result of the new practice at Woolwich in 1832 439—447 7 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. On the results of the new practice at Eton and Windsor 448—451 CHAPTER XVII. On the Cholera in Norway, in 1833 and 1834 . 452—464 CHAPTER XVIII. On the Cholera in Sweden in 1834 . . . 465—474 8 INTRODUCTION. The present work owes its existence to two official returns from the Board of Health in the City of London to the Central Board at WhitehaU, at the cessation of the first visitation of the Cholera to the metropolis of England in 1832. In one of the above returns it was stated that during the prevalence of the first irruption of the Cholera, many plans of treatment had been put to the test of experience within the jurisdiction of the City of London Board of Health, with various results. From the said return, it appeared that in the City Hospital, under the usual mode of treatment, or that recommended by the Central Board, the mortality had ranged from about forty-six to fifty-eight per cent. It was also stated that the saline practice that had been discovered by Mr. Marsden, of a INTRODUCTION. the Free Hospital in Greville Street, had been found in the City of London by far the best plan of treatment in the Cholera, for in all the cases in which it had been tried, Mr. Marsden's practice had reduced the mortality to thirty per cent. On the other hand, it was asserted in the same document that the opposite saline treatment, or the practice that had been recommended by myself, had caused in the City a mortality of eighty-eight per cent, in all the cases in which it had been used by the medical parties that had been acting under the direction of the medical members of the City Board in 1832. The above official return from the City to the Central Board was signed by J. F. De Grave, the Honorary Secretary to the City Board, who forwarded at the same time to the Central Board another official return from Mr. Marsden, to prove that his own saline treatment had been far more successful under his own management, than the same practice had been under the jurisdiction of the City of London Board of Health. For it was stated in Mr. Marsden's official return, that in 3 1 5 patients in the first stage of cholera, only 4 had died consequently that 311 had recovered. It was also stated in the same return, that, in addition to the above 311 recoveries, 8 1 patients in the second or collapse stage of Cholera, had been treated by Mr. Marsden exclusively on his own saline plan, with 2 INTRODUCTION. only 7 deaths and 74 recoveries, or about eight per cent, loss in all the collapse cases treated on this new plan in the Greville Street Hospital, in place of the thirty per cent, loss under Mr. Marsden's practice in the City Hospital, in which the loss had been about eighty-eight per cent, under the saline treatment that had been recommended by myself. It will afterwards be seen that the above return from the Greville Street Hospital of 74 recoveries from 81 cases of collapsed cholera, is rather under than over the truth. It will be seen also that not even one of the 74 recoveries from the collapsed stage was the result of any new practice that had been discovered by Mr. Marsden. For it will be proved by Mr. Marsden himself that the whole of the 74 patients that had recovered from the collapsed stage of the new pestilence in that hospital owed their lives to the practice recommended by me, or the very practice that the City authorities were then trying to condemn, and that Mr. Marsden was then endeavouring to appropriate to himself. On the 15th of October, 1832, I left London on my way to Denmark. I was absent from England for a long time, and was not aware of even the existence of the above official returns, until they were re-published as true official documents, and commented upon as such, by Mr. George Ross in the " Medical Times" of November the 18th, 1848. a 2 3 INTRODUCTION. At that time I had but lately returned to England, after having passed the greater part of my existence, from 1832 to 1848, in one of the islands in the centre of the West Indies, where I knew but little of what was going on in the medical world on this side of the Atlantic. Soon after my return to this country, when Mr. Ross's lecture was shewn to me, I obtained the volumes of the " Lancet" for 1832 and 1833. I then found the two returns to which Mr. Ross had referred, put face to face in the " Lancet" of February 2, 1833, in which these returns had evidently been published for the purpose of giving a last death-blow to the new successful practice that had been a sore evil to the three individuals who had been the medical members of the Central Board during the first irruption of Cholera in London in 1832 and 1833. When I saw the above returns, I believed, from certain facts, that the true parent of the above fiction of the two saline treatments was a Mr. Tweedie, who in 1832 had the charge of the Cholera patients in the City Hospital in Abchurch Lane. For it will afterwards be seen that in the commencement of his career, this said Mr. Tweedie had preferred good to evil, and, at least for a time, had told truth for its own sake. But soon after, he had published certain facts in the " Medical Gazette," in favour of the new 4 I INTRODUCTION. practice in Greville Street Hospital. It appears that these facts were not palatable to the then medical members of the Central Board. The result was that the members of that establishment soon used certain magical means to convert this same Mr. Tweedie from a warm friend into a deadly enemy to the new life- preserving treatment, that stood in direct opposition to the deadly poison-to-poison practice that was then recommended by the medical members of the so-called Board of Health. It will afterwards be seen that Mr. Tweedie was iv reality the immediate author of the above fiction of the two saline treatments, or, in other words, of the good and the bad results of the same remedies in the same disease. But still it will be proved that this fiction was only one of the many evils that in 1832 owed their existence to the then medical members of the Central Board, who were in a state of total darkness to the true light, and therefore they preferred the concealment of the evil results of their own ignorance to the good of their fellow men. When the above returns from the City to the Central Board of 1832 were re-published in the "Medical Times" of the 18th of November, 1848, the second irruption of cholera had already commenced in Great Britain. The first reported case had occurred in Edinburgh on the 30th of October, 1 848 ; but the invisible cause of this fell disease soon 5 INTRODUCTION. found its way from Edinburgh to Glasgow, to Bothwell, to Dumfries, to Kelso, and other towns in Scotland, in which the new pestilence was producing the most fatal effects. It was, therefore, evident to every human being who possessed a knowledge of the real origin and the true nature of the Cholera poison, that it would soon find its way not only into London, but also to almost every town and village of England and Ireland. I had, in 1849, a clear recollection of the evil that had been done by the medical members of the Central Board, in 1832. The knowledge of this evil led me to believe that unless means were used to undo the mischief they had then done, that the Cholera, in 1848-9, would be far more fatal in proportion to the number of attacks, than it had been in 1831-2. I believed also that the republication in the " Medical Times," of the returns from the City to the Central Board, would be one means of contributing to the fatal results of the bad practice that was and is the sad offspring of the ignorance of the medical members of the so-called Board of Health. When Mr. Ross's cholera tables were shown to me by Dr. Turley, of Worcester, in the end of November, 1848, asserting a loss of about seventy-seven per cent, under my saline treatment, and only fourteen per cent, loss under the saline practice of Mr, 6 INTRODUCTION. Marsden, I knew that these tables were incorrect, but still it was necessary to find evidence to prove that they were so. I had not kept a list of the cases myself, but I knew that, in 1832, an official journal had been kept in the prison of Coldbath- Fields, containing the date of attack, the name of each patient, the duration of the disease, the state of the patient on each day at noon, the treatment, the date of recovery (if the patient did recover), and the date of the death, if the patient died. In 1832 the Infirmary prison journal in Coldbath- Fields was kept by the warder, and, after examination, it was signed as correct by the surgeon of the prison every forenoon, immediately after he had visited the patients. This official journal was open to the inspection of the visiting justices; it was also examined at certain periods, corrected, if necessary, and then signed as correct by the chairman of the visiting magistrates. By this arrangement there were three responsible parties, so that not one patient could be entered in that journal as a case of cholera, unless there was a patient with cholera in the infirmary, to represent the name of the patient that was so entered as a case of cholera in the said official journal. I may here state that, in 1832, though I attended most of the Cholera patients in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, still I had no share whatever in the keeping of the infirmary journal. But from my own 7 INTRODUCTION. recollection of the number of cases in 1832, I had a firm conviction that if the facts contained in that verified journal could be made to see the light, they would prove that in a great number of severe cases of Cholera, in which the new practice had been used in that then foul prison, the mortality had been neither seventy-seven nor eighty-eight, but considerably less than five per cent, in the hundreds of cases in which the new treatment had been put to the test of a fair experiment, from the sth of April to the end of December in 1832. In the beginning of 1849, well aware as I was of the evil that had been done by the medical members of the Central Board, in 1832, I knew that unless means could be used to put a stop to the mischief they had done, the mortality would be far greater in this country in 1849 than it had been during the first irruption. But my own knowledge, however correct, and my own evidence, however true, could not be of any use in preventing the evil. For I had been publicly condemned in 1832, as a dealer in untruth, by an official commission appointed by the Privy Council, to inquire into the number and the nature of the cases of Cholera that were said to have been in the prison at Coldbath-Fields on the 28th of June, 1832. But still I knew, if the facts contained in the verified official medical journal in Coldbath-Fields could be 8 INTRODUCTION. made to see the light that these facts might be used as the means of enabling the surgeon of that prison, to undo the evil that had been done in June and July, 1832, and that too by the very individuals who were appointed as the well-paid guardians of the public health. Soon after the publication of Mr. Ross's lectures and tables in the " Medical Times," I went to London for the express purpose of trying to prevail on Mr. Wakefield, the surgeon of the prison, to do justice to himself, to truth, and to those who were then suffering from a fell poison, by the immediate publication of the results of the new practice in the cases of the Cholera that had been in the prison in 1832, as the facts still stand in his own verified journal to this day. I was the more anxious on this subject, because there were still living witnesses of the highest respectability who had seen almost every one of the Cholera patients that had been in Coldbath- Fields in 1832. And knowing what I do of the sterling worth of these gentlemen, I believe they would not refuse to give their testimony in support of what they know to be a most important truth, namely, that, in 1832, the new practice had produced the most magical results in upwards of four hundred severe cases of the cholera in which it had been put to the test of a fair experiment in the prison that was then under their direction. 9 INTRODUCTION. Immediately after my arrival in town, I called on Mr. Wakefield, and showed him the statements and tables that had been published by Mr. Ross in the " Medical Times." When I put Mr. Ross's statement of seventy-seven per cent, loss under my practice into Mr. Wakefield's hands, I requested him to recollect that if Mr. Ross's statements were true, they gave a flat contradiction to the truth of the voluntary statement that he, Mr. Wakefield, had published in the " Medical Gazette," of the 28th of April, 1832, of only one death and about ninety-nine recoveries, in the first one hundred cases in which the new practice had been put to the test of a fair experiment in Coldbath- Fields. The answer to my request was that he would read Mr. Ross's statements attentively, and after having done so, he would call on me before twelve o'clock on the following day, and give me his candid opinion of what he might think we ought to do in this affair. At the appointed time Mr. Wakefield did call on me, but he was evidently in a state of great mental agitation. He said he had read Mr. Ross's lecture, that it was all trash — mere trash, and therefore his candid opinion was, that neither he nor myself ought to take the slighest notice of any such trumpery as that which had been published in the ".Medical Times," on the mere authority of a Mr. Ross. Mr. Wakefield then added, that as both he 10 INTRODUCTION. and myself stood so high in the estimation of the respectable portion of the medical world, it would be beneath the dignity of either of us to take any notice of any mis-statements that Mr. Ross might publish on the subject of Cholera in the " Medical Times." This, he said, was his candid opinion ; and then after declaring that he had no time to attend to such trash, the surgeon of the prison disappeared in great haste, without giving me time to tell him that the statements in the " Medical Times" did not rest on the authority of Mr. Ross, but on the authority of the returns from the city to the Central Board as they stood in the "Lancet." It appears from the above that want of time and a due regard to his own dignity were Mr. Wakefield's ostensible reasons for not wishing to enter into any inquiry into the facts. But when the reader has acquired a knowledge of the truth, he will then be able to judge whether or not the surgeon of the prison did or did not consult his own dignity in refusing to enter into any correspondence with Mr. Ross on the transactions connected with the history of the new practice in the cases of cholera that had been in the prison of Coldbath-Fields in 1832. In consequence of the direct refusal of Mr. Wakefield to give me any assistance in my attempt to extricate myself from the evil effects of what he knew to have been an unjust condemnation, and also 11 INTRODUCTION. a sore evil, not only to true knowledge, but to the sufferers from the new pestilence, I had but one ray of hope left then, for it would depend entirely on the decision of the visiting magistrates at Coldbath-Fields, whether the proofs and the benefits of an important discovery should be lost to the world for ever, or whether the proofs should be permitted to be made public for the benefit of the human race. At that time I had been so many years absent from London, that I did not know any one of the gentlemen who were then the visiting magistrates of that prison. But I knew that the same noble, high-minded and talented individual, who had been the governor in 1832, still held that office; and, therefore, in place of making a direct application to the magistrates, I applied to Mr. Chesterton, the governor, to know if I could obtain a list of the names of all the patients, and all the particulars of the cases of Cholera, as they had been recorded in the verified medical journal of that prison in T832, and also in 1833. During my daily attendance for nearly five months on the Cholera patients in Coldbath-Fields in 1832, Mr. Chesterton had not only shown me great personal kindness, but when he knew that I had been most unfairly attacked, and publicly condemned as a criminal for having done great good to the patients with Cholera in that prison, the governor, of his own 12 INTRODUCTION. free will, wrote an admirable letter, that was published in the " Medical Gazette," in which the real facts of the case and the proofs were put in the place of the false statements, and the incorrect evidence on which the three Government Commissioners had given their unjust decision. I say unjust, for it will be proved in the following work that the said commissioners had given a most foul judgment founded on evidence that the judges themselves knew to be as far from the truth as the darkness of midnight is distant from the light of the sun at the noon of day. It will also be seen in the present work who were the real authors of the false evidence that justified the unjust judgment that was given by the three Government Commissioners in 1832. During my first visit to Mr. Chesterton, when I asked him if he thought the visiting magistrates would consent to my receiving from the official infirmary medical journal a list of all the cases of Cholera that had been in that prison in 1832 and 1833, he said, he could not answer that question, but if I wished it, he would put my request before the visiting magistrates, and when they had given a decision he would let me know the result. From the time that I had made the above request until I received an answer, I remained in a state of great anxiety, for I knew that it would depend on the 13 INTRODUCTION. decision of the visiting magistrates whether the real proofs of an important discovery should be made useful to the world, or whether they should remain concealed and utterly useless, as they had then been for nearly twenty years, in the official journal of that prison. I was not, however, kept long in this state of anxiety, for in less than forty-eight hours I received a visit from the warder of the prison, who said that he had been sent by the authorities at Coldbath-Fields to receive from me a note of all the information that I wished to obtain from the official medical journal of the infirmary for 1832 and 1833. I told the warder that I wished to receive an official list of the names of all the patients with Cholera, the date of the attack, the state of the patients on each day at noon, the plan of treatment, and the result of the practice in every case of the new pestilence that had been in the prison during its first irruption on the sth of April, 1832, until its termination in 1833. Within a reasonable time I received an official document from the warder of the prison, containing a list of the five hundred and four cases of cholera that had been recorded in the official prison journal in 1832, and also of the twenty-four cases that had been in the prison in 1833, making in all five hundred and twenty-eight cases of the new pestilence during the first irruption, with forty-five deaths, or under ten 14 INTRODUCTION. per cent, loss in the five hundred and twenty-eight cases of Cholera, and of course four hundred and eighty-three recoveries. It will be seen, however, that by far the greater number of the forty-five deaths did not occur under the new practice. In the above five hundred and twenty-eight cases upwards of two hundred had been cases of collapse. Consequently, so far is the collapse stage of the Cholera from being a fatal symptom, it will be seen that under proper treatment upwards of one hundred and sixty patients in that fearful state had recovered in that one prison during the first irruption of the new pestilence in 1832. Mr. Ross's lectures in the " Medical Times" had been shown to me by Dr. Turley of Worcester, in December, 1848, but previously to the reception of the above official document from the prison I had shown him in the " London Medical and Surgical Journal," and also in the " Medical Gazette" for 1832, evidence to prove, that one at least of the two official returns from the City to the Central Board was a false document, inasmuch as Mr. Marsden had given himself the credit of a discovery he had not made. When Dr. Turley was fully satisfied on this subject, he, of his own free will, published a series of letters in the " Medical Times," which soon drew a voluntary admission from Mr. Ross that he had been led into error on the subject of the two 15 INTRODUCTION. saline treatments, by the belief that the return from Greville Street Hospital was a true report, but which he then admitted to be an incorrect document. The strong and the clear facts that had been published by Dr. Turley, in the " Medical Times," in the early part of 1849, soon led several medical practitioners not only in London, but also in Ireland and Scotland, and even in Canada, to give a fair trial to the new practice in Cholera. The result was, that many of the gentlemen who had put the saline treatment to the test of experiment, published in the " Medical Times," as well as in other publications, accounts of the most favourable results of the new practice in the new pestilence. The facts that were published in 1849, by many most respectable medical practitioners, were so strong, that these facts of themselves ought to have led to an official inquiry into the truth or the falsehood of the statements that had been published not only in the " Medical Times," but also in other publications of that year. But notwithstanding the many proofs that w r ere then published in favour of the new practice, still the leaders both of the Central Board and of the College of Physicians remained in a state of perverse collapse. For rather than risk the exposure of their own ignorance by a fair investigation into the facts, they preferred darkness and death under the " legitimate 16 INTRODUCTION. practice," to light and life under the new treatment. In 1849, after having made, with a reference to truth, a strict investigation into the facts connected with the Cholera in 1832, that were proved by the official infirmary journal of the prison in Coldbath- Fields, and also by other documents, I hoped that without going far into the foundation on which the new practice is built, I might be able to prevail on either the Board of Health or the College of Physicians to recommend the appointment of an impartial commission to make a fair investigation, and to give a decision according to the proofs that I then had in my possession ready to produce before any fair tribunal that the Privy Council or the College of Physicians might be pleased to appoint. Had this reasonable hope been realized, the evidence contained in the following work would have been laid before the Commissioners, and I firmly believe that the decision of a fair tribunal would have benefited suffering humanity more in one day than has yet been effected by all the Boards of Health, or by all the Colleges of Physicians that have ever existed in this world. The publication of Dr. Turley's letters and Mr. Ross's voluntary retraction, in the " Medical Times," had done some good. But still, in 1849, the far greater number of the members of the medical pro- b 17 INTRODUCTION. fession continued to prefer ignorance and death, under " the legitimate practice," to the new treatment. The root of this evil was the condemnation of the new practice as a gross delusion by a self-interested Commission, that had been appointed by the Privy Council to make an official inquiry into this subject on the 28th of June, 1832. But some time after I had received the official documents from the prison which prove that the official judges had given a false judgment relative to the Cholera of 1832, and having then a firmer conviction than ever, that the untenable and worthless doctrines that were patronized and still acted upon by the medical members of Central Board, were the true causes why, in 1848 and 1849, the mortality from Cholera was far greater in proportion to the number of attacks than it had been under a better treatment in 1832 and 1833. I made a visit to London in 1849, in the forlorn hope that some good might yet be done by a direct appeal to the then ruling powers in the medical world. The medical authorities of the Central Board had been entirely changed since 1832, and the most active of the three, to whom I have referred, had been removed from this world. On the day after my arrival in London I went to the Board of Health and requested an interview with Dr. Southwood Smith. I was immediately admitted, received 18 I INTRODUCTION. with kindness, and listened to apparently with the greatest interest. When I had said all I intended to say, I asked Dr. Smith if he would recommend the appointment of a fair commission to investigate the truth of the facts I had stated, which I had no doubt I would be able to prove by the official documents I was prepared to put before any disinterested judges that the Privy Council might please to appoint. It was when I spoke about disinterested judges, and a fair enquiry, that I saw for the first time something like an unwillingness on Dr. Smith's part to look at the true light that was likely to be so great a boon to his fellow men. After he had reflected for a few seconds, Dr. S. said that he was only one of the three medical members of the General Board, and, therefore, before he could give an answer to my question it would be necessary for him to consult with his two medical colleagues. He said, however, that he would take the earliest opportunity of consulting with Drs. Grainger and Sutherland, and then he appointed a time and place at which he would give me an answer to the request I had made. At the appointed time, I met Dr. Smith in his own house, near Highgate. Dr. Grainger was with him, and after some preliminary conversation, Dr. Smith commenced a prosy lecture about certain unknown properties of matter which he seemed to consider b 2 19 INTRODUCTION. as the true foundation of all legitimate medical science. In the beginning of this lecture on physical science, or that non-entity, material knowledge, and after giving utterance to what I believed to be most untenable trash about the said properties of matter, and an animal life in man, and a certain organic or vegetable life in the bodies of human beings, Dr. Smith concluded his lecture by saying that as my practice in Cholera was, by my own admission, founded on views that stood in direct opposition to the accumulated ideas that were founded on the experience and the science, not only of all the medical teachers in this country, but also of all philosophers in every part of the civilized world ; and that, therefore, seventhly and lastly, taking all these things into serious consideration, and after due deliberation on the subject of my request, Dr. Grainger and himself, had come to a firm determination that they would not, under any circumstances recommend the appointment of any commission of any kind to investigate the merits of the saline treatment in Cholera. Dr. Smith might have added, that the medical members of the Board of Health now, after consultation, saw clearly that the saline treatment in Cholera was the very reverse of the poison-to-poison practice that had been recommended by themselves with so little success, and that consequently, if the 20 INTRODUCTION. new practice should be found, on a fair investigation, to be the best treatment in Cholera, it would then be seen, and soon known to the world that their own opposite practice was the worst. This, I believe, was the true reason why the members of the Board of Health did not wish any fair inquiry to be made into a subject that was likely to throw a clear light on their own official and total ignorance of the true nature and the proper treatment of the new disease. When I again urged the utility of a fair inquiry, Dr. Smith said that if I would give him a minute description, in my own hand-writing, of my plan of treating Cholera, he would give it to his friend and colleague, Dr. Grainger, that some of their own agents should make a trial of the treatment, and that then they would be able to judge whether my practice was or was not more successful in cholera than the far more scientific treatment that was then recommended by themselves. When Dr. Smith made the above proposal, I saw clearly that it was only a trap, in order to have an opportunity of officially condemning, at an easy rate, the practice that in reality stood in such direct opposition to his own, that if the one were very good, the other must be very bad. It will afterwards be seen that in the beginning of May, 1832, Dr. Smith's predecessor in office, the late Dr. Barry, had either obtained, or pretended he had 21 INTRODUCTION. obtained, from the surgeon of the prison at Coldbath- Fields, a letter containing an account of the results of the saline treatment in the three cases of cholera that were said to have been in that prison in April. This letter was sent by the Central Board of 1832 to their official protegees in Dublin and Cork. From the sequel of this transaction, there is little doubt that the official letter of the surgeon was accompanied by a request that the new practice referred to should be condemned, because it had been introduced by an individual who had been, and still was, by his pretended discoveries, a sore thorn in the side of their own good and learned patrons in the Central Board. The result was what, under such circumstances, might have been expected. For in due time there came sad howlings from Ireland of the total worthlessness of the practice said to have been so successful in London, as well as in other parts of England, and also even in the Sister Isle. The reader, however, will soon see the value that ought to be put on official evidence given for an evil purpose, with a total disregard either to truth or to the benefit of their fellowmen. The radically bad practice that had been recommended by the so-called Board of Health in 1 832, has been put to the test of experiment in millions of cases of Cholera ; but I firmly believe that it has never saved even one patient in the new disease. For in 22 INTRODUCTION. every hundred cases of Cholera, nature cures about the one-half, by expelling the poison from the blood and the body. But, those practitioners who lock up the narcotic poison of the Cholera in the blood and the body by the use of opium, chalk mixtures, or other astringents, can best tell what becomes of the other fifty patients, or the severer cases that are treated on the so-called scientific plan, recommended by the medical members of the Central Board. At the time of my first interview with Dr. Southwood Smith, I had a firm belief that, by proper treatment, the mortality from Cholera could be reduced from fifty to less than^_ . per cent. It was probably the fear that I might be able to prove the truth of this assertion, that induced the medical members of the Board of Health in 1849 to come to the conclusion that it would be far safer for them not to trust to past experience, but to make the experiment themselves in some dark hole or corner, where means could easily be used to make it fail, than to leave the investigation of a matter of such vital importance to a tribunal of three or five intelligent judges, who could have no interest on either side, and would give their judgment according to the nature of the evidence that might be put before them. I had gone to London for the express purpose of trying to obtain a fair inquiry. My application to the Central Board had been a complete failure, 23 INTRODUCTION. but I had a ray of hope left, namely, that some good might still be done by an application to the President of the College of Physicians. In 1830 the leaders of the College had received a useful lesson, which ought to have taught them not to condemn any discovery, merely because it stands in direct opposition to their own views. I had also reason to believe that, in 1832, the present President of the College of Physicians had publicly acquitted me of having said anything relating to the success of the new practice in Cholera, that I did not myself believe to be true. In addition to this I had reason to believe that some of the younger and more intelligent members of the College were beginning to doubt the truth of the doctrines that have so long been patronized and protected by the older members who unfortunately govern the affairs of the medical world in this country. But, above all, I knew that, in 1849, the College of Physicians had appointed a commission to make an inquiry into the nature and treatment of Cholera ; and therefore on the day after my last interview w T ith the medical authorities of the Central Board, I made a personal application to Dr. Paris, the President of the College of Physicians, with whom I had had several interviews in 1832. On my arrival at the President's house, I was immediately admitted, and made a statement to him similar to the one I had made to Dr. Smith, on my 24 INTRODUCTION. first visit to the Central Board. I told Dr. Paris that I was now prepared by unquestionable documents to prove that the medical members of the Central Board, in 1832, had been guilty of a foul deed, and earnestly requested that he would recommend the appointment of an impartial commission to make a searching inquiry into the contents of the official and other documents I was prepared to put before the members of any fair commission the College of Physicians might appoint to investigate a subject of so much importance, particularly at that time, when Cholera was producing such fearful mortality in this country. I said everything I could, to induce the President of the College to give a favourable answer to a reasonable request, I begged him for the sake, not only of truth but of suffering humanity, to recommend the appointment of an impartial commission, even of the members of the College, to inquire into the truth of the statements I had made to him ; and also into the nature of the proofs that I had then in my possession. When I made this request, Dr. Paris gave me a reply similar to that which I had received at the close of my first interview with the medical leader of the Central Board. The President said, " You must be well aware that I can do nothing in an affair of this kind, without consulting with the Censors of the College ; but as you seem 25 INTRODUCTION. to wish it, I shall take an early opportunity of putting your statements and request before the Censors. This is all I can do for the present, and if you will call on me again in three or four days, I shall then be able to let you know whether the other authorities of the College may or may not be willing to comply with your request." At the appointed time I went again to Dover Street, where I w T as told that Dr. Paris had left London, and was not expected to return for about a w 7 eek. When I received this information, and was told also that he had not left any note or message for me, my suspicion was, that the object of the President's absence was to get rid of the necessity of giving refusal to a reasonable and a most important request. But still as it w T as possible that some necessary affairs might have called him hence, I determined to remain in London another week, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the game that the so-called learned members of the College seemed to be playing through the medium of their President. About a week after my last visit I went again to Dover Street, where, as a just punishment for my audacity, or perseverance, I was put into an empty room, and kept in solitary confinement for more than an hour before the servant came to conduct me to the presence of the great chief of the medical world. When I arrived at the open door I saw 26 INTRODUCTION. the President of the College working himself up into a mighty passion, and evidently preparing to prevent my entrance into his sanctum sanctorum. My first impression was, that after consultation with the Censors, the dread of the exposure of their own ignorance had driven the poor President into a state of excitement, that had far more the appearance of mental insanity than of sober reason. Seeing that he was determined to prevent my entrance, I did not attempt to enter his sanctum ; but I was not long kept in suspense, for the learned President of the College of Physicians advanced towards me in the attitude of one about to inflict corporeal Punishment. The President, however, was too noble-minded to attempt to strike a retreating enemy in his own house, but he used words that, if not intended to kill, were meant to be cutting, or at all events, to prevent me from ever returning again to his house. " I am very sorry," he said, " very sorry, sorry indeed, Sir, that you have again intruded yourself on me ; lam very busy, too busy indeed, to have my time — my precious time — wasted in any idle discussion about either the Cholera, or your saline treatment. I must, therefore, tell you — indeed I must insist, that there shall be an end to this subject, for I am determined to wash my hands clear of the whole affair ; and, therefore, I request that you will never in any way intrude this hateful subject on me again." 27 INTRODUCTION. When the good President of the College of Physicians had distilled the above venom into my ear, I felt a burning spot on my brow, and an angry reply came to lips. But fortunately my good spirit gave me the instant belief that an angry answer was the very thing that Dr. Paris wished. For had an angry reply been given, it would have been used as the cause of their refusal to comply with a request that might have led, long ere this time, not only to the saving of millions of human lives, but also to the shining of a truer light than any light so-called that glimmers from the material brains of the medical leaders of the College of Physicians. When I saw, or believed that I saw the trap, that the leaders of the College had set for me, I instantly determined not to give them this advantage; and, therefore, without saying one word I turned round and made my exit from the President's house, more convinced than ever that the College of Physicians and the Central Board are sore evils under the sun. For the power that is given to the leaders of these establishments is used by them, not for the good of the human race but for the concealment of the false knowledge that makes them not the friends, but the bitter enemies, of their fellow-men. When it was known, in 1848, that this country was on the eve of receiving another visit from " the jungle fiend," if the medical members of the 28 INTRODUCTION. Central Board had been endowed with one ray of intelligence, or had they known the sterling value of true knowledge, the very first thing they would have done would have been to make a searching inquiry into the results of the different plans of treatment that had been used during the first outbreak of the Cholera from 1831 to 1833. If they had done this, with a reference to truth, they w r ould have been real benefactors to their fellow men. For they would have found by a fair inquiry into the results of 1832, that by a simple, but a far more scientific plan of treatment, the mortality from Cholera in many places, and in thousands of cases had been reduced from fifty to less than five per cent. But the then medical members of the Central Board not only did the things that they ought not have done, but they left undone the things they should have done, for by neglecting to benefit from former experience, they were guilty of a great error and of gross injustice to the unfortunate sufferers from the new pestilence. It was probably from the fear of the discovery of their own neglect, that in 1849, when they saw the fatal results of their own bad treatment, the medical members of the Central Board did not wish the world to know the sad error that they had committed ; and therefore they made every effort in their power to prevent the world from acquiring 29 INTRODUCTION. a knowledge of their own utter worthlessness, as the curers of the new disease. This we believe was one reason why, in 1849, the medical members of the Central Board refused to look at the truth when it was offered to them. On the contrary, they strained every nerve in their bodies to keep the world in ignorance of a discovery, that in 1832 had done more good to suffering humanity in one day, than all the medical members of the Central Board have ever done, or are likely ever to do so long as they remain in their present state of total darkness to the true light. In 1849, when the medical members of the Central Board found that the poison-to-poison practice recommended by themselves had been a great evil in place of a benefit to the sufferers from Cholera. When they found also, that the facts which had lately been published in the " Medical Times," and in other works, were making a strong impression on many of the members of the medical profession in favour of the new practice ; in place of making a fair inquiry, and admitting their error, they made an effort to undo the good that had been done by the above-named publications, by giving birth on the 1 1th of June to a lengthy document, the great object of which evidently was to induce the world not to put any trust in the inventions of pretended remedies for Cholera. For in the said publica- 30 INTRODUCTION. tion they declared that " the General Board of Health have to regret the failure of any mode of treatment that has been hitherto adopted in the developed or collapsed stage of this disease." The above official declaration by the General Board has been a sore evil to the sufferers from the Cholera, for to pronounce a disease to be incurable is the surest means of making it so. Had the medical members of the General Board stated that millions of lives had been lost, but that not one severe case of Cholera had ever been cured by their poison-to-poison practice they w 7 ould have told the truth, and nothing but the truth. But the reader will find in the present work ample evidence to prove that the above assertion of the incurability of the collapse stage of Cholera was either the offspring of gross human error, or of something else that was used by the medical members of the Central Board for the concealment of their own ignorance, not only of the true nature of the new pestilence, but also of the true nature of the unseen things that exist as the true causes of action in the material frame of human beings. For the spiritual things that are not seen are in reality by far the most important of all the many things that exist in the material frame of a living man. When the medical members of the Central Board found, in 1 849, that their own poison-to-poison 31 INTRODUCTION. practice had proved itself to have been a miserable failure they were sadly puzzled, for, in the present state of human existence, " Folk maun do something for their bread, And sac maun Death." And so must the dwellers in darkness, at the Central Board. For in 1849, when their practice of adding the poison of opium to the Cholera poison had completely failed, their carnal minds had still another means left, of trying to prove to the public that they were still worthy of their daily bread. For they tried to make the world believe that they had then made a most mighty discovery, namely, that a poison which is evidently imported from a distance, may still be the offspring of certain atmospheric conditions produced by atmospheric states or by certain local causes that were then imagined to be the true parents of the new pestilence. When the medical seers at the Central Board had made this great discovery, all the Local Boards of health were ordered to keep a sharp look out on local causes, and all hands were set to work to stir up the putrid things that were imagined to be the true parents of the certain atmospheric conditions that may be the causes of other evils ; but the said local causes have never yet produced even one case of the Cholera in this world. 32 INTRODUCTION. To those who are acquainted with the specific character of the Cholera poison, who have traced the steady progress of the new pestilence, step by step, from the far east to the banks of the Volga, and afterwards to the far west in the New World, the belief that the true Cholera can be the result of certain atmospheric conditions, of common filth, or of bad ventilation, or of any of the common causes of local impurity, looks far more like the offspring of insanity than of a sound judgment. For may we not ask were there no abnormal atmospheric conditions, was there no common filth, was there no bad ventilation in Europe previous to the year 1829 . or were there no such atmospheric conditions, or were there no other local causes of the nature to which they attribute Cholera in England, previous to the month of October, 1831 ? Was it a local dunghill, or an infected cloud, or was it infected human beings in a vessel from an infected port on the opposite continent that imported the first particles of the invisible poison into Sunderland in October, 1831 ? Was it visible heaps of filth that carried the invisible poison from the first infected town in England to other towns that remained healthy until the arrival, not of dung heaps nor of visible masses of filth, but o£ living human beings who carried the invisible, but deadly poison of the new pestilence in their clothes, their blood, or in their bodies, from the infected towns, to those towns that c 33 INTRODUCTIONS remained free from Cholera, until after the arrival in them of human beings who had received the poison from breathing the contaminated air expelled from the secretions and excretions of the infected bodies of those individuals who either were or had been suffering under the deadly influence of the specific poison, or the jungle fiend that alone can produce the true Cholera? Searching for the cause of the new disease where it did not exist was one error, and shutting the eyes of others to prevent them from acquiring a knowledge of the only successful practice, was another of the sad errors committed by the medical members of the socalled Board of Health in 1849. For the result was, that when the poison of Cholera did commence its destructive work in real earnest, the mortality in London was in proportion to the number of the inhabitants about four times greater than it had been from the same pestilence in 1831 and 1832, in which thousands on thousands of lives had been saved by the new practice. One great cause of the excess of mortality in London in 1849, was the means that had been used by the Board of Health in 1832, to deceive the medical profession, and to keep the world in ignorance of the real facts relative to the results of the new practice that had done so much good when the Cholera poison that has such an enmity to the life that 34 INTRODUCTION. exists in the blood of man made its first visit to England in October, 1831, and continued to act on the inhabitants until the end of 1833. If the medical members of the Central Board in 1849 could either have prevented or cured the Cholera, their knowledge would have been a pearl of great price to themselves, and also of infinite value to their fellow men. But in place of possessing this truer knowledge their carnal minds are so darkened by the thorns and thistles of their own gross materiality that even to this hour they know just as little of what true knowledge is, as they know of the real nature or the true cause of the new 7 pestilence, or the way that the poison acts on the living blood in the human body. For had they possessed one ray of true knowledge, they would not have attributed the effects of an imported poison to certain atmospheric conditions, or to common local causes, neither would they have attempted to cure the new disease by locking up the enemy of life — the deadly poison of Cholera — in the blood and in the bodies of the poor patients. In other words, they would not have attempted to stop the salutary symptoms in the commencement of the disease, at the expense of the lives of the sufferers from the new pestilence. For when the new enemy of life did come, certain death was the inevitable result of their practice in every severe case in which the patient had the misfortune to be treated on the c 2 35 INTRODUCTION. poison-to-poison plan that was then recommended by the medical members of the Central Board. Good and evil, or true knowledge and false knowledge are two of the antagonistic forces in the human mind. Consequently, if true knowledge be the true antagonist of the deadly poison of Cholera, or in other words, if true knowledge be necessary to enable the human mind to understand the nature of and to preserve life in this new disease, then what good can we expect from the blind leaders who are even to this day totally ignorant of what the true life is that is in us ? If it be equally true that the carnal minds of the medical members of the Central Board, are for self-sin against their God, so cursed above all cattle with self-ignorance that even to this day they do not know what true knowledge is, or what the human mind is, what good can be expected from such men as the healers of the sick in a new disease. If a true knowledge of the nature of the causes of action in the human frame be necessary to enable the human mind to form a correct judgment or to use a successful practice, it is then clear that the material minds of the said leaders of the medical profession cannot be of any use. For even to this day they are not only destitute of true knowledge, but their carnal minds are so crammed with the thorns and thistles of their own gross materiality, that they cannot see even one ray of the true light. If this be I 36 I INTRODUCTION. true then so long as this darkness continues, such benighted men, or animal lives, ought not to be permitted to practice medicine on human beings. For if the cerebral minds of our medical leaders be so darkened with self-ignorance that they can only conceive by cerebral conception or perceive by cerebral perception, not external objects but internal cerebral sensations, or material ideas imprinted by images in the oval centre or in the grey matter of their gross material brains, then we leave it to the world to say if men in such total darkness should be permitted to be the guardians of the lives of other men. Self-ignorance for self-sin is a withering curse; for the animal lives or the material minds of such perverted beings can no more perceive by perception nor conceive by conception, cerebral sensations or material ideas imprinted by nerves or images or idols in their material brains than a barber's block can see by sight and acquire a knowledge of the objects that exist in the external w 7 orld by looking at them with its eyes of glass. On the other side it will be proved in the present work that true knowledge is more precious than rubies. For if it be true that the vital electricity which the salts of the earth receive from the vital air is a life-giving remedy for the Cholera poison, that is far more certain in its results than any or than all of the boasted specifics that the medical faculty possess, either for the cure of Cholera or of 37 INTRODUCTION. any other fatal disease, then time will tell that the mental knowledge of this fact will be far better than gold, yea, than refined gold to the human race. In 1850, I made no secret of my intention to publish on the Cholera as soon as I could make a fair inquiry into all the facts connected with the new practice in 1832 and 1833, consequently the medical members of the Central Board could scarcely believe that with truth on my side I would suffer things to remain as they then were, or to permit their errors to triumph over truth, Time was moving on, and at last the medical leaders at the Central Board began to show signs of uneasiness. They clearly saw if I could prove to a fair tribunal the truth of the statements that had been published in the " Medical Times," that their occupation as the blind leaders of the blind would soon be gone. For there would soon be an end to their career if the public should acquire a knowledge of the fact that there is a certain cure for the Cholera, that has by unfair means been kept a secret — even at the expence of incalculable suffering and the loss of thousands upon thousands of human lives. But we do hope that when the truth is known, the present state of darkness will no longer be permitted to exist by any good government, and if so, then in six months the false doctrines that are 38 INTRODUCTION. now patronized by the blind who are the leaders of the blind, will become the certain victims of the Cholera poison. For nature does nothing in vain, and we firmly believe that the Cholera poison was sent into this world to show the utter worthlessness of the false knowledge of those human beings who call themselves animals and even to this day continue to prefer their own erring or evil or animal-life knowledge to the unerring wisdom of God. But when this state of total darkness for self-sin shall come to be generally known, we do trust that the present dens of medical darkness will cease, or be remembered only as institutions that continued to exist as an eternal disgrace to the human rac until the year of our Lord 1853. So long as human beings remain in a state of barbarity or in total darkness to the true light, might is the test of right, or in other words the decision of the question of right and wrong, or of good and evil, is left to the brute force of the savage tribes. But in all civilized nations, where a difference of opinion exists between two contending parties, particularly in matters of great importance, the question of right and wrong is left, or ought to be left not to the decision of either of the two contending parties, but to the arbitration of disinterested individuals, or to the verdict of a jury of their fellow men and the judgment of an impartial judge. 39 INTRODUCTION. In 1832 the three medical members of the Central Board were the contending parties on the one side, and myself on the other. Our opinions of the nature of, and our treatment in the Cholera were directly opposed, and not only the shining of a truer light, but the lives of millions of human beings depended on the decision of the question of who was right and who was wrong. Still, in place of leaving the decision of the question of right or wrong to fair arbitration, or to the verdict of a jury of the land, and the judgment of an impartial judge, it will be seen that the Privy Council;, in 1832, were the authors of an act that was far more like the offspring of magical delusion, than the result of sober reason. For the lives of thousands were then at stake, but instead of leaving a question of such vital importance as the best treatment of the new pestilence to the decision of an impartial tribunal, the then Privy Council appointed the leaders of one of the two contending parties to be the judges, when it was clear as day that the said leaders would be sure to give their judgment in their own favour, and that too without the slightest reference to right or wrong, or to the welfare of the sufferers from a new but a fell scourge to the human race. Such an act may appear improbable, and any intelligent reader of the present day will scarcely believe that so cruel an error could have been com- 40 INTRODUCTION. mitted by a Privy Council in England, so late as 1832; but still it will be proved that this error was committed in that year. It will also be seen that this one act of the then Privy Council, not only cost the lives of thousands on thousands of their fellow beings, but it retarded the shining of a truer light, that when permitted to appear, will do more good to the now erring human race in one hour, than has been done by all the Colleges of Physicians, and all the so-called Boards of Health that have ever existed in this world. If what we have said be true, then what will an intelligent world say, when it will be proved that as late as 1832, the rulers of this Christian country had appointed one of the contending parties on the important subject of Cholera, as the judges to give judgment in their own cause, and of course in their own favor? Yet this is exactly what was done by the Privy Council in that year. For the three medical members of the then Central Board knew that both my opinions and practice were the very reverse of their own, consequently if I was right, they must be wrong. They knew also that the new practice had produced the most successful results, but to prevent the world from acquiring a knowledge of this truth, the then leader of the medical members of the Board used foul means to get himself appointed by the Privy 41 INTRODUCTION. Council as the judge to give judgment in his own cause. When Dr. Barry had gained this end, bribery and corruption were then used to a fearful extent, as well as other means to obtain false evidence. We say false evidence for it will be proved that the evidence on which I was condemned by the members of the Central Board, was not only untrue, but that the judges themselves knew that the evidence on which they condemned me was the very reverse of the truth. The above statements are not mere assertions, for they will be proved to be true to the conviction of every intelligent mind ; and yet it will be seen from the facts, that it was by means of false evidence that the Central Board contrived to convince, not only the Privy Council of 1832, but the whole world, that they were then the authors of a most meritorious act, and that too at the very time when, if a fair inquiry had been made into their conduct, and justice had been duly awarded, every one of the three official but false judges, as well as their false witnesses, should have been sent to one of the penal settlements, not only as guilty criminals against their suffering fellow-men, but also against those who had in truth not only done great good in the new pestilence, but by the dissemination of a truer knowledge, they did more to benefit their fellow-men than has been done by all the cerebral 42 INTRODUCTION. sensations, or the cerebral ideas in the carnal minds of all the so-called philosophers that have ever existed on the face of the earth. Such was the state of affairs in 1832, when the then medical leader of the Central Board — by the commission of a foul act and, as shall be shown, by the use of false evidence — contrived to deceive the Privy Council, for the purpose of enabling the three medical members of the Central Board to retain their power and profits, when one of them, at least, with his false witnesses, ought to have been severely punished for the evil deeds they had then done. In 1849, the present medical leaders of the Central Board probably knew that the iniquity of having made one of the contending parties judges of their own merits, in a question of life or death to the sick, would soon be known to the public. They knew, also, when the evil results of this act of cruelty should be generally known, that they themselves would not be allowed to be judges in an important case, in which they were one of the antagonistic parties. It was, therefore, at this time, when the fear that the axe was soon to be used, that has so long been laid at the root of the tree of evil knowledge, that the medical members of the Central Board had recourse to their own cunning for their own protection. For the dread of the exposure of their own utter uselessness, and the loss of their 43 INTRODUCTION. power and profits, induced them to have recourse to an artifice that was intended, at all events, to postpone the evil day, when their own self-ignorance will be clearly proved to every intelligent mind that lives on true knowledge as its own spiritual food. " 'Tis the sunset of life that gives mystical lore, and coming events cast their shadows before," consequently, in 1852, when the medical members of the Central Board foresaw the storm that was coming against them, and knowing that the leaders of the College of Physicians were embarked in the same rotten vessel with themselves, they took advantage of the non-experience of the Right Honourable Mr. Walpole, the Secretary of State, to obtain an order that all questions relative to Cholera should be left to the decision of the College of Physicians. At least, it was stated in the public journals of that day that Dr. Southwood Smith, and Dr. Paris, had then visited the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The following was also stated in the "Lancet," of September the 26th, 1852: "It is now arranged that all medical questions relating to Cholera, and other epidemics, are to be referred to the College of Physicians. The Cholera Committee is again holding its meetings, and was summoned for the second time yesterday. A report was presented for approval ; it is intended, we understand, for publication." 44 INTRODUCTION. If the above be true, then the members of the Committee of the College of Physicians are to be the judges in a cause in which, as matters now stand, they are as much a contending party as I am myself. For in as far as relates to the Cholera if lam wrong, they are right ; and if lam right, they are wrong. This is a sad state of affairs in the medical world ; but " though hand join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished." For we do trust that this evil will not be permitted to continue, when the chiefs of the present Government shall acquire a knowledge of the fearful evils that followed a similar act of imbecility and cruelty on the part of the Privy Council of 1832. For surely when they are informed of the bribery and corruption, and the other foul means that were then used by the Barry Central Board even at a fearful loss of human life ; no good Government will permit the leaders, of an interested party, to sit as judges in a cause where their great object, namely, the concealment of their own ignorance will depend on their being able to give a decision that will deceive the world. It was announced in the medical journals in October, 1848, that two of the members of the College of Physicians had been selected to inquire into the nature and the treatment of the Cholera. The said members have therefore had sufficient time 45 INTRODUCTION. and ample means to enable the Cholera Committee of the College to acquire a true knowledge of all the important facts on record relative to the nature, but above all, with respect to the most successful means of curing the fearful disease produced by the new pestilence that walketh in darkness, truly so called from its being more active and deadly by night than it is by day. We know that some of the older leaders of the College of Physicians are in a sad state of ignorance ; but still, if the Committee of the College give a decision in accordance with truth and the good of their own race, that decision will entitle them to the everlasting gratitude of their fellow-men. But, on the other hand, if the members of the Cholera Commission give an unjust judgment, either for the advancement of their own ends, or for the concealment of the ignorance of their leaders, it will be at an awful expense of suffering and death to their fellow-beings, the leaders of the College will then be the parents of their own ruin ; for such an act will open the eyes of the world, and the speedy destruction of such a den of ignorance will be considered as a great blessing by every human mind that wishes to see the shining of the true light. For a knowledge of the true life is the light of men ; but even to this day the true light is shining in darkness, and the minds that are still in darkness can see it not. The shining 46 INTRODUCTION. of the true spiritual light will be a mighty blessing even to the sick. For the poison of Cholera is not to be destroyed by human error neither is it to be prevented from acting on its victims by the removal of so-called causes where the true cause of the Cholera does not exist. There are facts to prove that the. i! new pestilence is not the offspring of any conditions in the general atmosphere, nor does it spring from common dunghills, nor from the certain or the uncertain causes of putrefaction in common matter. For the invisible poison of the Cholera possesses the power of multiplying itself only in the blood and the bodies of living beings. This is the truth, consequently there are two things, which if soon done, and well done, will do more good to mankind in one hour than has hitherto resulted from the labours of all the so-called philosophers, or of all the Colleges of Physicians or of all the Boards of Health that have ever existed from the commencement of sin in this world to the present day. The one of the two things to which we refer is to have a stream of pure water from the top to the basement of every house that is inhabited by human beings. If this be properly done, then not only will the Cholera cease to exist, but the typhus fever, the small-pox, the scarlet fever, and the whole class of the diseases will disappear that are the result of the cereal poisons which possess such a deadly enmity to xlvii INTRODUCTION. the vital electricity or the electric life of the blood, and the body of the spiritual man that lives in his own material frame. The Cholera has been a sore scourge to the human race, but if proper drainage be effected for personal cleanness, we will venture to affirm that not only the Cholera but the whole of the pestilential diseases will make wings for themselves and fly away as the owls from the light of day, and cease to be scourges, as they now are, to the human race. The other thing that is still more needful to be done, is for the rulers of this fair and favoured kingdom to appoint an intelligent tribunal, consisting of three of the judges of the land, to make a searching inquiry into the nature of the doctrines which are generally taught to human beings of the nature of themselves. But above all to make an inquiry into the nature of the doctrines that are taught to the members of the medical profession. For if a knowledge of the many things that exist in man, and particularly if a knowledge of the three true causes of action in the human frame be necessary to enable the medical practitioners to be useful to their fellow beings during their hours of suffering and danger : then we do say that if a searching enquiry be made, and if it be found that the present leaders of the medical world, are totally destitute of a true knowledge, not only of one, but of every one of the three true causes of action in the xlviii INTRODUCTION. human frame. If this be proved, then we trust that the present leaders of the medical world will not be permitted to inflict the evil results of their own errors on either the spiritual minds, or the material bodies of the human race. If the human mind be an intelligent spirit, and if intelligence be the spiritual gift that is necessary to enable the mind of man to acquire knowledge, and if true knowledge be the spiritual food that the inner intelligent spirit in the human head receives not from cerebral sensations nor ideas in the brain, but through the medium of the two eyes, the two ears, and every one of its own ten mental organs, then the spiritual mind that is endowed with intelligence and lives on knowledge cannot be a mere material cerebral secretion. For if mental intelligence be a spiritual gift, and if true knowledge be a blessing that is more precious than rubies and better than gold, yea, than refined gold, to the human mind that is the possessor of this rich gift, then in the name of true knowledge why should men be permitted to convert the true knowledge that exists in the minds of other men into false knowledge, or, in their words into cerebral sensations, or into mere material ideas imprinted by images in the oval centre or in the grey matter of the material brain, that can no more acquire knowledge than the material eye can see by sight, or than the material ear can hear by sound ? d 49 INTRODUCTION If what we have said be true, and if the sin of preferring human evil knowledge to the unerring wisdom of the Deity be the parent of ignorance, and if human ignorance be the parent of error, shame, misery, and the mental belief in its own death, then surely the sooner the spiritual storm comes that is to level with the dust the house that is built on sand, the better it will be for the now erring sinners of the human race that continue even to this day to war with their God, and perpetuate in themselves the withering curse of self-ignorance. In the present work I have brought forward a sufficient number of facts to prove that there is a method of treating the Cholera that is capable of reducing the mortality in the new pestilence from more than fifty to less than five per cent. In another work the true causes of this beneficial result will be proved to be founded on a truer knowledge of the nature of things in the human frame. At present, however, it may be proper to state my belief in the existence of two separate and distinct electricities, namely, the vital electricity that exists in a latent form in the oxygen of the air, and the electric life of the earth, or terrestrial electricity. When the two electricities are attracted into the human frame, the vital electricity becomes the breath of life or the life that the body of every living man receives from the vital air in the blood so long as he lives in this world. 50 INTRODUCTION. When the terrestrial electricity is separated from the living blood by the grey matter of the cerebro-spinaj centres and conducted by their nerves to the muscular fibres, it then becomes the life of the flesh, or the electric life that the flesh, or the muscular organs receive from the living or the electric blood. The blood receives its terrestrial electricity partly from the solid food and the fluids which are used for the nourishment of the material frame, and partly by attraction from the earth, in proportion as the blood loses its terrestrial electricity from cerebral and muscular action. The one and the only function of the grey matter of the brain and of all the cerebro-spinal centres, is to separate this terrestrial electricity in its pure state from the other ingredients of the living blood. It is equally true that the one function of the so-called motor nerves, is to conduct the terrestrial electricity from the grey matter of the cerebro-spinal centres to the muscular organs in every part where fibres exist in the material frame. The gift that the fibres receive from the blood through the medium of the cerebro-spinal centres and the electric nerves is the life of the flesh, or the terrestrial electricity in the muscular organs which forces the contraction in them when a vital stimulus from an opposite source forces the fibres to re-act on itself. For vital electricity is the stimulus that d 2 51 INTRODUCTION. forces the electric movements which are made in and by means of the material body of the living, working, spiritual man that lives in the centre of the material temple which the spirit of God builds for its own residence and use so long as the true life or the ray from heaven remains in its own material movable house in this world, as the true doer of all the works that are done in the body and the spiritual parent of the human mind or the spirit in the material head that is born on earth. The foregoing is, we believe, the true history of the source, and also of the function of the life that the flesh receives from the blood in the material body of the living spiritual man. But still, if the life of the flesh can react only when it is acted upon by a vital stimulus, it is then clear that there must be in the human frame an opposition, or an antagonistic electric life, to communicate the electric impulse that forces the life of the flesh to react on the vital stimulus, that is communicated to the electric life in the muscular organs. The cerebrum, the cerebellum, the material heart, and also every one of the thousands of the capillary arteries in every part of the human frame, are all self-acting organs; for they act even more steadily by night, when the mind is asleep, than they do by day, when the mind is awake, and wills to work. But still, the vital vascular organs act under the lii INTRODUCTION. direction of a higher power, or the true life in the body that never sleeps, and that dieth not. The material heart in the body receives its terrestrial electricity through the medium of the socalled eighth pair of nerves, and the capillary arteries receive their terrestrial electricity from the cerebrospinal nerves, which accompany the capillary arteries to every part of the material body. But in all the ordinary vascular movements it is the vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood that communicates the electric stimulus which forces the muscular fibres of the vascular organs to react on itself. The electric contractions of the left ventricle of the heart force the pure blood into the capillary arteries, and the electric contractions of the capillary arteries force the impure blood through the capillary cells and the veins, to the right auricle of the heart. The electric fibres in the right auricle force the impure blood into the right ventricle, from which it is sent to be purified by the removal of the carbonic acid, by the action of the external power of attraction, which exists in the air that enters the pulmonary organs. The removal of the carbonic acid, and the addition of pure air, purify the blood ; but it is the vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood that communicates the vital impulse that forces the fibres in the heart, and in every one of the capillary arteries in the whole body, 53 INTRODUCTION. to react on itself. Harvey discovered the course of the vital current, but it is the vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood which is the true cause of the circulation of the vital stream that goes out from the left heart to give nourishment, heat and the electric life or the cause of sensation in the human frame. The vital electricity in the saline matter of the blood, is the true stimulus which even when the human mind is in a sound sleep, forces the circulation of the living blood in the material body of the living spiritual man, that never sleeps, and that dieth not when the body dies. This vital electricity is also the true stimulus to the vascular organs, but the body receives its great supply of vital electricity from the air that we breathe; and the one function of the internal or the ganglionic organs is to separate this vital electricity in its pure state from the living blood. Every one of the ganglionic organs has a direct nervous communication with the solar ganglion or the central organ of the internal nervous system. By these communications the worker of the body in the central tree of life receives an ample supply of vital electricity to enable the true life by means of its own true motor nerves to make every one of the mental movements when the mind is awake and wills to work. It is also this ample supply of vital electricity, 54 INTRODUCTION. and its own innate intelligence that enables the true life in the material tree of life to be the maker of the respiratory movements and all the other movements that are made during the night when the human mind is asleep, and possesses no knowledge whatever of the vital actions that are going on for its own preservation in this world. But let us now return to the Cholera, or the disease produced by " the jungle fiend," or the fell narcotic poison that is the true remote cause of the new pestilence. There are facts to prove that the poison of Cholera, possesses no direct power over the life of the flesh or the terrestrial electricity that exists in the muscular fibres of the heart and capillary vessels. But still the Cholera poison has a deadly enmity to the vital electricity, or the electric life in the blood and the body of the spiritual man. For if not prevented, the new pestilence can destroy the life that exists in the blood and the body of every living man whose body is under the baneful influence of this fell poison, that can kill the life of the material body and leaves not only the life of the flesh, but the two living spiritual inhabitants in a material house that is in the collapsed stage, not only dead but colder than death. In some rare cases of Cholera, when the deadly poison has been attracted into the living blood in its most concentrated form, it soon kills the life that 55 INTRODUCTION. exists in the salt of the blood. Salt is good ; but when the salt loses its savour, or in other words, when the salt loses its life, the heart and all the capillary vessels immediately cease to act. There is then, as in the ordinary cases of collapse, no heat evolved from the oxygen in the capillary cells, and the body soon becomes colder than even in death. There is now no vital electricity evolved from the vital air in the capillary cells, and the body dies from the loss of its vital electric life. Still even in this fearful state of affairs the true life remains in the body, and the muscular organs continue to act, for even in the collapse stage mental movements are made in obedience co the mental will, and vital movements are made to the last moment that the true life remains in its own dead body. It is only when the vital spirit departs, that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, all is changed, for even the muscular organs cease to act and soon die, when the preserving spirit flits from the body to return to God who gave it. It is during the cold or the collapsed stage of the Cholera that the human spirit in the cold head from a knowledge that it is living in a dead body, feels such fearful misery, that it wishes to depart. For though the blood and the brain be both dead, still the spiritual mind remains in the dead head, where it can still see and hear. The true life also remains in its own ma- 56 INTRODUCTION. terial tree of life in the dead body, in some cases even for three days after the death of the material frame, as if for the express purpose of proving to the human race that the intelligent spirits, that can continue to live, to see, to reason, and to work in a dead house, cannot be the result of the action of the body on the blood, or of the blood on the body, in which the two spirits can remain even for three days after the death of the mere material frame. . In this state of affairs the vascular organs have long ceased to act, because the fell poison has destroyed the life in the electric salts of the blood, that is essentially necessary to the action of the heart, and also to the movements of the capillary arteries. But still, even at the eleventh hour, if a warm saline fluid be thrown into the intestinal canal, this vital fluid is even then rapidly absorbed by the absorbent vessels, and the moment that this living fluid enters the circulation, it gives new electric life to the blood. The new life, or the vital electricity, in this now vitalized fluid, commences to act on the life in the fibres of the still living heart, which soon forces the now living blood to the capillary cells, where the vital air in this living blood gives new life to the material frame, which had so lately lost its electric life. For the material body loses its electric life either by the direct action of the deadly poison on the life of the blood, or when the vital electricity has been drained 57 INTRODUCTION. out of the vital current, in the effort that is made by the true life to expel the deadly poison from the blood by the secreting arteries of the gastric organs, and also by the secreting vessels of the whole of the inner surface of the intestinal tube. It is not however merely in the last stage of the Cholera that the vital electricity contained in the electric salts of the blood is of such sterling value in the new pestilence. For when the vital electricity is given in the earlier stage it will be seen that this life-preserving remedy not only assists the preservative power in expelling the Cholera poison from the blood and the body, but the vital electricity contained in the alkaline salts, when given in sufficient quantity, possesses the power of destroying the deadly poison that has such an enmity to the vital electricity, or the electric life that the material body receives, not from the brain, but from the oxygen of the blood in the capillary cells. For oxygen contains both caloric and vital electricity in a latent form. Consequently, when the oxygen unites with the carbon in the intermediate cells, to form carbonic acid, the vital electricity, or the material life of the body and caloric, or the cause of bodily heat, are then both evolved from the oxygen in a free state, giving, at the same time, both life and heat to the material frame of the spiritual man that lives in the centre of Iviii INTRODUCTION. the body with hands which is made without hands, by the true life that is in us. If what we have said^ be true, it is then clear that the deadly poison of Cholera, and vital electricity, are, in the new pestilence, the direct antagonists of each other. For ample experience has proved that when a sufficient supply of vital electricity is added to the poisoned blood, this life-giving remedy then becomes the destroyer of the Cholera poison. True mental knowledge, then, triumphs over its direct antagonist, mental error, or cerebral ideas that are the foul offspring of human ignorance. The true life also triumphs over in this instance its own direct antagonist, the Cholera poison, and the electric life returns to the body where bodily death had recently been. It is equally true that when the human spirits, that are now the believers in the truth of the human invention of their own earthly origin and spiritual death, can, even during their residence in this world, acquire a knowledge of their own origin from the true life in the tree of life, they then, as we know on the highest of all authorities, acquire a knowledge of their own immortality in a higher world. If this be true then, " Oh death where is thy sting, O grave where is»thy victory ?" For if the earth receive nothing but the unintelligent material body and the electric life of the flesh, 59 INTRODUCTION. then where is the victory of the grave over the two intelligent spirits or the Spiritual Father in the body, and the spiritual son that lives in the centre of the material head but not in the brain. I may now add, that the strong proofs which had been published in the " Medical Times," in the beginning of 1849, relative to the successful results of the saline treatment in Cholera, not only in 1849, but in 1832, had induced many intelligent individuals in England, in Ireland and Scotland, to put the saline practice to the test of fair experiments during the last irruption. The results of these experiments gave origin to the publication of many strong facts in favour of the new treatment, not only in the " Medical Times," but in other works of that clay. The publication of these facts appears to have been a great source of annoyance to the medical members of the Central Board. For they had not only in June 1849 indirectly denied the utility of the new practice, but again, in January, 1851, when the Cholera had commenced its ravages in Jamaica, a request was made for medical assistance from this country. But instead of complying with this request, the medical members of the General Board took advantage of this application to try to undo the good that had been done by the many late publications in favour of the new practice. For, in 1851, the medical members of the General Board (not of Health) made Lord Grey the 60 INTRODUCTION. organ of announcing to the world a repetition, in a more absolute form, of the untruth that the medical members had previously published, namely, " That the medical experience of Europe enabled them to state that, for the collapse stage of Cholera there was no cure," or in other words, that the public were not to allow themselves to be deceived by the false statements of the numerous recoveries from the collapse stage of Cholera, that had lately been published in the " Medical Times," by Dr. Turley, nor by the strong facts that had been published in its favour by Dr. Lafargue, Mr. Hunter and Dr. Stoor, of London ; by Mr. Mudge, of Bodmin ; by Dr. Tucker, of Limerick ; by Dr. Coppinger, of Cork ; by Mr. Leckie, of Dumbartonshire ; by Dr. Moir, of Kingston, in Upper Canada, &c, &c. Some of the above facts were most important ; but still, all these true statements, from so many respectable sources, in favour of the new practice, were to be considered of no value, for the experience of Europe enabled the medical members of the General Board to certify to the world, that for the severe cases of Cholera there is no cure ! When the above disheartening statement appeared in the newspapers of the day, an intelligent friend of mine connected with the public press, in the city of Worcester, applied to me for permission to use the official documents, which he knew I had in my 61 INTRODUCTION. possession. I willingly complied with his request, in the belief that a fair statement of the facts, from a talented and disinterested individual, might be the means of saving many lives, as well as of leading to a public and a fair inquiry into the lessons that experience had taught, relative to the different plans of treating the new pestilence, particularly during its first irruption in England, from 1831 to 1833, especially in London, where the mortality had been, in proportion to the number of the inhabitants, about four times less than it was during the irruption of 1848 and 1849.* When the work to which I refer was printed I read it with attention, and my conviction was that the writer had done his duty well so far as he went. But my belief then was, and still is, that the author had not gone far enough to destroy the evil that had been done by the medical members of the Central Board in 1832. I say done by the Board of Health, for it may appear improbable, but still it is a sad truth, that the then medical members of that Board did plant the tree of evil which the medical members of the present Central Board and the older * Deaths from all causes in 1849 . . 68,432 1850 . . 48,579 Excess of mortality in 1849 . . 19,853 1832 . . 5,275 62 INTRODUCTION. leaders of the Medical College in Pall Mall have' carefully watered, pruned, and protected, from injury. In this laudable labour they were aided by a writer in the " Lancet," particularly in 1832, by the Surgeon of the Prison in Coldbath-Fields, by Mr. Marsden, of the Free Hospital, by Mr. Tweedie of the City Hospital, and by the other agents that had been induced by the Central Board in 1832 to convert a mighty benefit into an evil and a most important truth into a vile falsehood. This evil was done, as I believe, partly to enable the leaders of the profession at the so-called Board of Health to retain their power as well as their profits, and partly also for the attainment of the evil and the sordid ends of those who were the parents of the official, but the false evidence that was then given to enable the medical members of the Board of Health in 1832 to deceive the Privy Council, for the purpose of preventing a fair inquiry, that must have ended in the condemnation and the eternal disgrace of the parties that were then the authors and the actors in a foul conspiracy. When I had read Mr. M'Millan's work, to which I have referred, I requested that it should not be published until I could find time to make the additions I believed to be necessary, in order to make a sufficient impression on the public mind to call for a fair inquiry into the truth or the untruth of the statements that will now be given to the world in the present work. lxiii INTRODUCTION. In reprinting the first part of the present publication, I have left out some parts of Mr. M'Millan's memoir, which seemed to me of less importance, and added new matter in their place, which I believe will be more useful in the present sad state of human knowledge. The reader will therefore consider me as much responsible for the truth of the statements in the first part, which was written by another, as I am for the remaining portion that was written by myself, during those moments when my mind could withdraw itself from a far more important pursuit than even an inquiry into the nature and the treatment of Cholera or the new pestilence, that is far more fatal in the present state of medical ideas or false knowledge than it will be when seen in a purer light than in the total darkness that is the offspring of material conception, or of the cerebral perception of cerebral sensations, or of material ideas imprinted in the brain, or of external material objects taken into the 'inner spiritual mind. For the spirit in the head can see external objects, such as a man or a mountain, by looking at them, and receive a knowledge of their existence in return for sight. But still the human mind cannot admit a man or a material mountain into itself, which it would do if ideas in the brain or in the mind itself be " what ever is the object of the mind when a man thinks." I may now state that I have contributed my part of the following work not with the intention of doing 64 INTRODUCTION. an injury to those of the opposite party who have done a cruel injury to me. But partly in the hope of getting rid of the withering effects of the unjust judgment that false evidence enabled the unjust judges of the Privy Council to pass against me in June and July 1 832. I have also contributed my part of the present work in the hope that by showing the utter worthlessness of the practice that is founded on false knowledge, it may lead to a fair inquiry into the real nature of the medical doctrines that I believe to be not only utterly untenable, but a withering curse to the human race. If the statements I have made in the present work be not the offsprings of truth, they must soon fall as they ought to do, for all that can be said in its favour cannot in the end put evil in the place of good. But on the other hand, if the statements I have made be the offsprings of truth, the opposite party may then as well attempt to stem the torrent of the Niagara with a rotten straw as try to stop the diffusion of truth when it is the wall of the Parent of the spirit of truth that the true spiritual light shall be permitted to shine " more and more unto the coming of the perfect day," when there shall be peace on earth, good will amongst men, and glory to God, to whom the human race are indebted not only for their existence in this world, but also for their intelligence, their sight, and the true knowledge that is given as the pearl above all price e 65 INTRODUCTION. to those human minds that possess intelligence enough to make a good use of the godly gift of the true knowledge that is given to them as their spiritual food. For true knowledge is as much the spiritual food of the human mind, or the spirit in the head, as the living blood is the material food of the material frame of the true life, or the spiritual man that is the true parent of the human mind. The functions of the material heart in the material body, are to receive and to circulate the living material blood, to give nourishment, heat, and the material life to the material frame of the living spiritual man that lives in the central tree of life. But the true functions of the spiritual heart or the mind in the human head is to receive spiritual knowledge for its own use, and also to circulate true knowledge to give to other minds of the human race not only a true knowledge of the nature of themselves, but also a firm conviction of the truth of the divine promise of a knowledge of their own immortality — even during their residence in this world — to every human mind that can take of the tree of life. For w 7 hen the now erring human mind can eat of the tree of life, or, in other words, when the spirit in the head can trace its own origin to the spirit of God that lives, moves, breathes, and has his residence in the central tree of life in the garden of God, or the human frame, the human mind in the 66 INTRODUCTION. head, will then know that it is not a mere material cerebral secretion like the life of the flesh, but an intelligent spiritual being that is born on earth not to die, but to flit and to live for ever in a higher world, where the wicked shall cease from troubling, and where those that are now so weary from human strife, will then be at rest. The mental belief in its own identity with the life of the flesh, and its own origin from the brain, the blood, and the ground, is the wages of sin. It is also the denial of the truth of the word of God that is the cause of the infliction of the withering curse of selfignorance in every human mind that prefers its own erring human knowledge of good and evil to the unerring wisdom of the Deity. For the belief in its own death is the evil fruit of every human mind that identifies itself with the electric life that the flesh or the muscular organs receive from the blood through the medium of the nerves that come from the grey matter of the cerebro-spinal centres. But still this is the doctrine of the human serpents, or the evil fruit of the evil spiritual tree that grows in the human mind, that is adopted, supported, watered, and nourished by the leaders of the medical profession. For their carnal minds are for self-sin so sorely darkened with self-ignorance, that even to this day they do not know what true knowledge is. Now if a true knowledge of the nature of things c 2 lxvii INTRODUCTION. in the human frame be necessary to enable the medical practitioners to be useful to their fellowbeings in their hours of suffering in this world, and if it be equally true that the carnal minds of the leaders of the medical profession are so darkened for self-sin with the thorns and the thistles of their own gross materiality that even to this hour they do not know what true knowledge is. Then we do say that the said leaders have no right to give an opinion on the nature of things in the human frame, so long as in everything that relates to a knowledge of the true nature of the true causes of action in man, their human minds are, for self-sin against their Creator, under the influence of a greater darkness to the true light that comes from on high than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field. For the sight of the true light is what the medical leaders have lost, and their own fearful ignorance, and the places of the dead, tell to the living world the sad results of created beings warring with their original Creator and their God, to whom they are indebted not only for their very existence in this world, but also for the eyes that ought to enable them to see and for the gift of intelligence that ought to enable them to acquire a truer knowledge of the nature of themselves than the evil ideas they now possess ; namely, a cerebral perception of cerebral sensations or material ideas imprinted by lxviii INTRODUCTION. images in the oval centre of the material brain that can no more perceive by perception than a material brick can see and hear, or acquire knowledge by sight and sound. We know that in the present state of human darkness, we stand almost alone in some parts of the knowledge that we feel it our duty to put before the world. But with time the nature of every tree will be best known by its fruits, and time will soon tell which is the good and which is the evil tree of knowledge in the human mind. For if it be true that a truer knowledge of the nature of the things that exist in man can enable the medical possessor of this godly gift to reduce the mortality from sixty to less than five per cent, in such fearful diseases as the Yellow Fever and the true Cholera, then this true knowledge is better than rubies. If it be also true that a knowledge of the real nature of itself can give the human mind a firm conviction of the truth of its own conscious immortality in a higher state of existence in a higher world ; then this true knowledge is more precious than rubies and better than gold, yea, than refined gold. This is the truth, and judging from the signs of the times, we firmly believe that the time is now coming fast, when a truer knowledge of the nature of man, will do more good to the human race in one day 69 INTRODUCTION. than has hitherto been done by all the so-called philosophers and all the leaders of all the Colleges of Physicians and all the medical members of the so-called Boards of Health that have ever existed in this world. If the true life can remain in the dead body, as in Cholera, even for three days after the death of the material frame, then who can say that the true life is the material result of bodily action ? Or if the human mind can remain in the head, and acquire knowledge even for three days after the death of the blood and the material brain, then who can say with truth that the intelligent mind is the mere material result of the action of the material blood on the grey matter of the cerebro-spinal centres ? But above all, if, for the attainment of a mighty end, the two immortal spirits could depart from the body, and return again on the third day, not only to reanimate but to raise from the grave the same one material frame that thousands on thousands of human witnesses had seen put to death — it is then clear as the light of day that the two immortal spirits in the human frame over which the laws of man possess no dominion and cannot destroy, must be essentially different from the electric life of the body and the material life of the flesh, over which the laws of man possess a dominion and can destroy ? 70 INTRODUCTION. Human philosophy has been, and still is, a sore evil under the sun. For if the hell that exists only in the human mind, be the mental belief in the truth of the human invention of its own earthly origin, and also of its termination in death, and consequently of its own rotting in the apathy of cold obstruction, in the same cold grave with the material body, then what are we to think of the human philosophers that are the true parents of this evil fruit of the evil tree ? If it be equally true that the mental knowledge of its own high origin from the spirit of God in the central tree of life can give to the mind that is the possessor of this true knowledge, a firm belief in the truth of the divine promise of its own everlasting life, we will then know what value to put on true religion, or the true light that comes from on high. If it be also true that this true knowledge is the pearl of great price, that can take the sting from bodily death and deprive the grave of its victory over the immortal spirits of the now erring human race, it is then clear as day that the shining of this true spiritual light will be one of the richest gifts that has yet been given to our race, from the commencement of human philosophy, or the sin of breaking the first mental commandment by preferring human knowledge, or good and evil, to the unerring wisdom of. God. 71 INTRODUCTION. If the sin of preferring human or good and evil knowledge to the revealed wisdom of the Deity be the evil fruit in the human mind, that maketh the spirit in the head a believer in the human invention of its own death, then those who wish to get rid of this withering fruit, must strike at the root of the evil tree. When this is done, " the people that now sit in darkness will then see a great light, and to them which sit in the region and shadow of death, light will spring up to everlasting truth," and eternal life to the now erring spirits that constitute the human race. lxxii PREFACE TO THE FIRST PART OF THE FOLLOWING WORK. In the summer of the year 1849, the Cholera appeared in the city of Worcester, where I happened to be resident as a public Journalist, and as such the new pestilence naturally engaged much of my attention. There was less professional reserve maintained in regard to that disease than usual; the public were even invited by the Board of Health to make themselves acquainted with the nature of its symptoms, and the treatment that ought to be adopted in cases of attack before the arrival of medical assistance. In such circumstances, it is not wonderful that I should have acquired some information on the subject, nor that the study of the history of so terrible a disease should have presented to me a considerable 15 PREFACE. degree of attraction. It happened, too, that I had had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Dr. William Stevens, of St. Croix, the author of the Saline Treatment in the Yellow Fever, which had been applied also with an almost magical degree of success in Cholera, in the British metropolis, during the first visitation of the jungle fiend to this country in 1 832. 1 acquired, in conversation with Dr. Stevens, much information respecting the Cholera, especially with regard to the introduction of the saline treatment ; and at a very early stage of my inquiries, I discovered that that treatment, although eminently successful, even at the very outset, had not been generally adopted. I soon acquired a key to the mystery of its rejection; and assuredly I found enough to excite my surprise as I unravelled the meshes of the web of deception that had been cunningly wound about the new practice in the then new disease. A humorous Scotch advocate of the last age, once commenced a pleading before the Lords of Session in these words : " My Lords, whereas it has pleased Almighty God that Town Councils should always be in the wrong," mutatis mutandis, it would almost seem that this singular exordium might be applied to the Central Board of Health. I found 2 PREFACE. that in the year 1832, on the faith of an investigation of a few minutes in duration, conducted not only with indecent haste, but with a degree of levity that shocked the witnesses who described it, and begun and ended in the absence of Dr. Stevens, the new practice was condemned by the Board of Health, and a series of machinations emanated from within, and was carried out by that body, calculated greatly to injure its reputation. It is chiefly to be ascribed to those machinations, that a treatment which well deserves to be ranked as a specific for Cholera, is, even until the present day, practically known to comparatively a small portion only of the medical profession. It is the object of the following pages to exhibit in what manner this enmity of the Board of Health was brought to bear against the reputation of the saline treatment, and to expose the minor causes that have contributed to deprive mankind of the benefit that must have arisen from its general adoption. The extent of that deprivation may, to some extent, be calculated by a consideration of the following facts, for which I am indebted to an able "Lecture on Public Health, by Mr. William A. Guy, M.8., Cantab :" # "It has been estimated from * " Medical Times," November 29, 1851. B 2 3 PREFACE. official returns, that between the 18th of June and the 18th of October, 1831, the Cholera had destroyed, in different parts of Europe, upwards of 150,000 persons. The deaths in England and Wales, in 1831-32, were about 21,000; in Scotland nearly 1 1,000 ; in Ireland upwards of 21,000. In London there were upwards of 11,000 cases, and 5,275 deaths. Of the recent epidemic, it may suffice to state that it spread more rapidly from place to place ; that it visited nearly the same countries and cities which it attacked in 1831-32 ; and that it occasioned almost everywhere a much higher mortality. The returns for England and Wales are not yet complete ; but it is probable that the number of deaths was nearly three times as great as in the first epidemic. In London, without making any allowance for increase of population, the mortality in the two epidemics w 7 as nearly as one to three. The deaths in 1832 were, as I have stated, 5,275; in 1848-9, they have exceeded 14,500. In 1832, one person died out of 282 living; but in 1848-9, one person died in every 151 living." The Cholera was the same disease in 1848-9 as it was in 1831-2 ; and from the facts recorded in the medical journals of these periods, it is evident that the saline treatment was much more practised by the 4 PREFACE profession in the visitation of 1832 than in the year 1849. It is, therefore, not a very violent presumption that the great increase in the mortality during the latter is, in some measure at least, to be ascribed to the falling off in the practice of the new treatment. It will be very easy for me, unhappily, to prove the appropriateness of the Scotch barrister's strong characteristic of Town Councils to the Board of Health in respect to the conduct of the latter connected with Cholera. In 1832, the Board of that day sought to put down the saline treatment by a line of procedure which, I venture to say, has few parallels on record ; and in the year 1851, the Central Board of the present day, fulminated a doctrine which, I may also venture to say, for fallacy and intrepidity of assertion, has not only no parallel among the calm proceedings of scientific and learned bodies, but which can scarcely be paralleled for these qualities by the mendacious bulletins of the late Napoleon himself.* * It would seem that the Board of Health's fatuous bias has not been confined to the Cholera ; vide the following extract from the "Morning Chronicle" of August 8, 1851, referring to the examination of Dr. Challice, of London, in regard to a case of poisoning from the use of Thames water : " Dr. Challice was requested to wait on the Board, and he had an inter- 5 PREFACE. I am referring now to a declaration made by the Board of Health, in the month of January last, in reply to an application by the West India merchants of London for medical aid to the Island of Jamaica, then suffering fearfully from Cholera. That declaration was, " that the medical experience of Europe view with that body Ute-h-t4te. It may be here necessary to observe, that, notwithstanding its collective style, the Board of Health consists virtually of a single individual — not, however, unprovided with assistance. After a confidential conversation of considerable length, Dr. Challice, took his leave, in the expectation of a summons to give formal evidence on some future occasion. No such invitation ever arrived ; but a Blue Book appeared, in which judicious selections from the conversation were printed verbatim, while the remainder was altogether omitted. A short-hand writer had been present without the knowledge of the witness — who, indeed, was not aware that he was giving ' evidence.' If we are not misinformed, the same contrivance has been adopted during still more confidential conversations ; but the^ case to which we refer is sufficient to destroy all faith in the statements authenticated by the Board of Health. If extracts from conversations are to be published to the world as evidence, the involuntary witnesses ought to be subjected to some cross-examination, or at least to be allowed the opportunity of correcting their statements. It is to be hoped that no important duties will henceforward be entrusted to a body capable of allowing such proceedings." 6 PREFACE. enabled them to state that for the collapse stage of Cholera there was no cure" This most disheartening and mischievous dogma was instantly contradicted by one of the medical officers of the Board itself. Dr. Bowie, inspector of Cholera districts under the Board of Health, reminded it that both in 1832, and in 1849, he had had officially occasion to report to the Board numerous cases of the cure of Cholera in the collapse stage ; it is also one object, and not the lightest, of the following pages to exhibit how entirely groundless and unfounded that most depressing dogma is. It will be shown, instead of its being true that the experience of Europe instructs any such disheartening fact, that the bearing of experience is exactly the reverse. For experience has proved that when the saline treatment is honestly and zealously practised, the disease, even in the collapse stage, is exceedingly manageable, and so far is that stage from being incurable, it will be proved that in hundreds of cases treated on the new plan, the mortality was under five per cent. It is foreign to my purpose to search after the cause that in 1832 actuated the then most active of the medical members of the Board of Health in his relentless animosity towards the new practice. That individual, I regret, no longer exists; but I feel that the 7 PREFACE. great public interest involved ought not to be allowed to suffer on that account; and, indeed, a strong conviction that far too much deference has been already paid to mere matters of personal reference, has tended in no inconsiderable degree to induce me to step so far out of my way as to put forth the following statement. Whatever the cause was, the effect has been disastrous. It has prevented the adoption of a treatment under which, as is proved in the sequel, the mortality from Cholera may be reduced to a very insignificant per centage. Moreover, the Board of Health of the present day have accepted the decision of their predecessors against the new treatment, as appears by their excluding it entirely from any consideration of what they have been pleased to term " the medical experience of Europe," which they did when they made the above most extraordinary declaration of the incurability of Cholera in the collapse stage. I am quite conscious that the present task has not been undertaken by the most competent agent for its performance; and indeed it will appear in the body of the Memoir that, independently of the author of the new treatment himself, there are other practitioners from some of whom, in the ordinary course 8 PREFACE. of things, such a work might have been expected, not as an ungrateful task, but as a labour of love. The first of these is Mr. Wakefield, the Surgeon of Coldbath-Fields prison, the scene where the saline treatment was first tried on a large scale, and where it succeeded in a degree equal to, if not surpassing, the highest triumphs recorded of the healing art. But Mr. Wakefield, since he related its decided success in grateful terms, a few weeks after the first outbreak of the disease among the poor people under his care, has remained silent, and without even one word of remonstrance, he has ever since permitted the truth of his published statement, and the merits of the saline treatment, to be impugned in published official documents, which, acquainted as he was with the facts, he must have known to be incorrect. Another practitioner, to whom one would, on learning the history of the saline treatment, naturally assign the office of defending it from malignant misrepresentation, is Mr. Marsden, of the then Free Hospital, Greville Street. In 1832, that gentleman expressed his high sense of its merits in glowing terms, and in 1834 he repeated his commendation; but he has since refrained from any attempt at refuting the attacks of its calumniators, and even — 9 PREFACE. unwittingly or otherwise — done that which in no small degree has tended to enforce their unjust attacks. But it may be said that the most natural defender of the saline treatment, and asserter of its claims upon general attention is its author. It will be seen in the sequel that Dr. Stevens has not been careless nor indifferent to its fate. For, notwithstanding his long absence in a distant part of the world, he has endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to procure from the Government, the Central Board, and the College of Physicians, an inquiry into its results in Coldbath-Fields prison, in the Free Hospital in Greville Street, and in many other places. His objects in these efforts, as in the original communication to the public of his mode of treatment has been simply the public good, and he took care to inform the Government in his first application for an inquiry that he had no other end in view. Indeed, few men could so well afford as the author of the saline treatment to regard with equanimity the abeyance of personal fame from the general adoption of his discovery. In 1832, his conduct had received the approbation of many of the ablest men of the profession; and in 1834, Dr. Stevens 10 PREFACE. had the honour to be chosen by the University of Oxford, on the inauguration as Chancellor of the Duke of Wellington, as one of the three members of the medical profession to whom it was decided to do honour on that occasion, on account of their eminent attainments. Accordingly he received the honorary degree of D.C.L, in a Convocation held July 12, 1834, in company with John Robert Hume, M.D., and Sir Astley Cooper, Bart. This high honour having been conferred upon Dr. Stevens two years after the Board of Health's endeavours to destroy the reputation of his new practice, and his own personal character for veracity, may be regarded as a proof that the University of Oxford regarded the Board of Health as anything but infallible. In the course of the Memoir, it is narrated that Dr. Stevens had the honour conferred upon him by the Magistrates of the county of Middlesex, in Quarter Sessions, of a vote of thanks, and was also by them presented with a piece of plate, value a hundred guineas, as an expression of gratitude for his valuable services in combating the Cholera in the county prison of Coldbath-Fields. I have much pleasure in concluding this schedule of public marks of esteem bestowed on Dr. Stevens for his philanthropy and talents, by stating that his late Majesty, Christian VIII. of 11 PREFACE. Denmark, out of his appreciation of Dr. Stevens' valuable services in his dominions — by introducing the saline practice in the treatment of the Asiatic Cholera in Europe, the Yellow Fever in the Danish West India islands, and for having otherwise reflected credit on the Danish Crown by his discoveries in medicine and surgery — bestowed on him such a princely reward as a Royal Mecsenas might not have blushed to bestow on the man whom he so much delighted to honour.* It will afterwards be seen that Dr. Stevens has adopted those steps which, in the present state of the medical world, he judged the best to be followed, in order to clear away the impediments cast in the path of his important discovery ; and these having hitherto failed, he has refrained from an appeal to the public — among other reasons, because he now * Such a character of the King's liberality will, perhaps, be admitted as not overstrained, when I mention that the royal munificence to Dr. Stevens was a gift equivalent to a liberal independence for life ; and the value of the gift was enhanced by the spirit in which it was bestowed. His Majesty intimated that he had been thus liberal to Dr. Stevens, not only for his past public services, but in order to enable him to devote himself more entirely to the scientific pursuits in which he was known to be engaged, unfettered by the cares of professional life. 12 PREFACE. is, and has been for years, intensely occupied on another object of inquiry of still higher importance to human welfare. The present Memoir, however, has been drawn up with his knowledge and approval. The statements are founded chiefly upon, and the tables are made out from official documents obtained from the prison of Coldbath-Fields, which were ordered to be furnished to Dr. Stevens free of expense by the visiting Magistrates of the county of Middlesex. The documents to which we refer, have been extracted from the records of the prison by one of the official officers of the institution ; and the most important of them is verified by Mr. Chesterton, the Governor, and also by Mr. Brennan, the Infirmary Warder of the prison in Coldbath-Fields. In these circumstances, I respectfully submit that a clear case for official inquiry has been made out, and I need scarcely point to the utility of such an investigation; for if it establish the reality of what I offer to prove, an authoritative announcement to that effect must be attended by the happiest result — the general adoption of a specific for so fatal a disease ; but, even should it prove adverse, the harm done will not be great, since the facilities for the inquiry will render it comparatively brief and inexpensive. I may also suggest that the evidence 13 PREFACE. adduced from Coldbath-Fields prison alone sufficiently constitutes a primd facie case in support of inquiry which no tribunal ought to resist. For I venture to say that the sham inquiry of twenty minutes in June, 1832, on which the Board of Health of that day with, to say the least of it, the most culpable carelessness, set aside the gigantic claims of the new treatment, has been demonstrated to be so worthless, even propped up as it then was by other nefarious devices, that it cannot be used a third time as a stalking-horse to evade a fair inquiry by any public body or department of Government. Finally, I assert and offer to prove First : That in Coldbath-Fields prison, from April sth to the 31st of December, 1832, four hundred and sixty-five patients with Cholera, about one hundred and sixty-two of which were cases of collapse, were treated on the saline plan for Cholera, with a result of only four deaths, and four hundred and sixty-one recoveries. Secondly: That in the same prison, and within the same dates, about thirty-nine of the five hundred and four patients with Cholera, were not treated on the new plan, and in these thirty-nine cases there were thirty-nine deaths. 14 PREFACE. Thirdly : That by the concurrent testimony of respectable practitioners in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Canada, the new practice, when fairly tried, either at home or abroad, was equally efficacious in the epidemic of 1848-9 as in the visitation of 1832. Further, I offer to prove that the new practice was eminently successful in a number of other prisons and hospitals in London in the year 1832; and I firmly believe that I am able to prove all the details to the last fraction of the amount stated ; but I submit that, allowing a wide margin for unintentional errors, and supposing that to be filled up, more than enough will still remain to justify my request for an inquiry at the hands of Government. I may adduce also, in support of this Memoir's claims to attention, the fact that Mr. Marsden, of the Free Hospital, Greville Street, has publibly declared* that out of eighty-one patients, brought to the hospital in the summer of 1832 in a state of collapse, who were treated on the saline plan, there were only seven deaths and seventy-four recoveries. My request for inquiry is so strongly supported by the body of evidence adduced in the following Memoir, it is so reasonable in itself, and involves * "Practical Treatise on Cholera," 1834. 15 PREFACE matter of so great importance to the welfare of the public, that I can hardly bring myself to believe that it can be refused. I am prepared to enter into the investigation at any moment, and I shall only be too happy should my endeavours have conduced in any degree to the attainment of such desirable objects as the lessening of suffering, and the preservation of human life. JAS. M'MILLAN. WORCESTER, JANUARY, 1, 1852. 16 THE BOARD OE HEALTH AND THE CHOLERA. CHAPTER I. DR. STEVENS' THEORY OF CHOLERA. The remote causes or poisons of Cholera and Yellow Fever are essentially different, but in both cases the remote causes produce their effects in the same way ; or, in other words, both the poisons produce their effects by their absorption into the circulating current, causing a morbid condition of the living blood, by which, after a short time the vital fluid becomes divested of its saline ingredients, and is thereby rendered incapable of carrying on the circulation and supporting the material life of the c DR. STEVENS' THEORY OF CHOLERA. material frame. The remote cause by which the morbid state of the blood is produced in the Yellow Fever and Cholera, is a specific aerial poison which is inhaled with the air into the lungs, and thence taken into the circulating blood. The nature of those specific poisons is as yet but little understood : in Yellow Fever, it requires a certain degree of heat in the atmosphere to enable the poison to acquire and to maintain its virulence, so that when the thermometer either rises above or falls below a certain range the disease disappears. On the contrary, the poison of Cholera seems impervious to atmospheric influence, and is known to prevail with almost equal intensity in the highest as well as the lowest temperature, and, indeed, it is nearly alike in all states of the atmosphere. In the new disease the poison is not rendered inert by the first morning of frost, as is the case with Yellow Fever in the United States, for the Cholera has been almost as fatal in the depth of a Russian winter as in the burning atmosphere of the Torrid Zone. There is also a remarkable resemblance between the symptoms in Cholera and in malignant West India Fevers. In those fevers, sickness of the stomach is generally met with at the commencement of the attack, because a part of the specific aerial poison, which is their remote cause, has been thrown off from the circulation into the gastric organs, which are by 18 DR. STEVENS' THEORY OF CHOLERA. that means irritated into nausea and vomiting. This gastric irritation is, however, different from that which comes on at a later period of the disease, and is often very distressing in the last stage. The latter sickness is produced in a great measure by an excess of acidity in the gastric organs : there is, indeed, in all the malignant fevers of the West Indies, especially in the last stage, an excess of acidity in the alimentary canal, and this peculiar condition is perceptible throughout the whole extent of the mucous membrane, from the tongue to the anus. Litmus paper is reddened on being applied to the tongue, and on being dipped in the fluids ejected from the stomach, it reddens almost as suddenly as if it had been immersed in pure acid. The matter of black vomit, which is merely an effusion of the dissolved blood divested of its saline matter, receives such an addition of fixed acid in the stomach, that it effervesces freely with the alkaline carbonates. At the commencement of these fevers the colour of the blood is dark, and the darkness is an effect of the specific aerial poison ; but the blackness of the colour in the last stage is produced by the loss of those saline ingredients which are the cause of the red colour of healthy blood. In this stage of the fever oxygen is not admitted into the circulation from the lungs on the removal of the carbonic acid. The aerial poison by which Cholera is produced, like that of all malignant fevers, appears c 2 19 DR. STEVENS' THEORY OF CHOLERA. to possess the power of multiplying itself in the blood. The body of each patient becomes a nucleus of contamination ; the poison emanating from the bodies and excretions of the sick taints the air around, and the disease is propagated from the poison inhaled by other bodies already predisposed to receive its influence. This poisoned state of the blood is the immediate cause of the symptoms in Cholera, and when left to itself the morbid poison soon paralyses the heart and whole vascular system. After death the blood is invariably dark coloured and grumous. In Cholera there is sickness of the stomach at the commencement, produced by the poison being thrown from the tainted blood into the gastric organs. There is also in Cholera, as in Yellow Fever, an excess of muriatic acid in the stomach : but the excess of the morbid poison is probably the chief cause of the extreme irritability in the gastric organs. The Cholera usually manifests itself in three stages ; the first presents diarrhoea and vomiting. These symptoms are considered as an effort of nature to expel the morbid poison from the blood and the body ; the addition of cramps or spasms and sinking of the pulse form the second, and collapse the last stage of the disease. In the latter dismal phase of Cholera when the circulation is arrested, neither heat nor vital electricity is evolved, the body becomes cold from the non-evolution of heat, from the non-evolution 20 DR. STEVENS' THEORY OF CHOLERA. of vital electricity from the blood, sensation soon ceases, and if not prevented, death speedily ensues. A consecutive fever, which too frequently follows the usual practice, has by many, and especially by the Board of Health, been regarded as one of the stages of Cholera, but this opinion is evidently wrong, seeing that in many hundreds of cases treated on the saline plan almost none exhibited any febrile symptom whatever, and in the two or three cases where some degree of fever supervened, this effect was easily traced to other causes than the Cholera. According to Dr. Stevens, the fever so prevalent and so fatal in Cholera when treated with opium and brandy, or monster doses of calomel and other drugs, is the result of those poisons operating in a specific manner on the morbid systems of the patients ; and it may be regarded as one of the greatest points of its superiority that the saline treatment has been hitherto free from so fatal a concomitant as the consecutive fever. Drs. Russell and Barry* state that Dr. Reimer, of St. Petersburg, informed them that of twenty cases of Cholera in his hospital, seven died in the cold or collapse stage, and the other thirteen were lost from the consecutive fever. * " Medical Gazette," November, 1831. 21 THE BOARD OF HEALTH THEORY CHAPTER 11. THE BOARD OF HEALTH (1832) THEORY OF CHOLERA. Very different from the foregoing theory of the cause of the disease was that propounded by the Board of Health. In 1831, Drs. Russell and Barry were sent by the Government to Russia, in order that they might acquire practical information of the Cholera, which had then penetrated to St. Petersburg, and even reached the shores of the Baltic. Those gentlemen enjoyed ample opportunities of acquiring the necessary information, but it seems doubtful whether they availed themselves of the facilities within their reach : at all events, on their return they presented, as the result of their researches, not a single observation including any fact of importance unknown before, nor anything in the shape of theory save the most vague and unscientific surmises. The remote causes of Cholera, they said, were 22 OF CHOLERA. certain germs which produced their effect by acting on a certain part of the spinal cord, which they declared to be the great source of vitality and function. A softened spinal cord they declared to be the seat, or the immediate cause of the disease ; and to prove this they stated that this condition of the spinal cord had been observed in the autopsy of some cases of Cholera. The originating germs, they said, produced not only a softening of the spinal cord, but also a purgative effect in the intestinal tube. Such was their account of the causes. The disease itself they divided into three periods — the premonitory, the collapse, and the fever stages.* This theory of Cholera rapidly sank into the contempt which it so richly deserved, for surely anything more jejune and unscientific it would be difficult to conceive than its assumption of propagation by " germs," and of these producing " a softened state of the spinal marrow." It is unnecessary, however, to dilate on its absurdity. Well might one author say, in respect to their expedition, that " the Doctors returned little wiser than before they went," and of their general conduct, that " the medical department of the Board of Health, on the close of their labours on Cholera, in the autumn of 1833, had afforded the profession not the slightest * " Medical Gazette," September, 1831. 23 DR. PARKES' THEORY OF CHOLERA. knowledge on the subject, either physiological or pathological."* The latest theory of Cholera that has passed under the eye of the writer, is that by Dr. G. A. Parkes, contained in his work entitled " Researches into the Pathology and Treatment of Asiatic and Algide Cholera." At page 4, this author says — " The leading idea I have formed of Cholera is not only that it is primarily a disease of the blood, as has been so generally surmised, but that the changes induced in the functions of the respiration, directly consequent on the alteration of the blood, are the proper and distinctive symptoms of the disease." At page 31, Dr. Parkes says: "The most important physical changes in the blood after death, are the coagulation and its change of colour." At page 33 he says : "Nitrate of potash, or chloride of sodium added to the blood, always gives a bright arterial hue ;" and at page 46 he adds: "The fluid in the intestinal canal (after death) and the peculiar stools consist of part of the water and salts of the blood mixed with a proteine constituent." These observations of Dr. Parkes thus strikingly confirm the theory of the nature and cause of the disease originally propounded by Dr. Stevens ; but it seems remarkable that the former should have been * Dr. Marsden's " Practical Treatise on Cholera," p. 8. 24 DR. PARKES' THEORY OF CHOLERA. entirely ignorant of that theory, which we may presume he was, seeing that he does not once refer in his work from which we have now quoted, to Dr. Stevens' Treatise on the Blood, which may, with truth, be regarded as the institute of all those treatises which regard Fever and Cholera not as the results of nervous impressions made on either the brain or the spinal cord, but as diseases of the living, or the electric blood, and time will tell that this new doctrine is the truth. 25 DR. STEVENS' VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. CHAPTER 111. dr. stevens' views of the blood. If the sanguineous theory of Cholera be accurate, a knowledge of the physiology and pathology of the blood, must be of the first importance ; and, therefore, a brief account of Dr. Stevens' views on those subjects is inserted here. In the year 1 827 he resided in the Island of St. Thomas, in which the Yellow Fever was then prevalent. It was found in all the severe cases that the usual modes of treatment were powerless to combat the disease, and almost in despair he had recourse to the scalpel. The examination of bodies recently dead from the fever, invariably presented a great loss of the saline matter of the blood ; from reasoning on that fact, Dr. Stevens came to the conclusion that this loss was the immediate cause of death, and thereby he was led to regard a restoration of that important ingredient of the vital fluid as presenting the most likely means of cure. 26 DR. STEVENS' VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. He was happy enough to effect this most successfully by administering a mixture of the neutral salts, viz., muriate of soda, carbonate of soda, and nitrate of potash in solution. He found that when these were taken into the stomach largely, a great portion entered directly unchanged into the circulation through the vena? cava? ; the effect on the blood was instantaneous; it was reddened and its vital power restored. A part of the salts remained in the circulation, while the excess was removed by the secreting organs carrying off with it the deadly poison from the living blood. The following summary of Dr. Stevens' new views of the nature of the blood appeared in the treatise which he published in 1832 : "1 . All acids give a dark colour to the globular matter of healthy blood, and, in proportion to their strength, they change its colour from red to black, as certainly as they change vegetable colours from blue to red. When any one of the acids was diffused in a small quantity of water, and then mixed with the fluid arterial blood, the colour of the whole was immediately changed from bright red to black. Even the vegetable acids so completely blackened the blood, that the addition of a little water enabled even the citric acid to convert the whole into a fluid exactly resembling the black vomit. " 2. The pure alkalies have a similar effect with the acids in changing the colour of the blood from red to black, though not in the same degree. "3. The whole of the neutral alkaline salts immediately 27 DR. STEVENS' VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. changed the venous blood from a dark modena red to a bright arterial colour. "4. Even those salts which contain an excess of alkali — the sub- carbonate of soda for example — immediately changed the venous blood to a beautiful bright arterial colour. " 5. When the neutral salts were mixed with the dark and dissolved blood that had been taken from the heart of those that had died from YeUow Fever, even this black and dissolved fluid was immediately changed from black to a colour that was highly arterial." From those facts Dr. Stevens concluded, that black is the original hue of the colouring matter, consequently that the blood owes its arterial or scarlet colour to the saline matter which it contains. The blood taken from Cholera patients, like that of those in Yellow Fever is black, but it is also capable of recovering its natural tint when treated with an artificial serum ; hence he conceived that this, as well as the dark colour of the blood in Yellow Fever and other pestilential diseases, is the effect of a specific poison in the vital fluid. It was proved also that the black colour in the last stage of the disease is produced by the loss, or the great diminution, of the saline ingredients of the blood, or of the vital electricity contained in the saline matter and the air, which constitutes, according to his new view 7 s of vitality, one of the two electric lives of the blood and also of the solid structures of the material body. Dr. Stevens' views respecting the nature of the 28 VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. blood may thus be considered as a key to his treatment of Cholera and the malignant fevers of the West Indies ; we, therefore, add here the opinions ofhis discoveries as given by two of the most distinguished chemists of that day, Mr. Brande and Dr. Turner. Mr. Brande, in his " Dictionary of Chemistry," under the article " Blood," observes— " The colouring matter of the blood, hsematosine, may be obtained by evaporating its aqueous solution at a temperature below 100° ; it then appears almost black, but resumes its red colour when dissolved in water. It is soluble in acids and in alkalies ; these solutions are dark coloured, but when mixed, so as to become neutral, the hsematosine falls of a bright red colour. Accordingly, when the clot of blood is put into acids, it becomes brown or blackish, and is very similarly discoloured by alkalies ; but most neutral salts render it florid. Dr. Stevens has shown that carbonic acid in venous blood is the probable cause of its dingy hue, and that the saline matter of the scum confers the florid red upon arterial blood; and that by washing the saline matters out of the bright coagulum of arterial blood, it gradually loses its brilliancy and resembles venous coagulum." And again, under the head " Respiration," the same author says : " The great end which appears to be answered by respiration is the removal of carbon, in the form of carbonic acid, from venous blood. This gas is accordingly found in the air which is expired from the lungs ; and the blood having lost its carbonic acid, at the same time loses its dingy hue, and acquires 29 DR. TURNER ON the florid red which characterizes arterial blood. It has been shown by Dr. Stevens that a peculiar attraction exists (not chemical) between oxygen and carbonic acid, which acts through membranes, and in consequence of which the carbonic acid appears to be attracted, as it were, out of the venous blood, by the oxygen of the air in the cellular structure of the lungs ; while, at the same time, a portion of oxygen, probably equal in bulk to that of the emitted carbonic acid, is absorbed by the blood, and contributes to its arterial character. The change from the arterial to the venous state, and consequently the formation of carbonic acid, appears to take place in the capillary junctions of the artery and vein ; but how it is there effected we know not." Dr. Edward Turner, in the fourth edition of his valuable manual, " The Elements of Chemistry," (pp. 902-4), says: " A new theory of arterialization has been lately advanced by Doctor Stevens in his valuable Treatise on the Blood. According to that physician, the colouring matter of the blood is naturally very dark : it is rendered still darker by acids : it acquires a florid red tint from sea salt, and generally from the neutral salts of the alkalies. The colour of arterial blood is ascribed by him to hsematosine reddened by the salts of the serum, the venous character to the presumed presence of carbonic acid, which, like other acids, darkens hsematosine, and the conversion of venous into arterial blood to the influence of the saline matter of the serum being restored by the separation of carbonic acid. The removal of this gas is ascribed to oxygen, which is said to draw out the carbonic acid by virtue of ' a latent power of attraction.' Laying out of view the supposed latent attraction, as an unnecessary, not to say 30 DR. STEVENS' VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. unphilosophical supposition, the views of Dr. Stevens are founded on facts which are novel and important. Take a firm clot of venous blood, cut off a thin slice, and soak it for an hour or two in repeatedly renewed portions of distilled water ; in proportion as the serum is thus washed away, the colour of the clot deepens, and when scarcely any serum remains, the colour by reflected light is quite black. In this state it may be exposed to the atmosphere, or a current of air may be blown upon it, without any change of tint whatever ; whence it follows that when a clot of venous blood moistened with serum is made florid by the air, the presence of the serum is essential to the phenomenon. The serum is believed by Dr. Stevens to contribute to this change by means of its saline matter ; for when a dark clot of blood, which oxygen is unable to redden, is immersed in a clear solution of salt, it quickly acquires the crimson tint of arterial blood, and loses it again when the salt is abstracted by soaking in distilled water. The alternating tint of venous and arterial blood may thus be imitated by a solution of salt. " Such are the principal facts noticed by Dr. Stevens. Some observers seem inclined to dispute them ; but they are admitted by Mr. Prater in a late Treatise on the Blood, which has just fallen into my hands, and in a careful repetition of the experiments I obtained similar results. In order, however, more fully to elucidate this point, the following experiment was performed : — With the assistance of my friend and colleague, Mr. Quain, I collected some perfectly florid blood from the femoral artery of a dog ; and on the following day, when a firm coagulum had formed, several thin slices were cut from the clot with a sharp penknife, and the serum was removed from them by distilled water, which had just before been briskly boiled and allowed to cool in a well- corked bottle. The water was gently poured on these slices, so that while the 31 DR. TURNER'S VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. serum was dissolved, as little as possible of the colouring matter should be lost. After the water had been poured off, and renewed four or five times, occupying in all about one hour, the moist slices were placed in a saucer at the side of the original clot, and both portions shown to several medical friends. They all, without hesitation, pronounced the unwashed clot to have the perfect appearance of arterial blood, and the washed slices, on being immersed in a solution of salt, instantly acquired a similar tint. In thus brightening a dark clot by a solution of salt or a bicarbonate, the colour is often still more florid than that of arterial blood ; but the colours are exactly alike when the salt is duly diluted. " I am at a loss to draw any other inference from the foregoing experiment than the following : That the florid colour of arterial blood is not due to oxygen, but as Dr. Stevens affirms, to the saline matter of the serum. The arterial blood which was used had been duly oxydised, as it is called, within the body of the animal, and should not, in that state, have lost its tint by mere removal of its serum. The change from venous to arterial blood appears, contrary to the received doctrine, to consist of two parts essentially distinct : one is a chemical change, essential to life, accompanied by the absorption of oxygen and evolution of carbonic acid ; and the other depends on the saline matter of the blood, which gives a florid tint to the colouring matter, after it has been modified by the action of oxygen. Such appears to be a fair inference from the facts above stated; but being drawn from very limited observations, it is offered with diffidence, and requires to be confirmed or modified by future researches." A further testimony to the value of these discoveries is borne by a critic in the " Quarterly 32 ON DR. STEVENS' VIEWS OF THE BLOOD. Review," published in December, 1832 ; who was, we believe, at that time one of the leading members in the Council of the College of Physicians. He concludes his Review of Dr. Stevens' work on the blood with the following emphatic, and, in one sense, prophetic remark : " Twenty years hence, if we be not greatly mistaken, Dr. Stevens will be honoured as the author of one of the most important works in the medical literature of our age ; nay, we are scarcely afraid to add, as the patriarch of an era in medical treatment." M. Miiller, Dr. Copland, Dr. Prout, and many other authors have also borne testimony to the importance of the facts on which Dr. Stevens' views of the blood were founded, and the latter, who, it is to be regretted, has lately been lost to mankind, in some remarks on Dr. Stevens' paper on the blood, read in the College of Physicians, pronounced it to contain " the germs of discoveries of the last importance to mankind." Dr. Stevens' views of the condition of choleraic blood, have been extensively corroborated. Among others, Dr. W. B O'Shaughnessy, describing in a letter to the editor of the " Medical Gazette," of date December 29th, 1831, the results of his experiments on the blood of Cholera patients, says : "It has lost a large proportion of its neutral saline ingredients. Of the free alkali contained in healthy serum, not a D 33 ON CHOLERAIC BLOOD. particle is present in some Cholera cases, and barely a trace in others. All the salts deficient in the blood, especially the alkali or carbonate of soda, are present in large quantities in the peculiar white ejected matters."* Drs. Russell and Barry, in a paper on the nature and treatment of Cholera, drawn up by them and circulated by the General Board of Health in December, 1831, say, speaking of the state of the blood in Cholera patients : " The blood ceases to circulate ; its physical properties are altered ; its serous portion is suddenly thrown out upon the intestinal mucous surface of the body; the secretions are all arrested, and animal heat is no longer produced." So far their views are in accordance with truth, but Drs. Barry and Russell appear to have been totally ignorant of the true causes of these effects, otherwise they would not have recommended the Cholera poison to be retained in the blood and the body by the astringent poison of opium. Neither would they have advised burning it out, with either a red hot poker or anything else, from the spinal cord, which they foolishly believed to be the seat of life, or as they termed it, the source of all vitality and function. * Dr. O'Shaughnessy describes these observations as made during certain experiments on choleraic blood, performed by himself at Sunderland late in 1831. Had they been framed from a careful reading of Dr. Stevens' paper on the blood, which appeared in 1830, they could not have tallied with it more substantially, nor even literally, than they do. 34 SALINE TREATMENT IN YELLOW FEVER. CHAPTER IV. TREATMENT. The saline treatment in Yellow Fever was based on supplying the lost saline ingredients to the blood by imparting to the lacteals and absorbents of the stomach, and the whole of the internal intestinal surface in an aqueous medium, abundance of that vital electric ingredient, that is in truth the electric life that the body and the saline matter of the blood receive from the air that we breathe as the breath of life. The poison of Cholera occasions great thirst, and the saline agents readily enter the circulation, mix with, and become part of the blood. The vital electricity contained in the saline portion of the vital fluid is the natural stimulus of the heart, and hence the active non-purgative salts decidedly add to its stimulating power. When given early in active doses, by increasing the stimulating power of the vital fluid, the electric salts enable it to act with D 2 35 SALINE TREATMENT IN YELLOW FEVER. more force on all the vascular organs, and in this way they rouse the patients from the state of torpor in which, under every other mode of treatment, they generally soon die. The saline remedies employed by Dr. Stevens in the Yellow Fever, were chiefly solutions of muriate and carbonate of soda and nitrate of potass, and the result was most satisfactory. In the Island of Trinidad alone, from 1828 to 1832, there were upwards of one thousand cases of Yellow and other West India fevers, treated on the saline plan, with only eleven deaths, and of these three were not justly ascribable to failure of the treatment, the patients having succumbed to other causes of death than the fevers for which they were treated. The similarity observed in the morbid blood in the last stage of Cholera and Yellow Fever, induced Dr. Stevens to believe that the non-purgative saline medicines were the most likely to be useful in the then new disease ; for they not only redden the colour of the blood, but by increasing its fluidity, and adding to the stimulating power of the vital current, they render it better fitted to serve the important functions which it is intended to perform in the system.* Hence, also, he concluded that the first effort towards * Communicated by Dr. Stevens to the public in a letter to the Editor of the " Medical Gazette," published September 5, 1831. 36 SALINE TREATMENT OF CHOLERA. a cure should be directed to assist nature in throwing off the poison from the blood per vias naturales. and, at the same time, supplying the necessary saline stimuli on which the action of the heart and its vessels depends. It is, therefore, not only necessary to expel the poison, but the normal state of the blood must be restored, if the treatment is to succeed in saving the patient from this fell disease. The following is an outline of Dr. Stevens' saline treatment as used on a large scale in the prison of Coldbath-Fields in 1832, under its author's personal superintendence, as well as by the medical officer of that prison. Patients presenting merely the first stage of premonitory symptoms, diarrhoea and vomiting, were removed into an observation ward, where an even temperature was kept up by night and day great attention was also paid to ventilation and cleanliness. On their admission, a seidlitz powder was administered, and if sinking was felt, but without bowel complaint, more active purgatives were then employed; or three or four teaspoonfuls of Epsom salts were added to the seidlitz powder. On the bowels being moved, plenty of thin beef-tea, well seasoned with salt, was given; if much irritability of the stomach prevailed, a sinapism was applied to the gastric region, and thirst was relieved with seltzer, soda, or pure water ad libitum. This simple treatment was so successful that a great number of the 37 TREATMENT IN SECOND AND THIRD STAGES. patients had no further complaint, and were generally dismissed cured in a few days.* If cramps, coldness, or sinking of the pulse were present, the patients were considered as Cholera cases in the second stage. The non-purgative salts were administered every half-hour, or more or less frequently, according to the severity of the symptoms, and in the following dose: Muriate of soda, 9J. ; carbonate of soda, 3ss. ; chlorate of potass, gr. vij. When irritation of the stomach was very severe, a large sinapism was applied; and when the patient complained of heat or burning at the stomach, an additional quantity of the carbonate of soda was added to the saline powder. In cases where life seemed rapidly ebbing, the collapse stage having been reached, a strong solution of the same salts, at a temperature of one hundred degrees, was thrown into the bowels. In extreme * It must be borne in mind, however, that not one of these patients were entered as Cholera cases in the journal of the prison. At one time, during the first irruption, there were about eighty prisoners suffering under premonitory symptoms, but from April the sth to May the 11th, eighteen is the largest number entered in the prison journal on any one day during the first irruption. Mr. Chesterton, the Governor of the prison, states that in one day during the second irruption, about one hundred of the prisoners were simultaneously attacked. Still, twenty-two is the greatest number entered in the prison journal on any one day during the second irruption in 1832. 38 EFFICACY OF CARBONATE OF SODA. cases of collapse, this latter method succeeded far better than the injection of the vital electric salts into the veins. The saline mixture was administered half-hourly ; and in severe cases the muriate of soda was increased to a drachm, or even more, as circumstances seemed to require. When the stomach was extremely irritable, it was found that the carbonate of soda given by itself, or the tartrate of soda, in a state of effervescence, was the most effective remedy that could be employed for allaying the irritation, so as to enable the stomach to retain the stronger salts. The first object was to remove the excess of acidity in the stomach, as one cause of the intense burning and local irritation — amounting even to inflammation, or the gastro-enterite of Broussais. This species, however, of the entente cannot be cured either by gumwater, taken internally, nor by leeches applied to the pit of the stomach. The irritation is produced by a local cause, and can only be removed by local means. At this period of the disease the alkaline carbonates are of infinite value ; for example, by exhibiting the carbonate of soda, the fixed acids of the stomach are immediately neutralized. A large quantity of carbonic acid is evolved by the mouth, and the irritation of the stomach disappears almost as fast as if it had been removed by a charm. The fixed acids are immediately neutralized by the alkali of the carbonate ; the muriate of soda, 39 IMPORTANCE OF SALINE ENEMA. and the other natural salts of the blood are instantly formed in the stomach itself and enter the circulation ; that is, they mix with and become a part of the circulating blood, changing its properties, and remedying its morbid condition, thereby restoring the stimulating power of the circulating current, thus enabling the now electrified blood to keep up the action of the heart, and all the capillary vessels in every part of the material body. The enema, exhibited and found so valuable, was composed of a large tablespoonful of muriate of soda dissolved in warm water, sometimes with the addition of sugar or starch, and administered every two or three hours at as high a temperature as the patient could well bear. Sinapisms were also applied as early as possible to the region of the stomach, betwixt the shoulders, &c, ; in the cold-stage, frictions were frequently used with warm towels ; and a pure air for the patient to breathe, was considered as a matter of the greatest importance to the person whose blood has been contaminated with poisoned air. In the instructions to the profession and the public issued by the Board of Health in 1831, Drs. Russell and Barry thus describe the mode of treatment recommended by them : " When the diarrhoea affords time for distinct treatment, it ought to be arrested at once, by the most prompt and efficient measures, by opium in moderate doses, astringents, 40 BOARD OF HEALTH'S TREATMENT. local bleeding by leeches, if the subject be plethoric, by cordials and sulphate of quinine, if there be cold sweats, by confining the patient strictly to bed, and keeping up heat by diet, by emetics." And in severe cases they said : " Should no medical person be at hand, let the patient be then immediately placed betwixt warm blankets, then let two tablespoonfulls of common kitchen salt be dissolved in six ounces of warm water, and be given immediately and at once if he be an adult." And from their imagining that a softened state of the spinal cord was the immediate cause of the disease, they recommended the actual cautery to be freely applied on one, two, or more places on each side of the spine. The warm water and salt mixture, it has been observed by Dr. Turley,* is an excellent remedy for the distemper in dogs, and " firing" is often applied to horses ; but the intelligent persons who administer this remedy to the " brute creation" probably never dreamt of their practice being patronised by the General Board of Health, and recommended by it in the treatment of a disease of the blood, incident to man. Their mode of treatment was condemned by the more intelligent as empirical, although, unhappily, it was generally adopted. Practitioners who reasoned on the subject, could not fail to see that it was absurd * Correspondence with Mr. George Ross in "Medical Times," 1849. 41 THE BOARD OF HEALTH'S to prescribe medicines to lock up the Cholera poison in the body, at the same time with emetics to eject it, nor could even the very sanguine entertain much hope from burning the poison out of the blood with a hot poker applied to the back ! Then, as to the recommendation to employ cordials, by which hot brandy and water in unscrupulous doses was understood, the effect was most disastrous. Under the stimulating system the mortality was the highest with the exception, perhaps, of the combinations of calomel, opium and stimulants, when the mortality was literally murderous. Mr. Ross, with truth, says:* "What benefit can attend the propulsion of a quantity of thick, grumous, black blood into the capillaries of the internal organs, even supposing no other mischief were produced? Then, again, the large quantities of diffusible stimuli, upon which so much reliance has been placed, actually consume the oxygen of which the blood has so much need ! What advantage could there be in making a man drunk with brandy who is dying of the universal congestion of Cholera? The undue attempt to rouse the nervous system, must certainly exhaust its powers ; and the principle upon which the largest amount of stimulation has been applied to the lowest amount of vital power is as false as any paradox the human , * Lectures on Cholera, " Medical Times," November, 1838. 42 TREATMENT CONDEMNED. mind can conceive. Can we, then, be astonished at the high rate of mortality ?" And Mr. Marsden, in his " Treatise on Cholera," says : " During the existence of the disease in 1832, the directions for treatment, professional and domestic, issued by the Board of Health, are founded solely on empirical principles, yet, notwithstanding these erroneous measures, all might have been rectified had the Board at the time, with every facility for so doing, proceeded to a public and impartial investigation of the nature and treatment of the malady." 43 THE CHOLERA IN COLDBATH-FIELDS. CHAPTER V. THE CHOLERA IN COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON FIRST VISITATION, AI'RIL 5— MAY 11, 1832. The Cholera first appeared in Coldbath-Fields Prison on the sth of April, 1832, on which day there were confined there eight hundred and twenty-four males, two hundred and ninety-four females, and nine children, making the total number of prisoners one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven. It broke out in the male vagrants' ward, into which had been received a short time previously some persons from St. Giles's parish, and other districts of the metropolis then infected with Cholera. Perhaps so awful an enemy of human life could not have been encountered on any field more unfavourable for the curative means employed, although the unfavourable circumstances here referred to were the usual sanitary conditions of most of the similar institutions of that day. The 44 SANITARY CONDITION OF THE PRISON. prison was deficient in drainage ; its sewers, such as they were, were obstructed and foul ; and its ventilation imperfect. The prison discipline, also tended to aggravate the severity of many of the attacks ; for it is a feature in this dreadful disease, that it supervenes oftener between midnight and six o'clock in the morning than during the other eighteen of the twenty-four hours. From midnight to six in the morning, the inmates of the prison were, as a matter of course, confined in cells, and unable to communicate with the officers of the prison, even if seized with a sudden attack. The consequence was that many patients attacked while locked up, had attained the last stage of the disease before their removal from the cells to the infirmary could be accomplished. And this sometimes happened, as was not unlikely to be the case, even after the humanity of the Visiting Magistrates, and the Governor had directed that special attention should be paid to the infected quarters of the prison, particularly during the hours of confinement. In April, the Visiting Magistrates, the Governor, and the officers of Coldbath-Fields were soon exceedingly alarmed at the threatening nature of the new visitation, and with little wonder. Mr. Chesterton, the humane and talented Governor of the prison, stated, in a letter published July 25th, 1832, the progress of the malady as follows : 45 THE CHOLERA IN COLDBATH-FIELDS. "In ordinary times, at this season, the infirmaries were vacant, and the prisoners healthy ; while, on this occasion, in every part of the prison, and at all hours of the day and night, to the destruction of the rest of my officers, who were harassed to death, were we called to some unhappy being seized with diarrhoea and vomiting, but most frequently the latter, to the number, at one period, exceeding one hundred. Many of these could not be removed so speedily, ere they exhibited the extreme symptoms of this awful malady ; and who could tell how soon the slightest case, if for the shortest period neglected, might not terminate in death ? Here was no deception or collusion ; for my chief officer, a man of principle and veracity, can vouch that cell after cell was nightly drenched with the fluid rejected from the stomachs of their inmates, many of whom were likewise violently affected by cramp." The habits of life of many of the prisoners — probably, indeed, of the majority — rendered them little able to encounter the attacks of such a fearful disease, and their number, compacted as they were in so small a space, presented additional facilities for the ravages of the fell poison. During the period of the prevalence of Cholera, the average number of inmates in Coldbath- Fields was about one thousand two hundred, and that the field which its cells presented for the ravages of the disease was very ample must be apparent from the following facts. The number of prisoners in the prison on the sth of April, when the disease broke out, was one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven, and the total number of commitments from that day up to 46 INTRODUCTION OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. December 31st, 1832, when it ceased, was nine thousand four hundred and twenty-four. The commitments during this period, were more numerous, and consequently the prison was more crow T ded, than during a similar period of any year from the time that Mr. Chesterton had become Governor at Coldbath-Fields. It appears also, from the Prison Journal, that of ninety-seven patients who were in the infirmary suffering under various diseases on the 17th of April, on that day no less than seventy-three were Cholera patients. Such a fact speaks volumes as to the virulence of the attack, but it was fully warranted by the conditions of the prison, and the extent and nature of the fuel presented to the ravages of the Cholera poison. In consequence of the sudden death of the first patient attacked on the sth, Dr. Stevens' treatment was introduced into Coldbath-Fields prison on the 6th of April, by Mr. Henry Wakefield, the Surgeon of that institution, but, at his request, its practice there was very soon after the commencement of the disease personally superintended by the discoverer, who, with some intermissions, continued his assistance in combating the disease in that prison until nearly the end of August. As this was an experiment of intense importance, Dr. Stevens availed himself of the able assistance of a gentleman named Crook, who had been professionally engaged with him in the Island of 47 INTRODUCTION OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. St. Thomas, and had enjoyed extensive opportunities of witnessing the magical results of the saline treatment in the West India Fevers. This gentleman resided in the prison day and night purposely to ensure the utmost degree of carefulness and accuracy in the application of the treatment — it having been found that the least intermission of the medical attendant's care was almost sure to prove fatal. Mr. Wakefield, Dr. Stevens, and Mr. Crook were thus associated in the arduous task of overcoming a severe outbreak of this tremendous disease in circumstances as unfavourable as can well be conceived. Had the Board of Health treated the result of their labours in the prison as its great importance warranted, by according an honest and impartial inquiry to the result of the new practice in the Cholera in Coldbath-Fields, as Mr. Marsden has said, all would have been well : instead of that, however, it will appear in the sequel that the Board contented itself with a mere sham inquiry, occupying less time than is sometimes devoted by a Police Magistrate to the investigation of a street brawl. But it will be seen that the Board Inquiry was conducted in a manner so one-sided, flippant, and superficial, as to arouse the indignation of the Visiting Justices, the Governor of the prison, the Chaplain, and all who were aware of what they had done. The nature of the saline treatment as applied in Coldbath-Fields has been indicated above — how 48 SUCCESS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. magically it succeeded will be seen by the following letter to the Editor of the " Medical Gazette," written by the Surgeon of the prison, when the first impressions were still fresh in his mind : " Lansdowne Place, Brunswick Square, "April 25, 1832. " Sir, "So much has already been written on the subject of Cholera, that I should not now appear before the public, but from a conviction that the facts which I am about to state, if generally known and properly authenticated (which they can easily be), must be useful to those of the profession who in future may be called upon to treat this new, but most malignant disease. The first case which I saw occurred on the sth of this month, in the prison at the Coldbath-Fields. Three others quickly followed, and were immediately put under the common treatment ; these four patients died, after a short illness, with all the symptoms of Cholera distinctly marked. Soon after the commencement of the disease, a number of the prisoners were attacked with marked symptoms of derangement in the gastric organs ; and as all of these cases occurred in the infected part of the prison, it is more than probable from this, as well as the general appearance of the patients, that the diarrhoea with which they were attacked, was the effect of the poison which produces Cholera. From having seen similar cases in the commencement transformed rapidly into a state of collapse, my conviction is, that every one of those patients was more or less in serious danger ; and I believe also, that had they either been left to themselves, or improperly treated, the majority of these cases would have run into a state of collapse, perhaps in a few hours ; indeed, I E 49 SUCCESS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. have little doubt that the one-half of them would have been lost under the practice which is generally adopted in the treatment of this disease. Independently of the numerous cases where the individuals were labouring under the premonitory symptoms, I have now had twenty-five cases of decided Cholera, where the patients were in a state of collapse ; and in justice to Dr. Stevens, who suggested the use of the saline remedies, as well as from a sense of what I owe to the public, I conceive it my duty to state, that after having seen both the old and new treatment fairly put to the test, I am fully convinced that the saline practice is not only the most scientific, but decidedly the most successful that has yet been adopted for the cure of Cholera ; and from what I have seen, my conviction is, that if this treatment be fairly and extensively tried, the mortality from Cholera will be greatly diminished. When used at an early period, it either prevents or arrests the progress of the fatal symptoms ; or even where this treatment is not used until a later period of the disease, its effects are distinctly marked ; and I may safely say that I have seen several most malignant cases recover from a state of collapse under the saline treatment, where the patients, I doubt not, would have died under any other practice. We have now upwards of twelve hundred persons in this prison ; and, from the commencement of the disease up to this date, there have been nearly a hundred cases where individuals have been, more or less, evidently labouring under the influence of the Cholera poison. Twenty-five of these assumed the malignant character of the disease, having the majority of the symptoms described in the printed document issued by Dr. M'Cann. Four of the first cases, as before observed, were treated in the common way, and every one of them died. All the others, however, were immediately put under the use of the saline practice, as recommended by Dr. Stevens, and out of the whole number 50 MEDICAL MANAGEMENT OF THE PRISON. who have been thus treated, we have only had three deaths from Cholera, and two of these were cases of relapse. I may state, also, that within the last few days, I have had one most malignant case in the New Prison at Clerkenwell, where the patient was in a state of complete collapse before I saw him. His extremities were cold ; his pulse at the wrist was entirely gone ; he had the Cholera voice, and his tongue was icy cold. This man, like those in the other prison, was immediately put under the saline treatment, with the happiest effects, and I consider him now in a state of convalescence. " I am, Sir, your humble Servant, " H. Wakefield." The medical management of the Cholera cases in the prison has been already indicated above ; here we may repeat that patients who presented simply the first stage of the disease — purging and vomiting, were treated as labouring under premonitory symptoms, and placed in an observation ward. They were very numerous ; but it was only where the symptoms exhibited the second stage of the disease, the symptoms being purging, vomiting, spasms, sinking pulse, and coldness, that the sufferer was considered a Cholera patient. In point of fact, all attacked with the symptoms of either stage were Cholera patients ; it is therefore a high merit of the new treatment that it arrested the disease, in hundreds of cases, on the threshold, and, by aiding nature, expelled the active poison which proved so fatal when left in the system by inert treatment, or from being locked up in it by E 2 51 MEDICAL MANAGEMENT OF THE PRISON. such treatment as that recommended by the Board of Health. The Board of Health, however, seem to have resolved to accept nothing as Cholera from Coldbath-Fields, except those cases in wmich the patients had reached the collapse stage, which is evidently as absurd as to assert that syphilis cannot exist in a patient, unless its existence can be proved by a bridgeless condition of the nose, or the loss of the palate.* The following cases, extracted from the official journal of the prison for 1832, are inserted as illustrations of the practice. Scott's case was among the first treated by Dr. Stevens personally :f "April ll._. — John Scott, age twenty-six, was admitted into the infirmary with the following symptoms : pulse eighty- * On the 29th of June, Mr. Wakefield received an order from the Privy Council to report to them the collapse cases only that might occur in the prison at Coldbath-Fields. Mr. Wakefield was, we believe, the only medical practitioner in Great Britain who ever received any such order from the Privy Council ; and probably there are few medical gentlemen in the three kingdoms who would have obeyed any such order, without stating, at the same time, that the return contained only the collapse cases. f These and other cases were, we believe, recorded in the journal by a prisoner, named Lonegan, employed to assist in keeping the Surgeon's journal, and also as a nurse. This man had received a competent education, and took a great deal of interest in his hospital occupation, particularly after having witnessed the magical effects of the new practice. 52 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SALINE TREATMENT. two ; full and hard ; tongue white in the centre, and red at the edges ; considerable pain in the stomach and abdomen ; some degree of nausea ; says he has not had an evacuation the last four days ; ordered a seidlitz-powder, and warm applications to the belly. " 12./.. — The pain in the belly continues, accompanied with some irritability in the stomach. Let him have another seidlitz-powder, and continue the warm applications. " 13th. — Patient has passed a very good night; is quite free from pain ; says he has an appetite ; let him have tea and toast ; his bowels are sufficiently open ; says he would prefer being among the convalescents ; was therefore sent from the infirmary to the convalescent ward this morning. Ten o'clock, p.m. :is sent back to the infirmary very ill ; his extremities are cold ; cramps : pulse nearly imperceptible ; Cholera voice ; great pain and tenderness in the abdomen ; stomach irritable ; rice-water evacuations ; ordered a large mustard-plaster to the stomach and abdomen, and warm applications to the extremities, and a saline powder every hour. '* 14th. — Patient is in a perfect state of collapse ; skin livid and of an icy coldness ; tongue and breath cold ; pulse imperceptible ; incessant vomiting ; cramp ; griping pains in the bowels ; his evacuations are passed involuntarily ; repeat the mustard-plasters ; give him oxymuriat. potass, gr. vij. every half-hour ; and let him take occasionally a little soda-water, toast- and- water, and hot brandy-and-water. " 15th. — Is better to-day ; his skin is warm, and he is free from pain, and feels tolerably easy, but still has some degree of nausea ; pulse feeble ; has passed a small quantity of urine ; continue all the remedies, and give him one-third of a seidlitz every half-hour. " 16th. — Continues to improve; let all the remedies be 53 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SALINE TREATMENT persevered in, and give him a seidlitz-powder in the same way as yesterday. " 11th. — The patient is much better ; is able to sit up in bed, though excessively weak. From this time he recovered his strength very fast ; his evacuations daily improved, and he was ultimately discharged cured." "April \4th. — James Tunbridge, aged seventeen; admitted to-day. Is of very delicate habit ; complains of great pain in his belly, pain in his stomach, and very great debility. His bowels have not been open for several days. Let him take a seidlitz-powder, and apply a mustard- plaster to his stomach. " 15th, eight, a.m. — The pain in his stomach is relieved, but the pain in his belly rather severe. The seidlitz-powder has not sufficiently operated. Let him have an injection (saline), and apply a mustard-plaster to the belly. Nine, p.m. : Appears a little relieved ; says his feelings are much better ; let him have a little sago or tapioca. "16th, eight, a.m. — Has passed a very restless night ; his bowels are not sufficiently open ; complains of pain in his belly, and slight nausea ; give him a seidlitz-powder, and an injection an hour after; should the powder not operate, apply warm flannels to the belly. " 17th. — The patient has passed several evacuations of a very suspicious kind ; let him take a saline powder every hour, and give him soda-water as a common drink, and continue the warm applications. " 18th. — The patient complains of pains in his belly, accompanied with some degree of nausea; says he feels excessively weak ; let him continue the saline remedies ; give him occasionlaly a little hot brandy-and-water. " 19th, eight, a.m. — Is extremely ill; extremities cold; pulse imperceptible ; an almost total loss of voice ; stomach ex- 54 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SALINE TREATMENT. tremely irritable ; incessant vomiting ; rice-water evacuations ; cramped violently ; considerable pain and tenderness in the abdomen; great thirst and prostration; shrinking, and some degree of lividity of the surface ; ordered frictions with hot flannels. A large mustard- plaster to the stomach and abdomen ; give an injection (saline) every two hours ; and let him take oxymur. potass, gr. vij. every half-hour. " One, p.m. — Patient continues in a perfect state of collapse. Continue the remedies. " Ten, p.m. — Still continues in the same way ; persevere in the remedies, and let him have soda-water, hot brandyand-water, or toast-and-water. " 20th, eight, a.m. — Patient appears to be sinking rapidly. Apply sinapisms to the feet, let him have pulv. carb. sod. Ji. ; aq. pur. viij. ; cap. coch. pulv. pro re nata. Warm applications to the belly. " One, p.m. — Has rallied a little ; the sinapisms were removed fifteen minutes after their application ; pulse barely perceptible ; let him continue the solution of carb. sod., as he is able to retain it. Apply warm flannels to the arms and legs, &c. " Ten, p.m. — Appears a little improved. Continue the same remedies ; rice-water evacuations still frequent. Continue the remedies, and let him have a little sago with brandy. "21st, one, p.m. — Is precisely in the same state as this morning. Let him be kept warm, and continue the remedies. "Ten, p.m. — His extremities are cold; cramps have returned, but not so violent ; pulse almost imperceptible ; apply sinapisms to the feet, thighs and arms, and when removed apply warm flannels, and continue the solution of soda, also the saline injections. "22nd, eight, a.m. — Patient is rather better this morning ; 55 SUMMARY OF CASES FIRST VISITATION. his skin is warm ; pulse feeble ; says he feels comfortable ; his stomach is now quiet ; persevere in the use of the saline remedies, and let him have some soda-water occasionally. " 23rd. — The patient is considerably better ; says he feels in every respect comfortable ; let him have some sago, or weak tea. " 24th. — From this date the patient continued to do well, until the 1 3th of May, when he was seized with fits, which caused his death on the following day. " In this case, it may be well to remark that every symptom of Cholera had been subdued long previous to the attack of fits ; but that the natural weakness of the patient's constitution accelerated his death." The first visitation of the disease to the prison lasted from the sth of April to the 1 1th of May, and the following are details of the number of cases treated as Cholera patients labouring under the second or third stages of the disease. From the outbreak of the disease in the prison till Dr. Stevens was called in, there were twenty-eight cases, viz. : April 5 . . . . 1 „ 6 .. .. 6 „ 7 .. .. 2 „ 8 .. .. 7 „ 9 .. .. .. 12 Total .. .. 28 From the time that Dr. Stevens commenced to 56 SUMMARY OF CASES — FIRST VISITATION. attend the Cholera patients till he left off visiting the hospital on the 30th of April, there were one hundred and twenty-one cases, viz. : . April 10 . . . . 3 „ 11 .. .. .. 15 „ 12 .. .. .. 15 „ 13 .. .. 6 „ 14 .. .. .. 12 ?15 .. ... 11 „ 16 .. .. .. 10 „ 17 .. .. .. 8 „ 18 .. .. .. 18 „ 19 .. .. .. 1 „ 23 .. .. .. 6 „ 24 .. .. 5 „ 25 .. .. .. 5 „ 26 .. .. .. 4 „ 28 .. .. .. 1 „ 29 .. .. .. 1 Total .. .. 121 And during the period from his ceasing to attend the prison until the end of the first visitation of the epidemic, there were sixteen cases, viz. : May 1 .. .. .. 3 „ 3 3 4 .. 1 „ 6 5 „ 10 .. .. 3 „ 11 J_ Total .. .. 16 * 57 SUMMARY OF CASES FIRST VISITATION. The result of these three periods was an aggregate of one hundred and sixty-five cases, viz. : From April sth to 9th .. . . 28 „ „ 10th „ 30th . . . . 121 „ May Ist „ 11th .. .. 16 Total .. .. 165 Of these one hundred and sixty-five cases, the following were admitted in a state of collapse or speedily reached that gloomy stage of the disease : COLLAPSE CASES. April 5 . . . . . . 1 „ 6 .. .. .. 4 „ 8 .. .. .. 6 „ 10 .. .. .. 5 „ 12 .. .. .. 1 „ 13 .. .. .. 5 „ 14 .. .. .. 2 „ 16 .. .. .. 6 „ 17 .. .. .. 3 „ 18 .. .. .. 1 „ 23 .. .. .. 1 „ 24 .. .. .. 1 „ 25 .. .. .. 2 „ 28 .. .. .. 1 Total .. .. 39 The deaths from Cholera in the prison from April sth to May 1 1th were as follows : % 58 DEATHS FROM CHOLERA. April 5 . . . . ? 1 „ 9 .. .. .. 1 „ 11 .. .. .. 1 „ 12 .. .. .. 1 „ 15 .. .. .. 1 „ 16 .. .. .. 1 „ 20 .. .. .. 1 „ 24 .. .. .. 1 May 14 . . . . . . 1 Total .. .. 9 But those nine deaths would be very unfairly and incorrectly charged against the saline treatment, for the following reasons : — In the first place, early in April, when the disease broke out in the prison, four patients were treated on the Board of Health plan, viz., by opium and stimulants, and all of them died ; in two cases death ensued from the effects of too early a removal from the infirmary, in consequence of the large number of Cholera cases then in the prison. Mr. Wakefield's authority for these two deductions from the mortality appears in page 50 ; and in regard to two more of the deaths, although both patients had suffered from Cholera, yet one died of fits long after the Cholera had been entirely subdued ; and the other also recovered from Cholera, but died afterwards from the effects of a typhoid fever on a wornout frame. Eight out of the nine deaths are thus accounted 59 CONDUCT OF THE MIDDLESEX MAGISTRATES. for, leaving as the result of the saline treatment in Coldbath-Fields prison during the first visitation one hundred and fifty-nine well-marked cases of Cholera, including about thirty-three cases of collapse, with one death, or a total mortality of less than one per cent. The reader will bear in mind that these facts — no matter how astounding they may seem when compared with the results of the Board of Health's treatment, and indeed of every other but the saline — stand recorded in the official journal of the prison in which they occurred ; and that this statement has been drawn up from those records. It is not astonishing in such circumstances to find that the Visiting Justices, who had been eye-witnesses of this success, should have expressed in the most marked manner their obligation to the individual who had been the means of so beneficial a result. Accordingly, we find that Mr. Stirling, Clerk to the Visiting Justices, on the 11th May, 1832, wrote to Dr. Stevens, informing him that he had been officially directed to state that — " The Visiting Justices consider that, in the due exercise of the duties entrusted to them, they ought, in their next report to the Magistrates at large, to state distinctly the benefits which have been received by means of your kindness and medical skill, and to trust that the Magistracy will present you with their thanks, and the sum of £100, in testimony of that gratitude on their part which is so justly your due." 60 CONDUCT OF THE MIDDLESEX MAGISTRATES. Nor did the Magistrates neglect the eminently useful services of Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Crook : they requested Dr. Stevens to inform them what amount of pecuniary recompense he would recommend to be conferred on Mr. Crook. Dr. Stevens at once declined all pecuniary recompense for himself, and also acquainted the Magistrates that he did not believe that any would be accepted by Mr. Crook. After receiving a communication from Dr. Stevens to this effect, the Magistrates resolved to present him with a piece of plate of the value of the proposed pecuniary reward, and the following resolution was transmitted to him by their Clerk : " And the Visiting Justices recommend to the Court that a piece of plate, of the value of £100, should be presented to Dr. Stevens, with the thanks of the county, and the occasion of its being presented be engraven thereon ; and that a piece of plate, to the value of £25, be presented to Mr. Crook on the like account. " And, in consideration of the extraordinary labour and services rendered by Mr. Wakefield during the prevalence of the Cholera, the Visiting Justices resolve that £50 be presented to him in a piece of plate. " Resolved, that the several sums of £100, £25, and £50, be presented to Dr. Stevens, Mr. Crook, and Mr. Wakefield, in pieces of plate, in conformity to the recommendation of the said Visiting Justices ; and that the Clerk of the Peace be, and is hereby authorised to issue orders on the County Treasurer for those several sums." 61 CONDUCT OF THE MIDDLESEX MAGISTRATES. The County Magistracy having cheerfully concurred in the recommendation of the Visiting Justices, valuable pieces of plate, with suitable inscriptions, and votes of thanks from the county of Middlesex, were accordingly presented to Dr. Stevens, Mr. Wakefield, and Mr. Crook ; and so terminated the proceedings connected with the first trial of the new practice in Cholera, in the large prison at Coldbath-Fields. 62 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. CHAPTER VI. NOMINAL ENUMERATION OF THE CHOLERA PATIENTS IN COLDBATH-FIELDS, APRIL 5 MAY 11, 1832. The facts connected with the outbreak of the Cholera in Coldbath-Fields may perhaps appear to have been stated with a sufficient degree of circumstantiality ; but, in order to prevent any doubt of the truth of the narrative, we add the name of the patient, the date of attack, when confirmed or collapsed, the mode of treatment, with one column for the date of the death, and another for the date of the recovery of all the patients who suffered from the Cholera in its second or third stages. The reason -for being thus minutely particular will be found explained in the progress of the statement, and is mainly founded on the extraordinary conduct of the Board of Health, which, for certain reasons, proceeded to such a length as amounted almost to a denial of the pestilence having been experienced in that prison, and that, too, at a time when the 63 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. new pestilence was raging to a fearful extent amongst the prisoners at Coldbath-Fields. Unhappily, it will be found that the extraordinary attempt made by the Central Board to ignore the very existence of Cholera — at all events in a degree worth notice — in Coldbath-Fields, was but too successful in preventing the general adoption of the saline treatment. This conduct succeeded, in 1832, in casting a grave shade of suspicion upon the truth of the statements which had appeared in the " Medical Gazette," of the splendid success of the new practice in that prison ; and as it was there that it had first been applied on a great scale, the proceedings of the Board of Health were calculated to extinguish the reputation of the new treatment at its fountain head. That that malignant influence has continued in many places to the present day, will be found in the sequel to be abundantly proved, and especially in a remarkable instance connected with the history of the Cholera Hospital in Worcester, in 1849. Hence, the reader must see the necessity that exists for imparting to this subject the utmost degree of circumstantiality, even at the risk of tediousness. As already stated, the first irruption of Cholera commenced in the prison in Coldbath-Fields on the sth of April, 1832, and the last patient was admitted on the 1 1th of May, with one hundred and sixty-five cases, from first to last. According to Sir D. Barry's 64 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. statement on the 1 2th of July, there had. been during this first irruption only twenty-four cases of Cholera, and seven deaths. But the following table made out from the official Prison Journal, will show whether Barry's statement in the " Lancet " of the 1 2th of July, was or was not in accordance with the truth : LIST OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION AT COLDBATH-FIELDS DURING ITS FIRST IRRUPTION, FROM APRIL 5, TO MAY 11, 1832. *** The sixth column shows not the day of dismissal, but the date when the patients were believed to be out of danger. XT c Date - , Date Date Name of - confirmed _, , . , , Patient of or Treatment, t of of Attack - collapsed. | Death - Re covery. J. Summers . April 5 April 5 Opium and April 6* brandy G. Pickering . ? 6 „ 6 Saline . . April 12 J. Corderoy. . „ 6 „ 6 ditto . . „ 25 R. Chlory . . „ 6 6 ditto . . „ 23 J. Leach . . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 12 T. Jeiferey . . „ 6 „ 6 Opium and brandy I „ 9 Ant. Welsh . . „ 6 7 Saline . . „ 13 T.Clements „ 7 ¦ . ditto . . „ 17 Jas. Jerman „ 7 . . ditto i . . ?22 T. Bushford . „ 8 „ 8 ditto . . „ 20 Jno. Dyer . . 8 „ 8 ditto . . „ 16 Jno. Puffey . . „ 8 „ 8 ditto | . . „ 23 E. Rowley . . „ 8 „ 8 ditto | . . „ 24 J. Wright . . „ 8 „ 8 ditto | . . „ 18 J. Westbrook . „ 8 „ 8 ditto i . . „ 18 Thos. Castle „ 8 . . ditto '. : . „ 24 Jno. Phillips . „ 9 „ 17 ditto j . . „ 18 Wm. Place . . „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 18 Chas. Hind . . „ 9 „ 10 Hot brandy | and laudanum „ 11 Stepn. Brown . „ 9 „ 10 Saline . . „ 18 * It was probably the sudden death of this first patient that led to the trial of the new practice. F 65 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. Date W , hen 4 Date Date Name of of confirmed Treatment- of of Patient. Attack. „ 0T , Death. Recovery, collapsed. H.Harrow. . April 9 April 10 Saline . . April 18 Jno. Casey. . „ 9 „ 10 ditto . . „ 18 Jno. Harris. . „ 9 10 ditto . . „ 23 Jno. Burbridge „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 22 Pet. Reynolds . „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 27 Jno. Scott . . „ 9 „ 16 ditto . . May 5 Pat. Reynolds „ 9 . . ditto . . April 18 Jas. Hind . . „ 9 „ 16 ditto . . „ 14 Jas. Chapman . ?10 . . ditto . . „ 18 Wm. Johnson . ?10 . . ditto . . ?18 C. Brookwell . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 23 Thos. Lowrie . „ 11 „ 12 Saline and brandy* April 15 Edw. Kerry . „ 11 „ 13 Saline . . ?18 Fred. Cook. . „ 11 „ 13 ditto . . „ 18 W.Thompson. „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 18 Wm. Judd . . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 18 Geo. Wells . . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 23 Wm. Yeats. . ? 11 „ 16 ditto . . „ 24 Thos. Ward . „ 11 „ 18 ditto . . „ 18 Wm. Smith . „ 11 „ 17 ditto . . „ 18 SI. Harrison . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 18 Wm. Wallis . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 17 — Easton . . „ 11 . . ditto . . ? 23 G. Churchill . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 23 J. Freegrove . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 14 T. Tunbridge . „ 11 „ 25 ditto . . „ 25 Dan. Sullivan . „ 12 „ 13 ditto . . „ 17 A. Appleford . „ 12 „ 13 ditto . . „ 18 J. Wilkinson . „ 12 „ 13 Brandy and „ 13 porterf * This patient was admitted on the 11th, and was immediately put under the saline treatment. On the morning of the 15th he was free from pain, with a natural pulse, and so much better that he was sent to the convalescent ward. He was re-admitted on the same evening in a state of collapse. He was then treated with brandy, at his own request, but died on the 15 th. This is one of the two patients mentioned by Mr. Wakefield, in his letter to the " Medical Gazette" on the 25th of April, as having died from premature dismissal. f In this case the stomach and intestines were so irritable and painful, that unfortunately not one of the saline powders were given to this patient. This case was treated with brandy and porter, probably at the request of Dr. M'Cann. The disease terminated in death the day after the attack. This is one of the four patients that were lost under the practice of using the narcotic poison of opium as an antidote for the narcotic poison of Cholera. 66 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. XT _ - Date 4, , Date Date Name of - confirmed _, - c p . . of Treatment. of of Attack. „ r - Death. Recovery, collapsed. ' Jno. Griffiths . April 12 . . Saline . . April 18 Jno Parker . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 30 Rd. Edwards . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 21 Wm. Harris . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 21 Thos. Hart . . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 21 Ch. Chapman . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 21 T. Spendlove . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 29 Lewis Phillips . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 23 C.Blenheim . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 24 A. Almond . . „ 12 April 13 ditto April 16* Wm. Jones . . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 19 M. Horrigan . „ 12 . . ditto . . ?21 Geo. Johnson . „ 13 . . ditto . . ?18 Jas. Perry . . „ 13 . . ditto . . „ 18 Dl. Greenhill . „ 13 . . ditto . . „ 18 John Shaft . . „ 13 . . ditto . . „ 18 Hen. Cann . . „ 13 . . ditto . . „ 17 Wm. Stevens . „ 13 . . ditto . . ?20 Jno. Terrett . „ 14 „ 14 ditto „ 20f Hy. Ackers . . „ 14 „ 16 ditto . . „ 18 Thos. Curtis . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 18 Thos. Crouch . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 18 Henry Parker . „ 14 . . ditto . . ?18 P. Harris . . „ 14 „ 17 ditto . . May 7 Chas. Dunbar . ? 14 . . ditto . . April 18 D. Callaghan . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 26 Hy.Norris . . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 20 Jas. Perry . . „ 14 . . ditto . . ?24 Jno. Palmer . „ 14 „ 16 ditto . . ?26 Jas. Watmore . ? 15 . . ditto . . „ 25 M. Montrail . „ 15 . . ditto . . „ 24 K. Matthews . „ 15 . . ditto . . „ 19 Jno. Garnon . „ 15 . . ditto . . „ 19 * This patient was admitted at noon on the 12th On the afternoon of the 13th he was so much better, that, at his own request, he was permitted to go into the convalescent ward. On the following day he was admitted in a state of complete collapse, and died on the 16th. This is the second patient that was lost from premature dismissal. f This patient was admitted on the 14th in a state of complete collapse. He rallied a little on both the 15th and the 17th. He was then ordered hot brandy-and-water, but got worse again on the evening of the 19th, and died on the 20th. This is the first patient that died under the new practice, but on examination after death, extensive adhesions were found in both the chest and the abdomen, proving that these organs had suffered severely from previous disease. F 2 67 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS IM™-.,,, t Date v " c l - Date Date Name of - confirmed ™ . _ Patient of or Treatment. of of Attack - collapsed. Death - Recover y- Jno. Smith . . April 15 . . Saline* . . April 24 Wm. Dark . . „ 15 . . ditto . . „ 23 Wm. Dibbin . „ 15 . . ditto . . „ 24 Jas. Wood . . „ 15 . . ditto . . „ 23 Wm. Davis . . „ 15 April 23 ditto . . „ 23 Wm. Dundas . „ 15 . . ditto . . May 13 Jno. White. . „ 16 . . ditto . . April 27 Jas. Johnson . ?16 . . ditto . . „ 17 Robt. Ireland . „ 16 . . ditto . . May 9 Wm. Smith . „ 16 . . ditto . . April 24 Geo. Ryan . . „ 16 . . ditto . . „ 23 Wm. Murray . „ 16 . . ditto . . May 13 Wm. Moseley . „ 16 . . ditto . . „ 17 S. Litchfield . „ 16 . . ditto . . „ 6 P. Harris . . ?14 „ 17 ditto . . „ 22 Fran. Witney . „ 16 . . ditto . . „ 7 Luke Madden . „ 16 . . ditto . . „ 16 E. T. Spires . „ 17 . . ditto . . „ 10 Jno. Rees . . „ 17 . . ditto . . „ 15 Jas. Preston . „ 17 . . ditto . . April 25 Thos. Ward . „ 17 . . ditto . . „ 24 Jas. Low . . „ 17 . . ditto . . „ 25 G. Pickering . „ 17 „ 24 ditto . . „ 25 Wm. King . . „ 17 ... ditto . . „ 23 Geo. Dalton . „ 17 . . ditto . . May 12 F. Goodfellow . „ 18 . . ditto . . April 23 M. O'Keefe . ? 18 . . ditto . . „ 30 Geo. Kendall . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 24 Jas. Buckley . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 30 G. Bloomfield . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 25 Ed. Brogden . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 24 Tho. Spicer . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 26 Wm. Bradley . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 23 Chas. Dunbar . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 26 Jno. Weaver . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 23 Wm. Dormer . ? 18 . . ditto . . „ 26 Jno. Driscoll . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 26 W. Faulkner . „ 18 . . ditto . . May 13 Jas. Child . . „ 18 . . ditto . . April 24 W.Dickenson. „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 24 Wm. Griffiths . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 24 Jno. Sharp . . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 24 Geo. Kendall . „ 18 . . ditto . . „ 25 * From this period the new practice was in full operation in every one of the Cholera patients in the whole prison. See the result. 68 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. When Name of Date confirmed T # . Date Date Patient. ° f , or Treatment. of of Attack - collapsed. Death - Recovery. Wm. Dormer . April 19 April 25 Saline . . April 25 M. Titchen . . „ 23 . . ditto . . May 7 Jno. Cockbill . „ 23 . . ditto . . April 27 Jno. Hayes . . „ 23 . . ditto . . May 7 J. Hemming . „ 23 . . ditto . . April 24 Edw. Kerry . „ 23 „ 28 ditto . . Wm. Davis . . „ 23 . . ditto . . „ 27 Jno. Parker . „ 23 . . ditto . . „ 27 W. Clements . „ 24 . . ditto . . May 8 Jas. Puffice . „ 24 . . ditto . . „ 7 Jno. Williams . „ 24 . . ditto . . April 26 Wm. Jones . . „ 24 . . ditto . . May 9 Jas. Jerman . „ 24 . . ditto . . „ 9 J. Hemmings . „ 25 . . ditto . . ',', 2 Jno. King . . „ 25 . . ditto . . April 28 Jno. Morris . „ 25 . . ditto . . „ 28 Jno. Preston . „ 25 . . ditto . . „ 28 Rd. Knowles . „ 25 . . ditto . . „ 28 Jno. Longdon . „ 26 _ . ditto . . May 2 Jno. Smith . . „ 26 . . ditto . . April 30 John Harris . „ 23 . . ditto . . June 8 Jas. Taylor . . „ 26 . . ditto . . April 30 C. Holland . . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 30 Jno. Tubbs . . „ 28 . . ditto . . May 4 Wm. Watson . „ 29 . . ditto . . „ 9 T. Hardwick . May 1 . . ditto . . "6 Rob. Panton „ 1 . . ditto . . !', 5 T. Fairbrother . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 6 J. Westbrook . „ 3 . . ditto . . „ 11 Jno. Marsh . „ 3 . . ditto . . „ 6 Jas. Preston . „ 3 . . ditto . . „ 8 Tho. Brown . „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 10 Sam. Francis . ? 6 . . ditto . . „ 9 Sam. Morton . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 9 Geo. Jenner . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 10 Jas. Murray . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 14 Jno. Smith . . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 10 Thos. Scott . „ 10 . . ditto . . „ 13 J.Thompson . „ 10 . . ditto . . „ 15 Edw. Dormer . „ 10 . . ditto . . „ 13 Thos. Smith . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 14 Total number of Cases, 165; of Collapse Cases, 39; under the opium practice, 4 cases and 4 deaths ; from premature dismissal, 2 deaths ; under the saline treatment, 159 cases, 1 death, and 158 recoveries. 59 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. From the above Table it appears that three of the early cases were treated with opium and brandy, with the result of three deaths. Another patient was treated with brandy and porter on the 1 2th of April ; this patient became collapsed on the 13th, and died on that day. Two of the patients recovered from the Cholera, but were lost from premature dismissal. On the other hand, in the one hundred and fifty-nine cases that were treated in April and May with the vital electricity contained in the electric salts, as an antidote to the narcotic poison of Cholera, there were one death and one hundred and fifty-eight recoveries. This is the true statement, with respect to the first trial of the new practice in the then new pestilence, as proved by the official records in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields, for 1832. Consequently, the opposite statements of Dr. Barry in the " Lancet," of only twenty-four cases of Cholera and seven deaths during the first irruption, in place of one hundred and sixty-five cases and one hundred and fifty-eight recoveries, was, like the rest of his statements, most untrue. 70 RETURN OF CHOLERA TO COLDBATH-FIELDS. CHAPTER VII. SECOND VISITATION OF THE CHOLERA TO COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON, VIZ., FROM JUNE 3 TO DECEMBER 31, 1832. It was on the 30th of April that Dr. Stevens and Mr. Crook ceased to attend the patients in the infirmary of the prison. A few cases, as we have seen, happened up to the 1 1 th of May, when the Cholera appeared to have been finally expelled ; but it was not so, for another attack was near at hand. This second irruption broke out in the female side of the prison on the 3rd of June. The first patient, Margaret Kelly, w r as attacked on that day, and died on the sth. When informed of her death, Dr. Stevens went to Coldbath- Fields, to ascertain from Mr. Wakefield the cause of this death, but that gentleman was not there at the time, and Dr. Stevens did not return to the prison until the night of the 21st of June, when he received information from the Surgeon that the saline treatment had at last failed, and that the Cholera was then producing a frightful destruction of life in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields. Dr. Stevens 71 ABANDONMENT OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. immediately went to the prison, and on a strict investigation, he found that one patient had died on the 5 th, one on the 14 th, another on the 15 th, and one on the 1 8th ; every one of the last three patients had died soon after admission. Three patients had died on that day, the 2 1 st ; two others were dying, and did die, either during the night of the 2 1 st, or early on the morning of the 22nd; making in all nine deaths — and five of them within twenty four-hours. Dr. Stevens ascertained from one of the nurses that the treatment in eight of the nine fatal cases had been changed from about the 13th of the month, in favour of a new plan of Mr. Wakefield's own devising, the chief feature of which was, that the patients were treated with small doses of carbonate of soda at long intervals. Late admissions and inert treatment were, therefore, the causes of eight of these nine deaths, for it was under these circumstances that the sufferers perished with frightful rapidity. Mr. Wakefield did not then deny that Dr. Stevens' treatment had not been used in any^ of the later fatal cases ; and, after a full explanation with the Surgeon, and on condition that the new practice w T as to be used as formerly, Dr. Stevens renewed his superintendence of the Cholera patients in the prison early on the morning of the 22nd, and Mr. Crook again took up his abode there, resuming his active labours on the same day. 72 THE SALINE TREATMENT RESUMED. About the 12th of June, or soon after the commencement of this second irruption of this new disease, and as all the cases appeared to be then going on well, the Governor of the prison obtained his usual leave of absence for ten days. Mr. Chesterton left the prison on the 15 th, and returned on the 25 th of June. It was in the patients admitted during the ten days of the Governor's absence, that the great mortality occurred. But fortunately for the poor prisoners, Mr. Chesterton returned to Coldbath- Fields on the 25th of June, and instantly the most active measures were adopted to cleanse and purify the wards of the then foul prison. The good effects of this purification and the magical effects of the return to the true saline treatment were soon apparent. The following is a statement of the daily admission of cases from the commencement of the second outbreak, June 3rd, to Dr. Stevens' return to the prison early on the morning of the 22nd of June : June 3 . . 1 „ 7 1 „ 8 1 „ 12 2 ?13 1 „ 15 ... 2 „ 16 2 „ 17 6 73 THE SALINE TREATMENT RESUMED. June 18 . . . . . . 6 „ 19 2 „ 20 6 „ 21 4 Total 32 Deaths . . . . 10 Recoveries . . . . 22 — Total 32 From the 22nd of June until the 28th of August, during which time the Cholera patients were chiefly under the care of Dr. Stevens or Mr. Crook : June 22 17 23 5 ?24 6 25 22 „ 26 17 27 18 „ 29 4 30 1 July 1 2 2 10 3 1 4 7 5 4 6 3 7 2 ? 10 1 ?11 5 ? 12 3 „ 13 1 74 THE SALINE TREATMENT RESUMED. July 14 3 „ 15 1 „ 16 1 „ 19 1 „ 20 1 23 5 25 1 26 1 28 1 29 1 30 4 August 1 . . . . . . 1 3 2 5 1 7 1 9 1 10 2 11 9 12 2 15 1 19 2 20 3 22 1 23 1 24 5 Total 187 Deaths . . . . 12 Recoveries .. .. 175 Total 187 Mr. Crook left the prison in July, but Dr. Stevens continued to attend the Cholera patients until about 75 PROGRESS OF THE SECOND VISITATION. the 27th of August. The following numbers were admitted in three days ; that is, on the 28th, 29th and the 30th of August, or immediately after Dr. Stevens had ceased to visit the prison. August 28 ".'. . . ¦¦-'.. 5 29 .. .. .. 8 30 .. '.;. .. 11 Total 24 Deaths . . . . 9 Recoveries '.'. '.'. 15 — Total 24 The following are the numbers admitted from August 31st to December 27th : August 31 .. .. .. 10 Sept. 1 11 2 .. .. .. ll „ 3 .. '.'. .. 4 4 .. .. .. 2 5 6 6 5 7 5 8 •• ' ;• •• 7 9 .. .. .. 8 10 2 11 5 12 .. .. .. 7 13 1 76 PROGRESS OF THE SECOND VISITATION. Sept. 14 ... 1 29 1 October 1 . . . . . . 3 16 .. ... .. 1 30 1 Dec. 14 .. .. .. 2 18 ... ... .. 1 26 .. .. .. 1 27 1 Total 96 Deaths . . . . 3 Recoveries ? . . 93 — Total 96 The entire number of cases during these periods was three hundred and thirty-nine, viz : From June 3rd to June 21st . . . . 32 „ 22nd „ Aug. 27th . . . . 187 Aug. 27th „ Aug. 30th . . . . 24 „ 31st „ Dec. 27th . . . . 96 Total 339 Deaths .. .. 34 Recoveries . . . . 305 Total 339 The collapse cases from June 3rd to December 31st, were as follows : June 3 .. .. .. 1 „ 10 1 77 COLLAPSE CASES IN SECOND VISITATION June 11 . . . . . . 1 „ 13 1 „ 15 1 16 I 17 6 18 2 19 .. .. . . 3 20 1 „ 22 5 „ 23 5 „ 24 5 „ 25 14 „ 26 6 „ 27 2 „ 28 6 „ 29 6 „ 30 2 July 1 2 2 2 3 .. .... 1 4 3 5 2 7 1 8 1 9 1 „ 10 .. .. .. 1 „ 12 1 „ 21 1 „ 24 1 „ 25 2 „ 28 1 „ 29 1 „ 30 2 78 COLLAPSE CASES IN SECOND VISITATION. August 4 . . . . . . 1 6 2 8 1 12 5 „ 13 4 14 2 „ 19 3 ?21 2 23 3 ?24 2 „ 25 3 „ 27 2 „ 28 4 „ 29 4 „ 30 6 „ 31 6 Sept. 1 2 2 5 3 3 4 1 5 2 6 3 „ 29 .. .. .. 1 Oct. 31 1 Dec. 15 1 ?18 1 „ 19 1 162 During the second visitation the deaths amounted to thirty-four, and occurred as follows : 79 DEATHS DURING SECOND VISITATION June 5 . . ... . . 1 „ 14 .. 1 „ .15 1 18 1 „ 22 5 „ 23 2 „ 24 1 „ 25 .. 2 28 1 „ 29 2 July 3 1 „ 9 1 23 1 „ 29 1 Aug. 3 1 „ 28 .. 1 „ 29 .. 1 „ 30 .. .. .. 1 „ 31 1 Sept. 1 1 2 2 4 1 5 .. 1 „ 29 1 Nov. 1 1 Dec. 20 .. .. .. 1 Total .. .. 34 Total collapse . . 162 Deaths .. .. 34 Recoveries from collapse 128 Total .. .. 162 80 ANALYSIS OF THE MORTALITY. As already stated, Dr. Stevens had ceased to visit the prison about the 27th of August, and, singularly enough, the saline treatment appears to have been partially abandoned a second time, for speedily thereafter, viz., in the twenty-four patients admitted from the 28th to the 30th of August inclusive, the result was as disastrous as on the first abandonment, in June; for nine out of the twenty-four patients admitted in the end of August, all died in less than one week as will be seen by a reference to the Table made out from the Prison Journal of the above date. As soon as the cause of the above nine deaths was ascertained, Dr. Stevens again took charge of the Cholera patients until the beginning of October; Mr. Crook also returned to the prison on the 3rd of September. Once more recourse was had to the saline treatment, and once more it proved a specific in arresting the disease. Indeed, when all fair allowances are made, we shall find that the new practice proved as powerfully beneficial during the second irruption as it had done in the first. In doing this we must write off from the entire mortality among the Cholera patients the following items : Died, in the patients admitted from the 13th to the 25th of June, from late admissions, and also in the six cases wherein the new practice had been abandoned . . 14 Died, from the 25th of June to the 22nd of December, from late admission, having been admitted when in artieulo mortis . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 (j 81 PERIODS OR STAGES OF CHOLERA. Died from other diseases after recovery from Cholera . . 2 Died in one week, nine of the patients admitted from the 28th to the 30th of August, inclusive, in the patients in whom the saline treatment had been abandoned, and opium and brandy put in its place . . 9 Died under the experiment of cold affusion . . . . 1 Total .J .. .. 31 These thirty-one deducted from the total number of thirty-four deaths leave a mortality of only three in the three hundred and eight cases, including about one hundred and thirty-one cases of collapse. Thus proving that the saline treatment, during the second visitation, was also attended by a mortality of less than one per cent. ; and, whether we regard the entire number of cases in which the patients exhibited the symptoms of the second stage, or the large proportion of the collapse cases, the result alike demonstrates the magical efficiency of the new treatment in the then new disease. It has been suggested in a recent number of the " Medical Gazette," that " the advocates of the several modes of treatment have not attended sufficiently to the period or stage of the disease at which the practice in each case was commenced." In respect to this very important point, it is to be observed that in a great number of the cases above enumerated, the disease had supervened for some time, and the whole of the patients had reached the 82 RESULT OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. stage of coldness and cramps, which, in Dr Stevens' classification, is placed as the second, and many of the patients had even sunk into the last or collapse stage before treatment. It may, perhaps, be proper to state, that, from first to last, Dr. Stevens had nothing whatever to do with the admission of the patients into the Infirmary of the prison of Coldbath- Fields. When a prisoner complained of bowel complaint, during the prevalence of the Cholera, he was placed in an observation ward and treated with seidlitz powders, a mild form of the usual salines, and dieted chiefly with beef-tea well salted. This treatment prevailed in the great majority of the early cases, it was only when attacked with cramps and a sinking pulse, that the patients were entered in the journal as cases of Cholera. The fact of the cases occurring in a large prison, was also very adverse to successful treatment, because attacks of this disease are most frequent between midnight and dawn, and in Coldbath-Fields more collapse cases occurred between the hours of midnight and six in the morning than during the other eighteen hours. Notwithstanding, however, these adverse circumstances, still the great fact remains untouched, namely, that in the two visitations of Cholera in the prison, from the sth of April to the 1 1th of May, and from the 3rd of June to the 31st of December, 1832, about four hundred and sixty-five cases of G 2 83 r EXTRACT FROM MR. WAKEFIELD'S LETTER. Cholera were treated on the saline plan with a mortality only of four, or less than one per cent. In all of these four hundred and sixty-five cases, the patients had reached the second or cramped stage of the Cholera, and in about one hundred and sixty-one the disease had reached the collapse state. Still, such was the then foul state of the prison from bad drainage, that not one of the thirty-nine patients recovered that were not treated on the new plan. In consequence of subsequent events, it may be proper to state here, that the Surgeon of the prison has denied that he ever abandoned the saline treatment. In a letter which we have seen, dated September the sth, 1850, Mr. Wakefield says: "To say that I ever abandoned the saline treatment is as unjust as it is untrue. A warmer and a more steady advocate of the plan does not exist. I have never given up the principle since I first witnessed its success ; and, although it may have been varied in the proportions given, still the saline principle of the non-purgative salts has been the sheet-anchor upon which I have relied up to the present moment in the treatment of Cholera, and has been successfully carried out, not only this year, but during the last, in the prisons under my care." Mr. Wakefield, as has been shown, had every reason to repose confidence in the saline treatment, and, in his own words, to regard it as a " sheet- 84 COLD AFFUSION TRIED IN CHOLERA. anchor" in saving human life attacked by Cholera. But, to say nothing for the present of the five deaths on the 21st or 22nd of June; or of the nine deaths at the end of August. Still, even in another instance, he seems not to have been satisfied with a sheet-anchor simply, for we find him describing a very special instance of his having abandoned it, in a paper communicated by him to the " Medical Gazette" of December 30th, 1832. The instance in question was that of a woman named Mary Driscoll, one of the last cases of Cholera occurring that year. Mr. Wakefield states that in that case the saline treatment was pursued without making any impression ; " I then determined," says he (thirty hours after the seizure), " to make trial of the cold affusion, which had been tried with success in Berlin, and which was mentioned in a late number of the ' Medical Gazette' by Dr. Burrows, of Mortimer Street. The patient was carefully removed from bed, and placed in a large bathing-tub ; she was then stripped to her skin, and I dashed five large jugs of cold water over her. The shock was considerable, but the last jug only seemed to distress her. She was with equal care removed to her bed, and well rubbed with dry cloths. No reaction took place; and although she lived twenty-four hours afterwards, the only advantage she seemed to derive from cold affusion was the immediate relief of the intense 85 MR. WAKEFIELD AND THE NEW TREATMENT. burning heat in the abdomen, and the acute pain in the left side, in the region of the spleen, which is almost a constant attendant upon the fatal cases of Cholera. The want of success which followed this trial of the cold affusion will not deter me from again making use of it when opportunity offers, and I shall be happy to inform you of the result." It is not easy to reconcile Mr. Wakefield's constant perseverance with his " sheet-anchor," and his resort to cold affusion in the cold disease, in the cold month of December, with his emphatic declaration that " to say that he ever abandoned the saline treatment, is as unjust as it is untrue ;" but indeed the whole bearing of Mr. Wakefield's communication to the " Medical Gazette," from which the cold affusion experiment has been copied, is very perplexing. The impression which this, his last communication was calculated to produce on the profession and the public undoubtedly was, that Mr. Wakefield had lost all confidence in the saline treatment; otherwise he would not have been in search of other remedies at the end of the irruption ; and his flying to so extreme an experiment as dashing cold water over the naked body of the cold patient in the coldest period of the year, was a course quite at variance with the principles and practice of the saline treatment. It may be observed, too, that although the effect of the saline remedies was in general so immediate as almost to 86 ON THE COLD AFFUSION TREATMENT. deserve the term magical, yet the treatment included the closest and most unremitting application of the subsidiary means which are mentioned in the illustrative cases : whether these means were faithfully applied by Mr. Wakefield in this case does not appear from his statement in the " Medical Gazette ;" but it certainly does appear that in it he very soon abandoned the saline treatment for a new and, as far as his own practice went, an untried experiment ; and then, as if to rivet in the public mind the impression that he had lost all confidence in the saline treatment, he added that the failure of the dashing of cold water over the collapsed body of the patient, would not deter him from again making use of that fatal experiment. It is thus clear on his own showing, that Mr. Wakefield did abandon the saline treatment ; and not only so, but we find him intimating that he would continue that abandonment whenever the opportunity offered for another experiment of the same fatal kind. Nor does the circumstance of the saline treatment having been tried in the case in question render Mr. Wakefield's conduct in the least degree more intelligible ; for although he states that it was thirty hours after seizure before the cold affusion was resorted to, he does not mention the extent to which he had applied the saline treatment. It is clear, however, that in such a disease as Cholera, with its frightful 87 EFFECTS OF ABANDONING THE rapidity of fatal termination, the fact that the patient was alive thirty hours after seizure, and in such a state as to be able, in the opinion of her medical attendant, to undergo so extreme an ordeal as the dashing of cold water over her naked body, may not unnaturally be supposed to speak somewhat in favour of the previous saline treatment, or whatever the previous treatment may have been. But the evidence of the abandonment of the saline treatment by Mr. Wakefield does not consist solely of his own testimony, afforded in the very remarkable letter above referred to. For, as already stated, on the night of the 2 1 st of June, Dr. Stevens ascertained from a nurse in the infirmary of the prison, that between the 13th of June and the 21st of that month, Mr. Wakefield had treated several cases of Cholera with small doses of carbonate of soda. It will also be seen from the list of the three hundred and thirtynine patients in the second visitation of the Cholera in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, that from the 14th to the 25th of June inclusive, and again from the 28th of August to the sth September, the mortality was very considerable, and indeed, that during these two periods, every one of the twenty-five patients died in whose cases the new treatment had not been used. The fact we believe is still known to more individuals than one, that late on the night of the 2nd of September, Dr. Stevens, not only in private, but also 88 SALINE TREATMENT. in the presence of still living witnesses, accused Mr. Wakefield of gross neglect of duty in permitting this second abandonment of the saline treatment, when on the night of the 2nd of September, Dr. Stevens visited the prison, in consequence of having been informed that the Cholera was again making sad ravages in that establishment. Neither the wisdom, nor the professional propriety of this variation in the treatment of the patients is sought to be impugned here, but we believe that it will be clearly proved, not merely on the evidence of Dr. Stevens, but also on the authority of the list of the many deaths in Mr. Wakefield's own Prison Journal that the Surgeon of the prison did permit the abandonment of the saline treatment in many cases, not only in June, but also in the nine fatal cases admitted during three of the last days in August. If this be true, then Mr. Wakefield had no right to report these cases to the Magistrates as patients lost under the new practice. Such, we believe, is the true statement of the facts, whilst the great increase of the fatal results, as proved by the Prison Journal in the cases treated during the two periods in which it is alleged that the new treatment was abandoned, affords strong corroborative internal evidence in favour of the statement, that the new practice had not been used in any of the twenty-five fatal cases that occurred in the prison in June, at the end of August, and the beginning of September. 89 i ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. CHAPTER VIII. The above narrative of the second outbreak of the then new disease in Coldbath-Fields, will be appropriately concluded by a special detail of all the patients in the second irruption similar to that already given in connexion with the first visitation in April and May. The following is a list of all the cases of Cholera that occurred in the prison during the second irruption, that is from the 3rd of June to the 27th of December, 1832. The present like the former Table, is made out from the verified documents extracted from the official Journal of the prison of 1832. LIST OF THE THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION AT COLDBATH-FIELDS, DURING ITS SECOND IRRUPTION, FROM JUNE 3 TO DECEMBER 27, 1832. Name Date confirmed T . . Date Date of Patient. ° f . or Treatment. of of Attack ' collapsed. Death ' Re <^cry. Margt. Kelly . June 3 June 3 Saline* June 5 . . Sarah Pooley . „ 7 „ 11 ditto . . June 18 Rachl. Pearson „ 8 „ 10 ditto . . July 17 Ann Moore. . „ 12 „ 13 ditto . . „ 4 * This patient is said to have died under the new practice. 90 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. Name Date confirmed T . , Date Date of Patient. ,. f of , or Treatment. of of Attack - collapsed. Death - Recovery. Johanna Smith June 13 June 13 Too late for June 14 treatment Ann Easton . „ 13 „ 17 Saline . . July 17 Jane M. Martin „ 15 „ 17 3to 5 grs. carb. June 22 . . of soda given at long intervals.* John Smith . „ 15 . . Too late for June 15 . . treatment John Morris . „ 16 „ 16 Saline . . June 20 Brid. Grundy . „ 16 „ 17 ditto . . July 15 Dennis Riorden „ 17 „ 17 Small doses June 22 . . carb. soda.f John Williams . „ 17 „ 17 Small doses „ 22 . . carb. soda.J Robert Collins . „ 17 „ 17 Saline . . „ 20 John Shannon. „ 17 „ 18 ditto . . „ 26 Fran. Duίois. „ 18 „ 19 ditto . . „ 5 Carolus Grame . „ 18 „ 19 ditto . . June 24 John Ackers . „ 18 „ 23 ditto . . July 10 Ant. Vitch . . „ 18 „ 18 3to 5 grs. June 22 . . carb. soda.§ Eliz. Goodhall „ 18 „ 18 Too late for June 18 treatment. Clara King . . „ 18 „ 20 Saline . . „ 25 Jno. Murphy . „ 19 „ 22 ditto July 10 . . Jno. Hawkins . „ 19 „ 22 3to 5 grs. carb. June 22 . . of soda given at long intervals. || Geo. Sudman . „ 20 „ 22 . . . . June 28 John Hall . . „ *^0 „ 22 . . . . „ 24 Wm. Brown . „ 20 „ 22 Saline . . „ 30 Susan Deacon . „ 20 „ 23 Doubtful^f June 24 . . Susan Kelly . „ 20 „ 23 Saline . . July 12 Ann Lambert . „ 20 „ 23 ditto . . „ 6 J. Royer . . „ 21 . . ditto . . „ 4 Edw. Blacklock „ 21 . . ditto . . June 30 * This is one of the five patients that died from 12 o'clock on the 21st to the same hour on the 22nd of June. t Ditto. t Ditto. § Ditto. |] Ditto. % This patient had probably been fully two days under the equivalent to no treatment, for she never rallied, notwithstanding the most active practice, and died on the 24th. 91 ; i j ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. „ Date W i 16n^ Date Date Name * confirmed m „, ; " . ¦ - ..j. of Patient of or Treatment. of of oi rauent. A ttack. coll ° sed Death - Recove] 7- C. Bradley . . June 21 . . Saline . . June 30 John James . „ 21 . . ditto . . „ 30 Geo. Cornie . „ 22 . . ditto . . July 5 Wm. Bryan . „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 3 Thos. Taylor . „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 3 Richd. Jackson „ 22 June 25 ditto . . „ 27 Jas. Holdwell . „ 22 „ 25 ditto . . „ 30 Jas. Wellington „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 26 Jas. Clark . . „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 26 Mich. Holland . „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 3 Jno. Musseto . „ 22 „ 23 ditto . . „ 3 Jno. Harris . . „ 22 „ 25 ditto . . „ 9 T. Hollingbury „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 3 Wm. Barrett . „ 22 . . ditto . . June 30 Jas. Thorn . . „ 22 „ 27 ditto . . „ 27 Th. Lawrence „ 22 . . ditto . . „ 30 Wm. Hemming „ 22 „ 25 ditto . . „ 29 Sol. Taylor . . „ 22 „ 25 ditto . . „ 26 Mich. Allen . „ 22 . . ditto . . July 4 Jas. Simmonds ?23 . . ditto . . „ 3 Geo. Pickering. „ 23 „ 25 ditto . . June 29 J. Shuttleworth „ 23 „ 24 ditto . . July 4 M. A. Beckwith „ 23 . . Too late for June 23 treatment Sarah Hayes . „ 23 „ 24 Too late for „ 23 treatment Wm. Edwards . „ 24 „ 25 Saline . . „ 3 Jas. Carter . . „ 24 . . ditto . . „ 3 Thos. Bleasden „ 24 . . ditto . . June 30 Eliz. Ward . . „ 24 „ 24 ditto"* . . July 10 Eliza Williams . „ 24 „ 24 ditto . . „ 4 Ellen Connor . „ 24 „ 24 ditto . . ?4 Jos. Herring . „ 25 . . ditto . . „ 6 Jas. Manby . . ?25 July 1 ditto . . „ 4 H. Cooper . . „ 25 June 28 ditto . . June 30 Thos. Kirby . „ 25 „ 25 Too late for „ 25 treatment Jno. Reagon . „ 25 „ 25 Too late for „ 25* treatment Wm. Davidson. „ 25 „ 25 Saline . . July 4 C. Dunbar . . „ 25 „ 25 ditto . . „ 4 Alex. Sessie . „ 25 „ 25 ditto . . June 30 Dan. Holland . „ 25 „ 25 ditto July 3 . . Wm. Rowland . „ 25 July 3 ditto . . July 4 Rd. Card . . „ 25 June 25 dittof „ 3 . . * It was on this day, that, according to Dr. Barry and Mr. Wakefield, there was not one case of Cholera in the whole prison. t This patient recovered from Cholera, but died afterwards from water in the chest. 92 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. xr Date hen , Date Date Name * confirmed „- . , of Patient. °f, or Treatment. of of Attack- collapsed. Death- Recovery. Day. Holland . June 25 June 25 Saline* July 9 M. Allen . . „ 25 „ 28 ditto . . July 9 Edw. Kerry . „ 25 „ 26 dittof June 28 . . Ben. Phasey . „ 25 „ 26 dittoj . . June 29 Alfred Miles . „ 25 . . ditto . . „ 29 Joseph Allen . „ 25 „ 28 ditto§ . . July 17 Jane Taylor . „ 25 „ 26 ditto . . „ 10 A. Richardson . „ 25 „ 27 ditto . . „ 25 Julia Ingall . „ 25 „ 27 ditto . . „ 17 James Manby . „ 25 „ 28 ditto . . „ 4 Jno. Harrison . „ 25 . . ditto . . June 29 Jas. Catanack . „ 26 „ 26 ditto . . ?30 Jno. Moore. . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 29 J. S. Gower . „ 26 . . ditto . . July 4 James Sullivan „ 26 July 4 ditto . . „ 17 Jas. Gravenor . ? 26 . . ditto . . „ 3 Tho. Brown . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 7 Tho. Green. . „ 26 June 28 ditto . . „ 8 Rob. Collins . „ 26 „ 26 ditto . . June 30 Tho. Brenner . „ 26 „ 28 ditto . . July 5 Geo. Stevens . „ 26 July 2 ditto . . „ 3 Thos. Francis . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 6 Wm. King . . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 2 Chas. Morley . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 2 Stephn. Brown „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 2 Grgna. Harris . „ 26 . . ditto . . „ 3 Ann Morris. . „ 26 ? 4 ditto . . „ 7 T. Hollingbury „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 6 Rd. Steward . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 3 Wm. Thorn . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 9 Godfrey Nokes „ 27 June 29 ditto . . „ 5 Rachel Stewart „ 27 „ 30 ditto . . „ 6 Henry King . „ 27 „ 29 ditto . . „ 8 * This patient was admitted in a state of collapse on the 25th of June, and recovered from Cholera. He was admitted again on the Ist of July, and died from the effects of an old venereal disease on the 9th of July. f This is the patient that died about four hours after Barry's official inspection on the 28th of June. X This patient, B. Phasey, recovered from Cholera, but died from diseased lungs on the 12th of July. § This patient became collapsed on the 28th of June. He was dismissed from the Cholera Infirmary as quite well on the 17th of July, and was in perfect health on the 28th. This is one of the severe cases that was in the prison on the 27th of June, when Barry and O'Shaughnessy denied the existence of Cholera there on that day. 93 I ! ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. ? Date Wi ien , Date Date Name c confirmed m . . •• j? f p . , of Treatment. of of ot patient. Attack> or Recovery. collapsed. Henry Butcher June 27 June 30 Saline . . July 8 Jos. Jones . . „ 27 „ 29 ditto . . „ 10 Thos. Collins . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 1 Wm. White . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 4 Joseph Green . „ 27 . . ditto 1 . . „ 3 Thos. Stum . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 10 Wm. Booth . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 5 Car. Thornton. „ 27 . . ditto . . ?7 Eliz. Leach. . „ 27 . . ditto . . ?4 Marg. Smith . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 4 Eliz. Isaacs. . „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 5 Jno. Pratt . . „ 27 July 4 ditto . . „ 7 M. Bloomfield. „ 27 . . ditto . . „ 3 Eliz. Greaves . „ 27 „ 5 ditto . . „ 8 Jno. Keyberth. „ 29 . . ditto . . Ann Smith . . „ 29 June 29 Too late for June 29* treatment Jane West . . „ 29 „ 29 Saline . . „ 5 Matilda West . „ 29 „ 29 Too late for „ 29* (Child) . . treatment . . J. C Woodcock „ 30 . . Saline . . „ 7 A. Goodfellow . July 1 July 1 ditto . . „ 4 Jas. Anderson. „ 1 . . ditto . . ?13 Cath. Donuhue ?2 . . ditto . . „ 5 Eliz. Brown . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 10 Rebecca Sutton „ 2 ?9 ditto . . „ 9 Lucy Cottrill . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 5 Marg. Jones . „ 2 . . ditto . . ?5 Cath. Hughes . „ 2 „ 10 ditto . . „ 9 Pierce Dalton . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 7 Jno. Totham . „ 2 . . ditto . . ?8 Jno. Watson . „ 2 . . ditto . . ?8 Wm. Perry. . „ 2 „ 5 ditto . . ?8 Jno. Homey . „ 3 . . ditto . . ?6 Rob. Baldwin . „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 6 Fred. Williams. „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 8 John Brown . „ 4 . . ditto . . ?8 Ann Morris. „ 4 „ 7 ditto » . . „ 11 Wm. Johnson . „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 7 Fra. Bradley . „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 13 Eliz. Copeland. „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 13 Fra. Wheeler . „ 5 . . ditto . . ?8 Jno. Freegrove. „ 5 . . ditto . . „ 10 Thos. Jones . „ 5 . . ditto . . „ 10 Elinor Roberts. „ 5 „ 5 ditto . . „ 17 Jas. Oglore. „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 11 Wm. Bryan. . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 9 * These are the two patients that died from late admission the day after the official inspection. 94 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS Date hen , Date Date Name of confirmed Treatment> of of olFatient. Attack. fl Death. Recovery. — M'lntyre . July 6 . . Saline. . . July 10 J. S. Gower . „ 7 . . ditto . . „ 11 Jno. Jude . . „ 7 July 8 ditto . . „ 11 Wm. White . „ 10 . . ditto . . „ 13 Jas. Watmore . „ 11 „ 12 ditto . . „ 16 David Barry . „ 11 . . ditto . . ?14 Jno. Thomas . „ 11 . . ditto . • ?17 Clara King . . „ 11 . . ditto • • „ 17 James Bone . „ 11 . . ditto • • ?14 Thos. Burton . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 15 James Taylor . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 17 Robert Smith . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 17 Geo. Bloomfield „ 13 . . ditto . . „ 18 Wm. Gore . . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 17 Peter Keats . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 17 Arch. Cridley . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 17 Thos. Brenning „ 15 . . ditto . . ?8 Jno. Blewit . „ 16 . . ditto . . „ 19 Jno. Doughty . „ 19 . . ditto . . „ 23 Thos.Bradshaw „ 20 „ 21 ditto July 24* Thos. Reynolds „ 23 . . ditto . . „ 27 Dan. Sullivan . „ 23 „ 24 ditto . . „ 28 Wm. Ivers . . „ 23 „ 25 ditto . . „ 28 Jno. Fowler . „ 23 „ 25 ditto . . „ 27 Geo. Pickering. „ 23 . . ditto . . „ 26 Rd. Stewart . „ 25 . . ditto . . „ 28 Thos. Brennar. „ 24 . . ditto . . Aug. 2 Dan. Barrett . „ 28 „ 28 ditto „ 29 Geo. Aldows . „ 29 „ 29 Too late for Aug. 3f treatment Jno. Scraig . . „ 30 „ 30 Saline . . „ 2 Dan. Sullivan . „ 23 „ 23 ditto . . Susan Bond . „ 30 . . ditto . . „ 9 Ann Ellins . . „ 30 . . ditto . . „ 5 Jas. Riorden . Aug. 1 . . ditto . . ?5 Thos.Davis. . „ 3 Aug. 6 ditto . . „ 7 Wm. Marshall „ 3 „ 4 ditto . . „ 7 Mary Bulling . „ 5 „ 6 ditto . . „ 12 Jno. M'Keaton. „ 7 „ 8 ditto . . ?12 * This patient died under the saline treatment. t This patient was admitted in a state of collapse on the 23rd of July, and dismissed as quite recovered on the 28th. On the morning of the 30th, he was re-admitted again in a dangerous state. On the Ist, 2nd, and 3rd of August he was in a state of collapse, and died from premature dismissal at six in the evening of that day. 95 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. When T- Date , , Date Date Name c confirmed -n , . c nf , „ . , of Treatment. of of °f Patient" Attack- collated. Death- Recovei > Mary Collins . Aug. 9 . . Saline . . Aug. 13 Pat. Owen . . „ 10 Aug. 12 ditto . . „ 13 Wm. Worley . „ 11 „ 19 ditto . . „ 19 Jas. Chapman . „ 10 . . ditto . . „ 19 Sam. Litchfield „ 11 „ 12 ditto . . „ 14 Jas. Martin. . „ 11 „ 12 ditto . . „ 14 Wm. Arbour . „ 11 „ 13 ditto . . „ 14 Jno. Watmore . „ 11 „ 13 ditto . . „ 22 Geo. Thomas . „ 11 „ 13 ditto . . „ 15 Ben. Owen . . „ 11 „ 13 ditto . . „ 15 Jas. M'Kenley. „ 11 „ 14 ditto . . ?17 Robt. Simpson. „ 11 „ 14 ditto . . „ 23 Ann Ellins . . „ 12 „ 12 ditto . . „ 22 Ann Brown. . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 18 Jas. Bland . . „ 15 „ 21 ditto . . ?25 Jno. Donovan . „ 19 „ 19 ditto . . ?22 Wm. Robinson. „ 19 „ 19 ditto . . „ 27 Henry Bowman „ 20 „ 21 ditto . . „ 31 Thos. Jackson. „ 20 „ 23 ditto . . „ 26 Hy. Beaumont. „ 20 „ 23 ditto . . „ 24 Jno Sermon . „ 22 „ 23 ditto . . „ 29 Wm. Howett . „ 23 „ 24 ditto . . „ 29 Susan Bond . „ 24 „ 30 ditto . . Sept. 4 Wm. Sanders . „ 24 „ 24 ditto . . „ 2 Jno. Jones . . ?24 „ 25 ditto . . „ 3 Wm. Brogan . „ 24 „ 25 ditto . . „ 4 Thos. Jones . „ 24 „ 25 ditto . . „ 3 Geo. Fitzgerald. „ 26 „ 27 ditto . . „ 6 Eliz. Edwards . „ 26 „ 27 ditto . . „ 8 M. A. Sheirs . „ 26 Sept. 2 ditto . . „ 6 Sarah Harrison „ 26 „ 2 ditto . . ?1 Wm. Smith . „ 27 Aug. 28 ditto . . „ 3 Rd. Hancock . „ 27 „ 28 ditto . . Aug. 30 Edw. Dundas . „ 28 „ 28 Bd. of Health Aug. 28* . . Thos. Smith . „ 28 „ 28 ditto Sept. 4 . . Jno. Griffiths . „ 28 „ 29 ditto „ 2 . . Saml. Owen . „ 28 „ 29 ditto Aug. 30 . . Wm. Farrell . „ 28 „ 30 Saline . . Sept. 3 S. Martin . . „ 29 „ 29 Bd. of Health „ 30 * This was the first of nine patients experimented on by an Irishman named Gannon, and death was the result in six hours from the time that the patient took the first dose of opium. The other eight deaths at this period were all the result of the same cold-blooded experiment made by Gannon, as Dr. Stevens believes, with the sanction of Barry. 96 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. , T Date _. , Date Date Name of confirmed Treatment of of oi Jr-atient. Attack. 11 0r Death. Recovery, collapsed. ' Day. Tobin. . Aug. 29 Aug. 30 Saline . . Sept. 4 Wm. Hogan . „ 29 Sept. 2 ditto . . „ 1 Tim. Connell . „ 29 Aug. 31 Bd. of Health Aug. 31 Geo. Davis . . „ 29 „ 31 ditto Sept. 1 Jno. Smith . . „ 29 Sept. 2 ditto „ 2 Wm. Turner . „ 29 Aug. 30 Saline . . „ 5 Ann Baring. . „ 29 „ 29 ditto . . „ 7 John Roberts . „ 30 . . ditto . . „ 1 Henry Rockall. „ 30 . . ditto . . „ 3 Geo. Fitzwater. „ 30 „ 30 ditto . . „ 1 John Proctor . „ 30 Sept. 2 Bd. of Health „ 3* . . John Morris . „ 30 . . Saline . . „ 7 Jno. Hicklock . „ 30 . . ditto . . „ 3 A. Hemingan . „ 30 ? 3 ditto . . „ 14 Wm. Burls . . „ 30 . . ditto . . „ 3 John Smith . „ 30 Aug. 31 ditto . . „ 4 Wm. Parker . „ 30 . ." ditto . . „ 3 Thos. Attwood. „ 30 „ 30 ditto . . „ 6 M. A. Simmons „ 31 „ 31 ditto . . „ 6 M.A.Sanders. „ 31 „ 31 ditto . . „ 9 Mary Mitchell. „ 31 „ 31 ditto . . „ 14 Jno. Careless „ 31 . . ditto . . ?3 John Shield . „ 31 Sept. 4 ditto . . 8 Richd. Baker . „ 31 . . ditto . . „ 6 James Bird. . ? 31 „ 5 ditto . . „ 8 Ben. Isaacs . „ 31 „ 5 ditto . . „ 9 Thos. Bennett . „ 31 . . ditto . . „ 6 Wm. Hennessy „ 31 . . ditto . . „ 3 Geo. Fitzgerald Sept. 1 . . ditto . . „ 5 James Smith „ 1 ?1 ditto . . „ 5 Wm. Mitchell . „ 1 ?1 ditto . . „ 7 Thos. Pegson . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 7 James Wilds „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 4 Edw. Marcomb „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 4 Jas. Mingard . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 4 Ann Welsh. . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 8 Susan Adams . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 12 Ann Walters . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 13 Jane Turner . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 13 John Thomas . ?2 . . ditto . . ?5 Mary Jones. . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 2 Eliz. Spelling . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 6 Eliz. Spring „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 7 Rosa M'Cake . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 6 * This was the last of the nine patients experimented on by Gannon. II 97 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. When Name Date confirmed T t f Date Date of Patient. °f. or Treatment. of of Attack ' collapsed. Death- Recovery. Ann Barnes . Sept. 2 . . Saline . . Sept. 11 Ann Butt . . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 11 Mary Sullivan . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 9 Ellen Bow . . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 6 Ann Hamilton „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 6 Mary Taylor . „ 2 . . ditto . . „ 10 Wm. Ivers . . „ 3 . . ditto . . „ 8 Geo. Lireton . „ 3 . . ditto . . „ 7 Jos. Davenport „ 3 Sept. 3 ditto . . „ 9 John Roberts . „ 3 . . ditto . . „ 8 Thos. Williams „ 4 . . ditto . . „ 9 Jos. Prestow . „ 4 „ 6 ditto . . „ 11 T. Ringwood „ 5 ?6 ditto . . „ 11 Hen. Hitchcock „ 5 „ 5 ditto . . „ 9 David Newman „ 5 „ 6 ditto . . „ 13 Steph. Merrick „ 5 . . ditto . . „ 4 Chas. Flitt . . „ 5 . . ditto . . „ 10 Mary Perkins . „ 5 ... ditto . . „ 13 Jno. Rushford . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 10 Hen. Herrick . „ 6 . . ditto . . ?11 Thos. Castle . „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 9 James Williams „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 20 Henry King „ 6 . . ditto . . „ 11 John Finley . „ 7 . . ditto . . „ 10 Geo. Conwell . „ 7 . . ditto . . „ 9 Jas. Hopkins . „ 7 . . ditto . . „ 15 Jas. Roberts . „ 7 . . ditto . . ?9 Jas. Wilds . . „ 7 . . ditto . . ,| 11 Jas. Cornelius . „ 8 . . ditto . . ,12 Jas. Thomas . „ 8 . . ditto . . ,! 11 Jno. Steel . . „ 8 . . ditto . . ,! 11 Wm. Parker . „ 8 . . ditto . . ?11 Jas. Morris. . „ 8 . . ditto . . „ 10 Jas.Wittaker . „ 8 . . ditto . . ,! 11 Hen. Wallis . „ 8 . . ditto . . „ 11 Jno. Forrester . „ 9 . . - ditto . . ,',13 Jno. Shannon . „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 14 Henry Phillips. „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 13 Aaron Morris „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 11 Wm. Newry „ 9 . . ditto . . " 13 Sam. Fowler . „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 14 Geo. Bennett „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 13 Mary Collins . „ 9 . . ditto . . „ 20 Jno. Defoyle . „ 10 . . ditto . . ,22 Wm. Hill . . „ 10 . . ditto . . ?14 Ann Brown. . „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 27 Wm. Wilson . „ 11 . . ditto . . ?17 98 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. ,T Date ! ? , Date Date Name Qf confirmed Treatment of of °f Attack- collated. Death- Recovery- ! | Wm. Williams. Sept. 11 . . Saline . . Sept. 12 ] Wm. Robinson. „ 11 . . ditto . . ?12 ! Robt. Frost. „ 11 . . ditto . . „ 12 Jno. Ladbury . „ 12 . . ditto . . ?14 Jno. Shields . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 16 John Grace. . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 14 W.Harrington. „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 18 R. Chamberlain „ 12 . . ditto . . ?16 Wm. Hyler. . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 14 AnnEllins . . „ 12 . . ditto . . „ 18 Jane Prestow . „ 13 . . ditto . . „ 15 Jno. Reid . . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 16 Ellen Miller . „ 29 Sept. 29 ditto Sept. 30* . . Reach. White . Oct. 1 . . ditto . . Oct. 5 Sarah Stokes . „ 1 . . ditto . . ?5 Ann Weston . „ 1 . . ditto . . „ 8 Thos. Homer . „ 14 . . ditto . . „ 21 Wm. Nowland. „ 30 Oct. 30 ditto Oct. 31f Ruth Pedlev . Dec. 14 Dec. 15 ditto . . Dec. 18 Rd. Midland . „ 14 „ 18 ditto . . „ 21 My. Driscol . „ 18 „ 19 Cold affusion. Dec. 20J „ 30 Wm. Allen . . ?'26 . . Saline . . „ 30 Robt. Bricknell „ 27 . . Cold affusion. . . „ 31 Total number of Cases, 339 ; of Collapse Cases, 162 ; under the. Saline Treatment, about 308; of Deaths, under the new practice, 3; of Recoveries, 305; total number of patients, not under the saline treatment, 31 cases with 31 deaths, and not one recovery. We have seen that eleven of these three hundred and thirty-nine cases died on the day of admission, or when it was too late for any treatment to be of * This patient, when admitted, was too far advanced in the collapse stage for any treatment to be available. f This patient died partly from Cholera, and partly from the effects of starvation before admission into the prison. X This is the patient that died under the experiment with the cold-bath, in the month of December. H 2 99 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. use to them. Five died on the 22nd, and one on the 24 th of June, from an experiment. Nine of the patients that were admitted from the 28th to the 31st of August, died from an experiment with opium and brandy, given for the purpose of endeavouring to prove that the mode of practice recommended by the so-called Board of Health, would be as successful in that prison as the saline treatment. Three died from other diseases, after recovering from Cholera. One died from the effect of previous starvation, and the last fatal case, Mary Driscoll, died soon after the experiment of dashing cold water over her cold body in the cold month of December ; and three died under the saline practice, out of the three hundred and eight patients that were treated on the new plan of counteracting the narcotic effects of the deadly poison of Cholera with the vital electricity contained in the neutral salts of the living blood. If we now add the one hundred and sixty-five cases, thirty-nine of which were collapse cases, that occurred during the first irruption, to the three hundred and thirty-nine cases that occurred during the second, one hundred and sixty-two of which were collapse cases, these will make five hundred and four cases of Cholera in the prison of Coldbath-Fields in 1832, as shown by the annexed table : 100 ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS Total number of cholera patients in the prison from the sth April to the last day of December, 1832 ... 504 Patients not under the saline treatment, but treated with opium, brandy, porter, small doses of carbonate of soda at long intervals, the cold-bath, &c, or that were lost from late admissions and premature dismissals . 39 Recoveries under ditto 0 Deaths under ditto 39 Patients under the new practice of the vital electricity contained in saline matter as an antidote for the narcotic poison of Cholera 465 Deaths under ditto 4 Recoveries under ditto 461 Total number of Cholera patients in 1832 504 504 504 It thus appears from the records of the prison, that the mortality from Cholera under the new practice was less than one per cent, in the four hundred and sixty-five cases of Cholera, in which about one hundred and sixty-two were cases of collapse. But let us admit that every one of the forty-three patients that died were lost under the saline treatment, still this would have been a loss of about eight per cent, in the five hundred and four cases. But, in place of this, the mortality was less than one per cent, in the four hundred and sixty-five cases, in which vital electricity was used as an antidote for the narcotic poison that is the cause of the new pestilence, when this new practice was first fairly put to the test of experiment in a large, and then a foul, prison in the heart of London. At the same time, in the same city, under 101 ¦ l ! ENUMERATION OF CHOLERA PATIENTS. every plan of treatment, except the saline, the mortality from Cholera was at least fifty per cent. Let those minds that gave unfair evidence and false judgments in 1832, ponder well on these facts. Let them recollect the thousands on thousands of human lives that have since been lost by their bad conduct, — and then to " breakfast with what appetite they have," after having been the cause of so much evil, from professional jealousy, or for the concealment of professional ignorance, or for the attainment of the unhallowed ends of men, whose minds are in such a state of total darkness, that, even to this day, they do not know what knowledge is. For the only selfknowledge that such men know is false knowledge, or material ideas imprinted in the material brain ; for even to this hour, they believe the human mind to be a mere material cerebral secretion that must cease to exist when the material brain ceases to secrete mental intelligence, reason, judgment, imagination and memory from the material blood, that is just as destitute of these spiritual gifts as the brain itself. Yet, such is their creed ; and, therefore, their rule of morality is : Let us eat, drink, and be merry to-day, for to-morrow we may die. Consequently, if the mind dies, it can neither be responsible for sin, nor feel either pleasure or pain after it is dead, and converted into the dust — from whence it sprung, to rot in the apathy of cold obstruction. 102 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. CHAPTER IX. THE BOARD OF HEALTH TAKE OFFICIAL NOTICE OF THE CHOLERA IN COLDBATH-FIELDS : HOW THEY INSPECTED THE PRISON, AND THE REPORT THEY MADE. The Board of Health in 1832, were no doubt sufficiently advised of the state of the Cholera in the prison at Coldbath-Fields. One of their inspectors, Dr. M'Cann, frequently visited the prison during the first irruption, and continued his visits even after the second visitation had set in. But it does not appear that the medical chiefs of the Board had any personal acquaintance with the prison until the 27th of June, when Dr. Barry, the most prominent member of the Board, paid a visit of a few minutes to its infirmary, accompanied by Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the then writer of the editorial articles on Cholera in the " Lancet." On the following day, Dr. Barry, accompanied by his two self-chosen Commissioners, paid 103 I THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. another flying visit to the infirmary of the prison, but on both occasions he spent no longer time within its walls than a period of less than threequarters of an hour. The visit on the 27th, Dr. Barry describes as private, but the second, or that on the 28th, is clothed with the grave official character of a Government inspection, ordered by the Privy Council. Dr. Barry published in the medical journals of July, 1832, a series of seven official documents, in which he stated the case of the Board of Health against the new treatment. The object of those documents was evidently to show that the statements that had been published by Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Whitmore, in the " Medical Gazette," of numerous cases of Cholera having occurred in the prison, and also of the splendid success of the saline treatment there, were not only exaggerated but utterly untrue. The publication of the documents now referred to, confirmed as they were by certain official " returns " from the Surgeon of the prison, doubtless excited a very malignant influence against the reputation of the new treatment, and in the sequel it will be shown that that influence remains up to the present time. In order, therefore, to show how slender the foundation was that the official condemnation of the saline treat- ment rested upon, we insert here the documents in question, and shall afterwards examine them in detail. 104 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. " CHOLERA IN COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON SALINE TREATMENT.* " Having lately seen various contradictory published reports — tending to produce vague notions and undefined alarms as to the Cholera cases in Coldbath-Fields prison ; having recently inspected that establishment on two successive days, viz., the 27th and 28th ult., and being anxious to avoid all suspicion of having made uncandid or unfair statements, I feel myself called upon to lay before the public and the profession all the facts which have come under my observation, connected with that subject. " On the night of the 25th of June ult., in a casual conversation with Dr. William Stevens, at the College of Physicians, I learned, with no small astonishment, that he had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in Coldbath-Fields prison, within the preceding twenty-four hours. Struck with this formidable announcement, I requested permission to see these cases with the doctor next morning, but could not obtain an appointment with him earlier than for the 27th. " On that day I proceeded to the prison, rather in a private than official capacity, accompanied by Dr. O'Shaughnessy, whose ' Report on the Chemical Pathology of Cholera' entitles him to such high consideration in everything connected with what has been lately denominated the ' Saline Treatment of that disease.' " Dr. Stevens conducted us round all the wards appropriated to Cholera patients. On leaving the prison, at about half-past two o'clock, p.m., I observed to him, in the presence * Official papers transmitted on the 12th of July, by the so-called Sir David Barry to the Editor of the " Lancet," and also to the " London Medical Gazette." 105 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. of Dr. O'Shaughnessy, that I had seen no case of Cholera in the prison that day — meaning, as Dr. Stevens appeared to allow at the time, that I had seen none actually labouring under the characteristic symptoms of the disease. " On the morning of the 28th, the following letter (No. 1) was addressed to the Governor of the prison, and immediately on the receipt of the Governor's answer (No. 2), I received the order of the Central Board to proceed forthwith to examine into and report officially upon the sanitary state of the prison with reference to Cholera, agreeably to the instructions contained in Sir William Pym's letter to me (No. 3). "It will be perceived by my letter (No. 4), and by the notes taken in the prison (No. 5), which I transmitted enclosed, that in this inspection I was accompanied by Mr. Maling, Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, and by StafF-Surgeon Dr. M'Cann, who have also signed the notes (No. 5). " The nominal return, marked A, reached the Central Board after the inspection just mentioned had been completed. The return, marked B, was received on the 80th ult. ; and, as no return has been since received from Coldbath-Fields prison, it is evident from this circumstance, connected with the letter from the Privy Council to the Governor (marked No. 6), that no new case has occurred in that establishment since the 29th ult. "In transmitting these documents for publication, I beg it to be understood that I am actuated by no wish to impede, and, indeed, I have no motives to oppose the full and fair development of the merits of any medicine, but more especially of culinary salt in Cholera, having myself given a favourable report of its use in that disease so long ago as the 30th of July last year. No one will rejoice more sincerely than I 106 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. shall at the discovery of a really efficient remedy for that dreadful disease. " With regard to the number of Cholera cases which occurred in Coldbath-Fields prison, from the 2nd to the 26th of April this year, or during what has been called the first ii-ruption of the disease into that establishment, I find that twenty-four cases only, and seven deaths, were reported to the Central Board. Not having had an opportunity of seeing any of those cases myself, I shall abstain from making any further remark upon them than this — that the prison, during the period referred to, was repeatedly visited by Dr. M'Cann, the Medicaf Superintendent of the district, and that he has officially reported to the Central Board, that he had every reason to believe that no greater number of cases of Cholera than twenty-four had occurred in the prison at that time. But this gentleman may, of course, be himself referred to on the subject if necessary. " D. Barry. Central Board of Health, July 12, 1832." No. 1 11 Council-office, Whitehall, "June 28, 1832. "Sir, "A* paragraph having appeared in the ' Globe ' of last night, stating that the Cholera has raged with great violence in Coldbath-Fields prison, and that upwards of one hundred had been attacked within the last twelve days, I am directed by the Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council to request, that should there be any foundation for the above 107 I THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. report, you will cause to be made out, with as little delay as possible, a nominal list of all persons attacked with the disease within the prison, during the 26th, 27th, and 28th instant, agreeable to the enclosed form. (Signed) " W. L. Bathurst. " To the Governor of Coldbath-Fields prison." No. 2. " Coldbath-Fields, June 28, 1832. " Sir, " I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, and in reply beg to acquaint you, for the information of the Lords of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, that unfortunately much of the statement from the 'Globe' newspaper is correct. The medical attendant of the prison is not now in the way. In the course of a short time he will return, when your instructions shall be complied with. " I have the honour to be, &c, (Signed) " G. L. Chesterton, " Governor. To the Hon. W. L. Bathurst, &c, " P.S. The number of persons now labouring under the disease, in its various degrees, is about seventy." 108 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. No. 3. " Council-office, Whitehall, June 28, 1832. " Sir, " I am directed by the Lords of the Council to deliver to you the enclosed letter, from the Governor of Coldbath-Fields prison, addressed to the Hon. William Bathurst, in which it is stated that the number of persons now labouring under Cholera (in its various degrees) in that prison is about seventy ; and to request that you will immediately visit that establishment, taking with you one or more medical gentlemen, for the purpose of inquiring into the particulars of the disease said to prevail there, and report upon the same to the clerk of the council then in waiting. " I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant, "W. Pym. " To Sir D. Barry." No. 4. "June 29, 1832. "Sir " Agreeable to the instructions contained in your letter of yesterday, I have the honour to state that I lost no time in proceeding to the Coldbath-Fields prison, in company with Deputy Inspector- General of Hospitals John Maling, and Staff-Surgeon Francis M'Cann, with the view of examining the persons said to be labouring under Cholera in that establishment. Enclosed I transmit the notes taken by me on the spot. I return the Governor's letter to Mr. Bathurst, and have the honour to be, Sir, " Your most obedient humble servant, "D. Barry. " To Sir W. Pym." 109 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. No. 5. " Coldbath-Fields prison, June 28, 1832. " Notes. — Visited the wards appropriated to Cholera patients in this establishment at half-past four o'clock, accompanied by Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals Maling, and Staff- Surgeon M'Cann, conducted by the Governor of the prison, and two Visiting Magistrates. " Saw all the wards in which persons said to be labouring under Cholera were treated, and examined individually all those said to be on the sick list then present. "Ist Ward visited. — Nine patients. One man who had been four days under the saline treatment for premonitory symptoms, had been attacked this morning, after having been discharged from hospital. A genuine case. Attempts were making, by a young man of colour, to introduce the tube for saline injection into one of the veins at the bend of the arm, under the direction of Mr. Wakefield. Tube could not be introduced, as I learned afterwards. Fluttering pulse. Livid and sunk countenance. This case will most probably prove fatal. Another man in this ward, looking thin, pale, depressed, hollow eyes, but good pulse, is under saline treatment. When I saw him about half an hour afterwards, his tongue was cold, with a weak, slow pulse. Ward small for the number of beds ; close, hot, and oppressive, with a very large fire. "2nd Ward visited. — Eighteen persons said to be on the sick-list in this ward. Two only present ; boys, apparently well. This ward consists of two rooms ; the inner a narrow slip. The sixteen not present were said to be out walking. 110 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. " 3rd Ward, called 'No 5.' — Six patients on the Cholera Hospital Book. Five present. One man complains of constipation of the bowels. One boy has had pains in his side and head, now better. No vomiting and purging. No appearance of Cholera in the others at present. " 4th Ward visited. — Eleven patients ; all present. One boy with slow pulse, and depression of looks and spirits ; may have an attack in the course of the night. All the others looking well, with no appearance of disease of any kind. Informed by Mr. Wakefield, the Surgeon of the establishment, that the diet of the Cholera patients consists of arrowroot, tapioca, beef-tea, coffee, and seidlitz-water for drink ad libitum ; a wine-glass full at a time. " Convalescent Ward. — Fourteen patients ; all looking well. "Female Ward, No. 1. — Nine patients ; all looking well. One young woman apparently simulating Cholera ; warm skin ; good pulse and tongue. Said to be a very troublesome, perverse character. "Female Ward, No. 2. — Nine patients. One now in mild fever. Said to have been a severe case of Cholera. One young woman with bad tooth-ache. "The two men in No. 1, already mentioned, are the only cases which I saw with the appearance of Cholera. Yet the Governor assured me repeatedly, that he had shown me all the persons considered by the medical gentlemen as labouring under any stage of the disease, and referred to in his letter of this day to Mr. Bathurst. " The utmost cleanliness, regularity, and discipline appear to prevail in every part of the prison, so far as I was able to judge ; and the Visiting Magistrates, who went round the wards with us, seemed to be actuated by the most humane 111 i THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. feelings, and to devote much time and attention to the health and comfort of the prisoners. " No new case admitted this day. (Signed) "D. Barry. "John Maling. "F. M'Cann. "It is almost needless to observe, that no part of the preceding notes or statements is meant to refer to any time or circumstances connected with the patients anterior or posterior to the moments at which they were seen by Dr. O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Mating, Dr. M' Cann, and myself. "D. B." No, 6. Council-office, Whitehall, " June 29, 1832. 'Sir " I am directed to acknowledge the receipt, this day, of the return signed by Mr. Wakefield, of Cholera cases in Coldbath-Fields prison, and to request that you will cause Mr. Wakefield to transmit, for the information of the Lords of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, a daily return of such cases as may occur in the prison, instructing him at the same time, to include in such daily return cases of confirmed Cholera only. (Signed) " W. L. Bathurst. " To the Governor of Coldbath-Fields prison.' 112 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. Like the postscript to a lady's letter, it must strike the attentive reader that the supplementary caveat {vide end of No. 5) in the report of Messieurs Barry, Maling and M'Cann, is by far its most important portion, and therefore we shall first deal with it, praying the reader to go very attentively with us, while we expose the sad trickery of this medical mystery. In the first place, we ask where was the necessity for such a caveat at all ? No such restriction to their investigation as it implies was imposed by the Lords of the Council — no such restriction was compatible with common sense, far less with that full, fair, and impartial inquiry which so important an object demanded. But in order to show the absurdity of the restriction which these examiners placed upon the inquiry, let us change the venue of the issue for a moment to another field of inquiry, in which Dr. Barry was employed by Government, and from which he returned, according to the testimony of the profession of that day, "as wise as he went." Suppose that, instead of Coldbath- Fields prison, St. Petersburg had been the place wherein the order of the Lords of the Council had directed Dr. Barry and his co-investigator, to inquire " into the particulars of the disease," we ask any man of common sense to say whether the said Lords of the Council would have been satisfied with an account T 113 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. of their labours in that investigation which openly, and, indeed, emphatically declared that their inquiries had been sedulously shut out from the consideration of that which they were sent to investigate, in respect to any time or circumstance connected with it, posterior or anterior to the moments of some one particular day, when the minds of the inquirers were actually engaged in the said inquiry ? The answer would surely be " No, for the cause of the inquiry was the paragraph in the ' Globe,' which stated that upwards of one hundred of the prisoners had been attacked with Cholera within the last twelve days." It was in consequence of this statement on the 27th, that the Commissioners were ordered on the 28th of June to inquire into the particulars of the disease, said to be then prevailing in Coldbath-Fields prison ; consequently, that direction was sufficiently broad and comprehensive to have warranted an investigation commencing at the first day when a case of Cholera was recorded on the books of the prison, as having occurred therein since the 3rd of June. To this we add, that the order of Council not only warranted an inquiry to that extent, but, in plain terms, the order commanded it. Again, what do we understand by the word " particulars ?" We find Dr. Johnson defining it as " a minute detail of things singly enumerated." And how does such a report as they gave fulfil this 114 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. demand for a minute detail of " the disease said to be prevailing" in Coldbath-Fields, or of all the particulars of the upwards of one hundred persons that were said to have been attacked with Cholera and the twelve deaths within the last twelve days ? Had the Commissioners made a fair inquiry into the real state of the eighty-two Cholera patients then in the prison, much good might then have been done. But what good could be gained by furnishing the Lords of Council with a series of jottings termed " notes " confined, in regard to the subject of inquiry in point of time and circumstance, to the moment at which the said objects came under the eyes of the inquirers ! There is not, within the whole body of those notes, a single reference to aught else than the appearance presented by the patients viewed at the moment the inquirers ran through the wards in which the patients happened to be. There is no inquiry at any one of them, when he came into the infirmary, what state he was in when admitted, or how he had been while there. The doctors looked upon the man or woman, as the case might be, and that glance was sufficient, in their judgment, to enable them to inform themselves of " the particulars of the disease then in the prison." But it may be said that Messieurs Barry, Maling and M'Cann, have in their " notes" or report literally defined the term " particulars," and given it a I 2 115 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. practical acceptation precisely in the meaning of the great lexicographer whose definition we have quoted. That, we have seen, required a minute detail of things singly enumerated, and, therefore, Messieurs the inquirers, in their notes, return a statement of what they saw in " Ist Ward visited," " 2nd Ward visited," " Convalescent Ward," " Female Ward, No. 1 ," " Female W T ard, No. 2," And all this looks, at a first glance, so specious, and is so apt to pass as " a minute detail of things singly enumerated," that one can hardly avoid thinking that the notes were framed after a careful consideration of Johnson's definition, the supreme object of the writer being to " keep the word of promise to the ear and break it to the sense." But we shall at once demolish such an apology for so extraordinary an evasion of a plainly-commanded duty, and, we must add, so gross a breach of common sense, by recalling to the reader's attention, that it was in consequence of the report of upwards of one hundred cases of Cholera having occurred in the prison within the last twelve days, that Messieurs Barry, Maling and M'Cann were commanded* to inquire " into the particulars of the disease" in Coldbath-Fields, and not merely * Dr. Barry received, the order on the 28th, and took with him, as it empowered him to do, the two Commissioners appointed by himself. 116 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. into the state and occupation of the wards of the prison ; and that, on their own showing, they utterly neglected to perform that duty, contenting themselves with a flying inspection of only some of the w T ards in the infirmary of the prison, and expressly excluding from their inquiry all reference to any time or circumstance connected with the patients, anterior or posterior to the moment at which they were seen by the official inspectors. Surely the reader has inquired by this time, " Was it really so ? — Did three gentlemen of the medical profession actually make such a report to his Majesty's Privy Council ?" Such questions may well be asked, and w T ell may our surprise, nay, astonishment and indignation, be excited at finding that such things could be permitted to be done even so late as in 1832. The singular manner in which this important inquiry was conducted, and especially its extraordinary restriction, in point of time and circumstance, suggests the following simile. The Privy Council issue an order upon Mr. Macaulay to inquire into the social and political history of England, and that accomplished historian performs his task by stating, in the shape of " notes," that "he had examined the shelves of the library of the British Museum, and he finds that there is such a work as ' Hume and Smollett's History of England,' 117 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. and has ' noted ' that it treats of divers events of a public nature, connected with England from the time of Alfred the Great to the days of George III. ;" but in a postscript adds, " that it is needless to observe that he has not felt it necessary, in obeying their lordships' directions, to go farther back in his inquiries in reference to any time or circumstance than the exact moment at which he discovered the locale of Hume and Smollett, and the precise position in which the librarian stood on the floor of the Museum, when he (Mr. Macaulay) observed those interesting facts. — Signed, T. B. M." Or, again, suppose the Privy Council, in their laudable anxiety to do justice in the matter of a convict condemned to die, direct certain gentlemen of the bar to inquire into the particulars of the charge of which the said convict has been attainted. It would be strictly analogical with the mode of inquiry adopted by Messrs. Barry, Maling and M'Cann were the examining barristers to report that they had found that the convict was a very sad fellow, and that he had certainly been condemned, adding a postscript to their report, in the form of a caveat, intimating that " it was needless to say that in their inquiry the barristers had had no reference to any time or circumstance connected with the case, anterior or posterior, to the precise moment when the j ury returned their verdict !" 118 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. The mystery of the caveat, in all probability, was simply this. Probably one at least of the persons whose names are signed to Dr. Barry's " notes" had good reason to be afraid of the affair, and insisted upon such a safeguard for his veracity as this caveat afforded. In avoiding Scylla the inspectors plunged into Charybdis ; but their aversion to an absolute attestation of the " notes" was exceedingly natural, and we may assume its strength from the mere existence of the fact : hence they were induced to qualify their approval by an act of gross deception which stamped the whole inquiry, and all the " notes" therewith connected, with the ineradicable character of utter nonsense. And yet, although the caveat has clearly that effect upon the " notes," and, therefore, places the conduct of the men who could thus trifle with a most solemn duty in a most questionable light, its assertions, although astounding in their import, are indubitably true. True it is, and of a verity, that the inquiries of Messieurs Barry, Maling and M'Cann had no reference in point of time or circumstance connected with the patients anterior or posterior to the instant when they glanced at them (for a moment only) in the wards of the prison, as we shall demonstrate by a body of testimony, independent of the singular revelations of this most extraordinary caveat, postscript, or by what- 119 THE BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. ever term its authors chose to know it. In the first place, we shall show the flying nature of their visit to the prison before the reader so clearly, that no one in the slightest degree acquainted with such subjects, will overlook the fact that the principal features of their inquiry ivas the haste with which it was conducted. A haste that was incompatible with a knowledge of truth. The first witnesses whose testimony we shall adduce to establish the charge against the " notes" or " report," are the then Visiting Justices of the prison at Coldbath-Fields. One of whom is Mr* Rotch, w 7 ho, we are glad to say, still survives to exercise the honourable functions of a magistrate in the county of Middlesex. At the quarterly meeting of the Magistrates of the county of Middlesex, held at the Sessions House, Clerkenwell, on Thursday, the 1 2th of July, 1832, T. Const, Esq., in the chair, a discussion took place on the Cholera in Coldbath-Fields prison, elicited by statements in the daily papers of the latter end of June, to the effect that an inquiry into the state of the prison had been held by Government Commissioners, by whom it had been ascertained that there had been in reality almost no Cholera in the prison, and consequently the statements by the Surgeon and the Magistrates of the number and the severity of the attacks during the first and second visitations, as well as of the splendid success of the 120 magistrates' account of the cholera. saline treatment, were gross exaggerations ; for there had not been even one case of Cholera in the prison until the 28th of June. That twenty-nine mere premonitory cases had been in the prison on the 28th, and then the disease had entirely ceased in that prison ; consequently, as there had not been any true Cholera in the prison, there could not have been any patients in that establishment to enable the medical attendants to cure any of the prisoners either with the new practice, or with anything else. We now quote the opposite testimony from the report published in the " Medical Gazette" of that day : account given by the magistrates of the cholera at coldbath-fields prison, and of the effects of the SALINE TREATMENT. (From the " Medical Gazette" of July 14, 1832.) " At the quarterly meeting of the Magistrates of the county of Middlesex, held at the Sessions- house, Clerkenwell, on Thursday, the 12th inst., T. Const, Esq., in the chair, the following observations were made relative to the late prevalence of Cholera in the House of Correction, Coldbath-Fields. "The Deputy-Clerk of the Peace read the report of the Visiting Justices to the House of Correction, dated sth of July, which stated, in reference to this subject, that the Visiting Justices have to report that the epidemic called Cholera, appeared again amongst the prisoners in the House of Correction on the 3rd of last month, and its attack on several has proved fatal. The precautions and arrangements adopted on the former occasion, together with additional measures, 121 the magistrates' account of the have been taken with a view to mitigate the evils of the disease. The Visiting Justices have again availed themselves of the assistance of Mr. Crook, as resident in the prison since the 21st ult., and Dr. Stevens has almost daily attended upon the sick prisoners, and the Visiting Justices are happy in adding that the disease is fast declining. The following mentioned deaths have taken place from Cholera. The report then detailed the names, ages, and offences of the persons who had died, being twelve in number, and went on to state that, having strong reason to believe that Cholera had been communicated by the blankets and clothes which had been used by the Cholera patients, the Visiting Justices resolved that the same should be put under ground, and covered with quick-lime, in order that they should be effectually destroyed, and infection prevented. "That the Surgeon has reported, June 28th, that there are in the Infirmary of the House of Correction, appropriated to Cholera, fifty-seven males and eighteen females . "Sir Peter Laurie wished to know when the report was dated. The Deputy-Clerk of the Peace replied on the sth of July. Sir Peter Laurie said it was important that they should know the state of the prison up to the present moment. The public were very anxious on the subject. His reason for wishing for the information, arose from the circumstance of the disease having broken out in Bridewell, which had caused some alarm. On his, Sir Peter Laurie's suggestion, Dr. Stevens had been called on to assist the Surgeon of Bridewell, and the report of the doctor's treatment was highly favourable. If they could adopt the same mode of treatment throughout the Metropolis, he thought they might subdue the disease. " The Chairman of the Visiting Justices had hoped that he should have had the pleasure of being able to state there 122 CHOLERA AT COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON. were no symptoms of the disease now left ; but since yesterday they had one of the officers, and also one of the prisoners, in the New Prison attacked ; the gardener in the House of Correction was slightly, but, he trusted, not materially affected. Indeed in all the cases, good hopes of recovery were entertained, in consequence of the admirable and able treatment of Dr. Stevens (hear) ; they had had since the disease occurred a second time, not less than one hundred and five cases, and of those thirty-six had actually sunk into the state called by medical men collapse, a stage of the complaint that was considered by many medical men beyond recovery, but of these thirty-six extreme cases twenty had been restored to health (hear) . That circumstance had encouraged them to persevere in the treatment adopted. It was of the utmost importance that the cases should be watched in the very beginning, that patients should submit to the application of remedies as soon as possible, and that they should be separated entirely from others. It was also very important to destroy at once the clothes which had been used without any attempt to purify them. He was sorry to say that in several of the cases lost in this prison, they had every reason to suppose that the infection had been conveyed to the parties from scouring blankets, which blankets had been previously washed in the field ; and he observed, that when the Cholera broke out a second time, it was on that side the prison nearest to the spot where the blankets had been washed. He attributed the occurrence of the disease in some measure to the blankets, and also to the drain having been stopped. The state of the prison now was really healthy, and he trusted that in future, from the Divine blessing on the means used, they would avoid the recurrence of the disease. " Sir Peter Laurie felt obliged by the statement with which they had just been furnished. He was delighted to find that 123 THE MAGISTRATES' ACCOUNT OF THE the Visiting Justices had had the courage to introduce Dr. Stevens, because it was a well-known fact that the faculty considered Dr. Stevens' treatment a plan not to be recommended. How satisfactory it must be to his brothermagistrates, to find the beneficial results which had accrued from Dr. Stevens' treatment. He hoped the same benefits would be experienced in Bridewell that had been enjoyed at Coldbath-Fields. "Sir James Williams said that he could not allow that opportunity to pass, without adding his testimony relative to the great success which had followed Dr. Stevens' plan of treatment. He thought that if the Court occupied a few moments in dwelling on this subject, and a fair report of their proceedings appeared before the public through the medium of the press, it might be attended with the greatest advantages. When they looked at the various towns in this kingdom, in which the disease prevailed, and saw that usually the first thirty patients died, they must be satisfied that proper remedial measures had not been resorted to. Dr. Stevens had positively asserted that the administration of opium and brandy had been attended with the most baneful effects ; and it ought to go forth to the public, that by the treatment adopted in the House of Correction, out of one hundred and five patients only fourteen or fifteen had been lost. This was a proof that Dr. Stevens' plan was attended with more success than any remedy which had been had recourse to in any other part of London, or anywhere else. "It so happened that he (Mr. Rotch) was at Coldbath- Fields prison when three gentleman, one apparently with authority from the Privy Council, demanded an admission to see the patients. At the outset, he must beg to state that, from the manner and conduct of these three gentlemen, it was quite evident to him that they came to the prison 124 CHOLERA AT COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON. decidedly with the preconceived idea in their minds that there was no Cholera there, and that the reports of the Visiting Magistrates were perfectly erroneous, and consequently not entitled to the slightest credit. Such a circumstance was not very pleasant to the feelings of gentlemen who had devoted great time to the subject (and he might say with some little risk to themselves) ; and he was anxious to know what account was to be laid before the Privy Council in opposition to that given the previous day. The report first made to the Privy Council was forty-two cases. Those gentlemen visited the prison on Thursday, the 28th of June, and were, he believed, all medical men. He felt it his duty to attend them round the wards, that he might hear their observations, and really know with what view they came to the prison. It would naturally be expected, that on such an occasion, gentlemen sent by the authority of the Privy Council to inquire into the actual state of the prison, would be exceedingly minute in their inquiries, in order to ascertain whether the cases reported were severe Cholera, or mild Cholera, or not Cholera at all. It was, however, a duty which he owed to the country, and also to his brother Magistrates, to state how the gentlemen conducted themselves. He wished not to cast any imputation upon them ; he was not sufficiently skilled in medical science to know whether they had done their duty or not ; but he would appeal to common sense as to whether the facts elicited, and the manner in which they were elicited, were sufficient to give authority for contradicting, in the 'Times' of the following day, the statements contained in the published letter. At the period when the gentlemen visited the prison, they were shown sixteen cases of persons who had been in a state of collapse, and had recovered from it. He would mention one instance to show the sort of examination that was entered 125 THE MAGISTRATES' ACCOUNT OF THE into. There was a female, named Clara King, aged eighteen, lying in bed in one of the wards, who had naturally a rosy hue. On that day, in the preceding week, the girl had been in the stage of collapse. One of the three gentlemen looked at her, and turning to him (Mr. Rotch), not knowing who he was, said, ' Here is a case of Cholera !' with a smile on his countenance. He (Mr. Rotch) immediately said, 'You presume that she has not been a Cholera patient ?' ' Oh, absurd — ridiculous!' was the reply. At that time the gentleman never asked one question. He (Mr. Rotch) inquired whether he was distinctly to understand, that from the appearance of the girl the gentleman was satisfied that she had never had the Cholera ; to which he replied, ' Most decidedly; certainly, never!' He (Mr. Rotch) told the gentleman that he was extremely glad to hear him make the statement he did : by which he presumed the gentleman thought he meant he was glad to find they had been mistaken about the Cholera ; for he again said, ' Perfectly ridiculous !' He then called the attention of the gentleman to the case of Sarah Pooley ; and turning to the girl, he asked some offhand questions. 'Are you sick?' 'No.' 'Do you vomit at all?' 'No.' 'Ah!' said the gentleman, 'and this is a Cholera case !' He (Mr. Rotch) inquired whether the gentleman meant to say that she had never had the Cholera at all ; to which he replied, ' Certainly.' Now, this girl's case, ten days before, was one of the worst in the prison. Those being two such flagrant cases, he took the opportunity of saying, that he was extremely glad that the gentleman was so decided, because it corroborated the excellency of Dr. Stevens' treatment. In one case ten days, and in the other only a week had elapsed since the patients were in a state of collapse ; and yet the gentleman pronounced that they had never had Cholera. That remark seemed to 126 CHOLERA AT COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON. startle them, for they were not prepared for his (Mr. Rotch's) deduction ; and they asked him who he was. He must say, that their observations, from the beginning to the end, were of the most transient kind. He then walked with them into a ward where there were two men, one of whom was just going into a state of collapse, and the other was in the last stage of the complaint, and afterwards died. The gentleman said that was a case of Cholera, and the only one in the prison. He then called the attention of the gentlemen to the other case, one of whom said that the patient had no more Cholera than he had. He informed them that the medical men belonging to the prison believed that they had had upwards of one hundred cases, and they thought that patient would be in a state of collapse in two hours. ' Ah ! he is under the saline treatment !' said one of them, laughing. Now, these were facts that had taken place ; but when he found that misrepresentations were published in the newspapers, and it was alleged that a false report had been made from the prison, he felt it was time to state facts to the public, and let them know on what grounds the prison report ought to be believed. He (Mr. Rotch) took it for granted that the observations made in the newspapers came from the Privy Council on the authority of those gentlemen, because they appeared the day after they had visited the prison. He (Mr. Rotch) then turned to the first gentleman, and asked him whether he had looked at a case to which he then called his attention. The gentleman looked over his shoulder and said, 'Nothing at all; the man has got the belly-ache. Let us go into another ward.' He was about to leave the room, when he spoke to the third gentleman, who felt the patient's pulse, and said, 'That is a case of Cholera, I have no doubt.' He (Mr. Rotch) then spoke to the first gentleman again, who reluctantly went to the patient, and then said, ' Perhaps it may be a case of Cholera.' They then went into a ward where 127 MAGISTRATES* ACCOUNT OF THE CHOLERA. there were sixteen male patients, all in a state of convalescence, but some of whom had been in a state of collapse, and recovered. The gentleman laughed, and said, ' I suppose these are all Cholera patients.' He told the gentleman that they were showing them all the patients who had had the Cholera in any degree. The gentleman went to one boy with a ruddy face, and said, ' Had you any sickness ?' ' No.' ' Any pain in your legs ?' 'No.' The boy thought he meant at that moment, for he had been in a state of collapse. That was the way the questions were put, jeering and laughing from the beginning to the end ; that was to say, believing they (the Magistrates) were frightening the public. The gentlemen came there satisfied there was no Cholera. It was due to Dr. Stevens, and all connected with the establishment, that the public should know how much value to put on the report laid before the Privy Council. "A Magistrate inquired whether the gentleman from the Privy Council did not ask questions of the medical men. "Mr. Rotch replied, that the medical men and nurses were all present,* but no questions were asked of them. He did not think the medical men were treated with the respect which they ought to have been ; and one of themf left the prison before they had gone through the whole of the wards. He (Mr. R.) felt for him, and could excuse any man for acting as he did. " Sir Peter Laurie. — Are not the names of all visitors taken down ? You know who these gentlemen were ? "Mr. Rotch replied that he did not know their names. He understood that one of them was Sir David Barry. * Dr. Stevens was not present. t This was Mr. Crook, who, having witnessed Barry's unfair conduct on the 27th as well the 28th, left the prison at that moment in deep disgust. Mr. Wakefield was the only individual connected with the prison who allowed Barry, on the 28th, to deny the existence of Cholera on the very day that he had reported seventy-five cases to the Visiting Justices. 128 DR. KENDRICK'S LETTER. " Sir Peter Laurie. — They went sneering and laughing through the whole prison ? " Mr. Rotch replied that his complaint against the three gentlemen was this — that they came to the prison — that they went through it with haste incompatible with the importance of the mission they were sent upon — that they did not ask those questions that in his opinion were calculated to draw forth proper data to enable them to go back to the Privy Council, and state that they had only seen two cases of Cholera in the prison." The following are extracts from the letter to which Mr. Rotch referred. The first is part of a circular letter from Dr. Kendrick, of Warrington, addressed to the magistrates, clergy, and members of the medical profession, residing in the districts where the lately imported pestilential epidemic has already appeared, or is likely to appear. " Gentlemen, " I take as early an opportunity as is prudent of expressing my conviction, not only grounded on my own experience, but on that of others more competent to judge than myself, that the plan of treating the above-named disease, which was first suggested by Dr. Stevens, and adopted by Mr, Wakefield, at the Coldbath-Fields Prison, with so much success, is, if punctually followed, the most effective mode of practice employed since its arrival in this country, and fully equal to the management of all but the most malignant cases. In all such cases, if I am not mistaken, additional measures must be resorted to. I have taken the liberty of ordering, for the X 129 mr. Chesterton's letter. purpose of circulation, a reprint of Mr. Wakefield's letter, first published in the * Medical Gazette' for April 28, 1832. " I have been induced to take this step from the marked want of success attending the use of opium and stimulants in the treatment of the disease." FROM MR. THOMAS K. GLAZEBROOK TO MR. WAKEFIELD. ' Oxford Lodge, Warrington, " July 9, 1832. " Sir, " The Board of Health having done me the honour to appoint me their Secretary, the medical returns necessarily pass through my hands, and I have the highest gratification in stating, that from every inquiry I have been able to make, the recoveries have been mainly attributable to the system adopted, and so properly panegyrized by my sincere and esteemed friend, Dr. Kendrick. " At a future period a list will be made out, and I hope and trust that the Board will express their thanks to you for your admirable letter." Our next witness to the conduct of the inquirers is Mr. Chesterton, the Governor of the prison. That gentleman was present at the Quarter Sessions, but, as a matter of course, took no part in the discussion that occurred on the " County day" relative to the Cholera ; and as no one dreamt of requiring any corroboration of the statements of the Chairman, nor of Mr. Rotch's testimony, which were not only confirmed by other facts, but beyond all suspicion, 130 mr. Chesterton's letter. Mr. Chesterton was therefore on that occasion asked no questions on the subject. He, however, was present at the " inquiry" in the prison by Messieurs Barry, Maling and M'Cann, and when the publication of the " notes" took place, Mr. Chesterton appears to have felt astounded to such a degree, that, forsaking professional reserve, he sent the following letter to be published in the " Medical Gazette :" without saying one word to Dr. Stevens on the subject. LETTER FROM THE GOVERNOR OF COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON TO THE EDITOR OF " THE LONDON MEDICAL GAZETTE." House of Correction, Coldbath-Fields, " July 25, 1832. " Sir, " It is not my practice to indulge in public statements on subjects connected with my duty as Governor of this prison ; but a controversy having arisen respecting the treatment of the Cholera here, which, in its progress amongst medical men, has raised a further question as to the late extent of its existence in the prison, and the degree of credibility due to our returns, I find myself compelled either by my silence to acknowledge a participation in fraud (for my name has been necessarily mixed up with the subject), or by a simple statement of facts to vindicate all concerned from such unfounded imputations. "And here permit me to observe that I wish carefully to abstain from any expression which can by possibility convey offence to Sir D. Barry, and the members of the Central Board of Health, whose conduct to me personally was extremely courteous ; but I would just remark that I think it X 2 131 mr. Chesterton's letter. somewhat unreasonable, that a hasty inspection on their part of about half an hour on two* successive days, when the disease was manifestly on the decline, should appear to justify so serious an accusation against the surgeon, and indirectly against others, of fabricating accounts of Cholera, which never existed, for the purpose of magnifying the skill of one professional man. If the surgeon had an interest in such deception, (which by the way I sincerely believe him to be the last man to countenance), I beg to say that I and othersf could have nothing in fact, or in prospect, to encounter but labour and anxiety. We could expect no remuneration — anticipate no credit from such a visitation, however magnified. The discipline and order of the prison, my chief care and natural pride, must be greatly relaxed by the measures of precaution to be taken, while trouble was multiplied in every possible way, without any attendant satisfaction, unless it were to be found in the very questionable one of being thought to exist beset with infection from which every friend would anxiously fly. But let me revert to facts. " In the official return to the Secretary of State for the pre- * It is by no means wished to conceal that Sir D. Barry did visit the prison on the 27 th, as well as on the 28th of June. The misconception on that head arose from an error of the reporter, who attributed to me the speech at the meeting of the Middlesex Magistrates delivered by Mr. Hoare, the Chairman of the Visiting Committee. Had he been aware of the order of sessional proceedings he would have known that, unless specially called upon, none but magistrates speak on the County day, and that the Chairman of the Committee is the organ of communication with the Court. t I abstain from saying anything respecting the motives of the magistrates ; because, as I write this with a view to the justice of the case, without having consulted them, I do not consider myself authorized to mix them up in the discussion, (hough my reasoning obviously applies equally to them. 132 mr. Chesterton's letter. ceding year, the total number of deaths in this prison, during twelve months, was sixteen, and within one little month from the 3rd of June, on this last melancholy occasion, the Cholera within these walls proved fatal to the same number. In ordinary times, at this season, the infirmaries were vacant, and the prisoners healthy ; while, on this occasion, in every part of the prison, and at all hours of the day and night, to the destruction of the rest of my officers, who were harassed to death, were we called to some unhappy being seized with diarrhoea and vomiting, but most frequently the latter, to the number, at one period, exceeding one hundred. Many of these could not be removed so speedily, ere they exhibited the extreme symptoms of this awful malady ; and who could tell how soon the slightest case, if for the shortest period neglected, might not terminate in death ? " Here was no deception or collusion, for my chief officer, a man of principle and veracity, can vouch that cell after cell was nightly drenched with the fluid rejected from the stomachs of their inmates, many of whom were likewise violently affected by cramp. " Of course the persons so attacked were instantly removed and placed under observation ; and not a whit too soon, as the after agonies of numbers of them testified. Now, although it is affirmed that the majority of these patients were not cases of Cholera, because the parties were not in a state of collapse, without pulse, what else (when deaths daily occurred with the character of the disorder most unequivocally marked, and while without the walls the disease extensively prevailed) — what else, I say in common candour, could have produced this singular deviation from the health of former years ? "The labour was the same, the food the same, the buildings, clothes, bedding, and ventilation all the same ; and yet 133 mr. Chesterton's letter. one hundred poor wretches were simultaneously seized with purging, vomiting, and cramps ; very many of them thrown into a state of almost hopeless prostration, and were only recovered by incessant care and sleepless watchfulness. In one short month sixteen died ; and yet we are accused of spreading a false alarm, and that too, in order to advance the discovery of a medical man almost a stranger to us. And here, in justice to Dr. Stevens, let me add, that numerous recoveries under the saline treatment were, on the former irruption of Cholera in this prison, as also on this last occasion, most striking. I could give name after name, on oath if it were necessary, and have my testimony amply confirmed by disinterested witnesses, that where death was momentarily expected, and recovery deemed impossible, yet they survived. But why, it may be asked, ascribe their revival to this mode of treatment ? Because, I answer, too well do I remember, in April last, the rapid fatality of the first cases treated with opium and stimulants, and the horror with which we beheld so frightful a disorder spreading amongst us apparently without remedy, for all efforts to save appeared unavailing until Dr. Stevens' treatment was adopted, and then we saw cause to hope. Although in some instances it failed, at that time seventeen out of twenty-four extreme cases recovered. Then, as on the last occasion, we had the same hourly alarms from persons suddenly attacked, as I have above described, who were, to the number exceeding eighty at one time, removed from their cells and placed under observation. " I am not a professional man, and cannot of course venture upon medical reasoning ; but to my plain comprehension, it appears that such numbers, contemporarily seized, must have laboured under incipient Cholera, since we had cause to remark, that where the sufferer too long concealed those first 134 mr. Chesterton's letter. symptoms, his recovery from the most malignant form of the disease became almost impossible. " Dr. M'Cann, from the Central Board of Health, at that time paid frequent visits to the prison, saw the patients, fully acknowledged the existence of malignant Cholera, and laudably made every inquiry to trace its origin and progress in the prison. At that period we returned none but the extreme cases to the Central Board, and from my perfect recollection of a casual conversation with Dr. M'Cann, I apprehend we were then thought rather to underrate than to exaggerate the state of the case. When Sir D. Barry visited the prison on the 27th of June, he found, he says, no cases of Cholera ; but on the 28th he acknowledged to have seen two cases. " Now the disease had existed since the 3rd of June ; and if the short space of twenty-four hours could produce this change, even in the decline of the disorder (when the wards were crowded chiefly with persons very slightly affected, or who were retained from the fear of premature dismissal), what number, by a parity of reasoning, may not even that ratio have exhibited since the 3rd ? But on the 27th, when it was said no Cholera existed, a man named Harris, was in the infirmary, who two days before was in the worst imaginable state, and momentarily expected to expire. This was the report to me of my infirmary turnkey, who had himself seen upwards of twenty deaths from Cholera, and was therefore well acquainted with the disease. The surgeon, on the 27th and 28th, would certainly designate that case one of Cholera, and who can doubt the propriety of doing so since the least neglect would assuredly have produced relapse ? Although the remedies had worked a favourable change, the man was decidedly in a critical stage of the disease. Others there were under similar circumstances ; but I mention the case of Harris because it was an extreme one. On the 29th, a prisoner 135 . mr. Chesterton's letter. named Allen, was in a state of collapse ; I remained in the infirmary upwards of three hours with the surgeons, who devoted so much time to that man, so urgent was the case considered to be. Transfusion was resolved upon, and repeatedly tried in vain ; the tube could not be introduced into the vein, and the patient was left to the ordinary saline remedies ; his recovery was despaired of, but the next morning the pulse had returned, many of the urgent symptoms had abated ; and that man also was precisely in the state of Harris, and might, with equal justice, on the succeeding day have been denied to be a case of Cholera. " Surely then, Sir, if inquiry were demanded, and truth the object to be elicited, instead of the hasty deductions drawn from half an hour's inspection (whereby Dr. Stevens, Mr. Wakefield, and all concerned with this place, have been exposed to sinister observations), a more matured investigation, and a calmer discussion of the number of cases, and merits of the treatment, ought, in common justice, to have been adopted. The evidence of the medical men should have been treated with more respect, and the testimony of disinterested witnesses (whose sad experience has, alas ! forced upon them some judgment in this disease, and who could, at least, have deposed to facts) ; these, I say, should have been consulted, before the reputation of professional men was assailed, and the statements of others impugned. Permit me to say, Sir, ' more in sorrow than in anger,' that we who really know what has occurred, and consider facts alone, can hardly conceive it possible that a grave and momentous question should be thus decided. *¦ The attendants and nurses know that upwards of twenty patients have, on this last occasion, recovered from the state of collapse under the saline treatment. Many of these cases I saw prior to my leaving town for a few days, and since my 136 BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. return ; and yet, with the full knowledge of such facts, that professional rivalry should operate against the real truth of the case, is indeed deplorable. "I do not question the competency of Sir D. Barry and other gentlemen in their professional duty, nor do I wish to speak disrespectfully of them ; but I say that no man, nor set of men, could on such loose data form a correct judgment. With respect to the saline treatment, such is my confidence in it, simply from what I myself have seen of its effects, that if I should be unhappily attacked with Cholera, (and who for a moment is secure against its ravages ?) I shall assuredly desire to be put under that treatment ; for although in this dreadful malady no prescription seems to be unerring, still I have seen enough to know, that it has produced surprising recoveries. " In conclusion, I beg to say, that I am animated solely by a wish to support the truth ; that Dr. Stevens is ignorant of the purport of this communication ; and that a sense of public duty alone has impelled me thus to occupy your pages. " I am, Sir, " Your very obedient Servant, " G. L. Chesterton." As the statements of the Governor are amply confirmed by the official journal of the prison, it would evidently be work of entire supererogation to add to the evidence now adduced one tittle of further proof touching the real facts, or the time bestowed by Messrs. Barry, Maling and M'Cann upon the investigation of the Cholera at Coldbath- Fields. Mr. Rotch does not state the length of time occupied by the inquiry, but he declares that 137 BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. " they went through it with haste incompatible with the importance of the mission they were sent upon." Mr. Chesterton, however, helps us to the precise time occupied by the inquiry, which it appears in his evidence amounted to half an hour, extended over two days, some portion of that very brief space having been spent by Dr. Barry on the day previous to the official inspection that resulted in the " notes." If we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Dr. Barry's visit on the 27th of June to the prison occupied ten minutes, and surely it could not occupy much less, then we shall have twenty minutes as the entire space of time occupied in the official inquiry of the 28th. And that that was in reality the time really so expended on this important mission, the result of which has, in all probability, seriously affected the lives of many thousands, can be proved beyond all doubt by living testimony of a character far above suspicion. Dr. M'Cann had seen many of these patients only a few days before the 28th, many of them were then in a most deplorable state of collapse. Well, then, might the individual who suggested or insisted upon the addition of the caveat to the " notes," make that singular document declare that the subject matter of the " notes" was strictly confined to the " moments" of the inspection. That inquiry indeed had to do with moments and not with hours : it did not occupy even half an hour, and was in point of fact, begun and ended or rather 138 BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. huddled through, in the manner described by the witnesses, at the railroad pace of twenty minutes, to do in that short time what could not have been done properly in as many hours ! On the evidence, then, of several credible witnesses, corroborated in most important particulars by the official records of the prison, we have shown that the report or " notes" of the Government Inspectors is unworthy of credit, from the inquiry having been confined to a space of time obviously quite inadequate for the purpose. And here it is impossible to refrain from stating, that the conduct of the Privy Council, in accepting such a document as the one that was given by the official Inspectors without calling before them its authors, and demanding from them an explanation of its statements, and particularly of its caveat postscript, was most reprehensible. If, indeed, the said document had ever been read by the Privy Council, at all events its postscript must have escaped notice, for we cannot think so meanly of the understanding of the members of the Privy Council of that day, as to believe that any of them could have read such a document and passed over in silence the extraordinary circumstances that its own admissions should have brought to light. We cannot help saying, also, that the Lords of Council were not the only parties blameably silent 139 i BOARD OF HEALTH INQUIRY. in regard to this very suspicious public document. The medical journals of the day ought to have unmasked this imposition on the public : it was due from them to the profession, whose interests they advocate, that they should have shown to the public that medical inquiries were not such mere shams, that to conduct them, or rather for their concoction, or, as " The Railway King " might say, their " cookery," twenty minutes might suffice for a strict examination into all the particulars of the eighty-two Cholera patients that were in the prison on the 28th of June. But the medical journals of that day appear to have accepted the notes, caveat and all, without the least examination, as trustworthy public documents ; and the effect of this incredulity has been, that a specific for a disease that, treated on any other plan, defies all medical skill, has been derided as quackery ; and after an examination of the prison, but not of the patients, those that had done good were convicted of evil by the false judges who were themselves the doers of the evil that was then done, after an official but a most superficial inquiry into all the particulars connected with the subject. Secondly, the notes have evidently been concocted in a bad spirit. They themselves betray their mala fides. For example, we find Dr. Barry, in the preliminary letter to the editors of the journals in which he published them, saying : "I beg it to be 140 DR. BARRY ON THE SALINE TREATMENT. understood that I am actuated by no wish to impede, and, indeed, I have no motives to oppose the full and fair development of the merits of any medicine, but more especially of culinary salt in Cholera, having myself given a favourable report of its use in that disease so long ago as the 30th of July last year." Dr. Barry considers it right to represent the use of common salt as the true saline treatment, which comprehends, as we have seen, and as he well knew, the exhibition of several of the neutral salts, that are in reality the natural stimulants of the blood, consequently the electric salts are as necessary to the action of the heart, and all the capillary arteries, as the air that we breathe is necessary to life. But Dr. Barry was no believer in the truth of this new doctrine, and, therefore, the intention of his sneer about culinary salt, was evidently intended to excite contempt against the new treatment in those indolent minds that might not be able to penetrate the flimsy veil of so shallow a detraction. It is true that Dr. Barry, in 1831, had sent an announcement to this country of thirty Cholera patients having been treated in the Custom House Hospital of St. Petersburg on a saline plan, with thirty recoveries in the thirty cases that were there treated with this new specific. But it is equally true that Dr. Barry did not take the trouble to ascertain whether this most important statement was or was 141 1 DR. BARRY ON THE not correct. It is also true, that in April, 1832, the said Dr. Barry saw clearly, that if a saline treatment was found to be a specific for the Cholera poison, either in the prison of Coldbath-Fields or anywhere else, it would then be certain that he would be censured for not having made any farther inquiry into the real nature of the thirty cases that were said to have been treated on a new principle without even one death. It is, therefore, probable that the dread of censure for the neglect of an important duty, was one reason why Dr. Barry made every exertion in his power to strangle a mighty discovery as soon as he could after its birth in this country. In this attempt he was then but too successful, for not only the then Privy Council and the Board of Health, but the editors of the medical journals permitted Dr. Barry to do everything in his own way in deceiving the world. For the new practice is founded on views that are as true as they are new; and, therefore, the leaders of the profession saw clearly, if the new views were right, that this discovery would then go far to convince the world, that their old theories about iron, oxygen, carbon, and phlogiston must be wrong, and, therefore, not only the leaders themselves, but the mass of the profession encouraged Dr. Barry's attempt to put a stop to a discovery that was likely to throw a clear light upon the darkness of the doctrines that are still so generally taught of 142 ¦ SALINE TREATMENT. the nature of things in the human frame, or in other words, of intelligent effects without the necessity of an intelligent cause. The above, w T e believe, was one reason why Dr. Barry was not only permitted, but encouraged, to deceive the world by the false statements that he brought forward, partly for the concealment of the utter worthlessness of his own poison to poison practice, but chiefly for the concealment of his own gross neglect of duty in not inquiring into the particulars of the thirty recoveries in the thirty patients reported by himself as having been saved in St. Petersburg by the new practice. Such, we believe, to have been the true causes of Dr. Barry's animosity to the new treatment, and probably no Privy Council were ever so grossly deceived as its right honourable members were by him in 1832, nor any set of hired witnesses, nor any individuals connected with the medical press, were ever employed to do dirtier work than was then done by the writers in the then medical journals, but particularly by the individual who was known to be the then well-paid writer of the editorial articles on Cholera in the " Lancet." For it can be proved that this individual was not only an unjust judge, but also a false witness in favour of Dr. Barry's false statements; and although, at one time, the said judge pretended to see the true light, and also to be a lover of the truth, still this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy, by means of his false evidence and his 143 DR. BARRY ON THE unjust judgments, in the "Lancet" of 1832, did more evil to the human race in one hour than he will ever do good in this world, were he to remain in it even to the age of Methuselah. Yet it was then well known that this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy was not only one of the first who, by fair experiments, verified the accuracy of Dr. Stevens' new views, but he was also one of the first who verified his prediction that there would be found, on analysis, a great diminution of the salts of the black blood in the last stage of Cholera. On the night of the 3rd of December, 1831, this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy read a paper in the " Westminster Medical Society," recommending, as he said, on a sure foundation, that the saline treatment, and particularly the injection of a warm saline fluid into the jugular vein, should be used in preference to all the other remedies that had previously been tried, and found to be of so little use. It may, therefore, be asked, what interest could this individual, who was the then judge in the " Lancet," have in deceiving the world on the subject of the new practice in Cholera ? The answer to this question is, that until the month of April, 1832, Dr. O'Shaughnessy had told the truth for its own sake. He had not only praised Dr. Stevens to the skies, and verified the truth of his new views, but he had also, a short time before, accused and proved that same Dr. Barry of having been guilty of base malignity, grovelling ignorance, and cold-blooded and heartless prejudice. 144 SALINE TREATMENT. For it appears that all these good gifts had been used by Dr. Barry for the purpose " of over-shadowing the lustre of the name of a rival practitioner, and rendering not only his splendid, but his useful researches unavailable to the sufferings of afflicted humanity."* When Dr. O'Shaughnessy wrote the above, in 1830, he little suspected that in less than two short years, he himself should be induced to become the doer of the dirty work of this very same " heartless and cold-blooded enemy of suffering humanity." But still it is true, that, in the commencement of 1832, when Dr. Barry found that his former antagonist in the " Lancet" had become a warm advocate in favour of the new practice, when he found also in April that the success of the saline treatment in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, would probably not only be fatal to the poison to poison practice that he had * See the "Lancet" for September 26, 1829 ; from which it appears that on the night of December 20, 1827, Dr. Barry had sent an express to the Editor of the " Lancet," to inform him that Mrs. Denmark was dying from aneurism of the aorta, whereas it appears she continued to live until September 11, 1829, when she then died from another disease. When this patient did die, nearly two years afterwards, the Editor, after revealing the secret of dying without death, adds : " Dr. Barry, we hope, is not the only physician to whom this case will prove a most instructive lesson." L 145 DR. BARRY ON THE recommended, but that it would also lead to the discovery of the fact that his own cowardly dread of the poison of Cholera, was the true cause why he had not ventured to investigate the thirty cases that were said to have been saved in the Custom House Hospital at St. Petersburg, by the saline practice. Dr. Barry now saw this danger before him, and probably it was the dread of the consequences of his own gross neglect, that, in the beginning of 1832, induced Barry not only to forgive the accusations of base malignity, and grovelling ignorance, that had been levelled against him in the " Lancet," but also to offer such a remuneration for sin as the then sub-editor or the reporter for that journal would not be likely to resist. The offer was made and accepted, Dr. O'Shaughnessy was soon appointed the editor of " Barry's Cholera Gazette," under the direction of the three individuals that he had lately described in the "Lancet" for January 21, as partakers of unleavened bread, and of such obtuseness of intellect, or perversity of prejudice, that every reflecting man will henceforth look upon the whole of their proceedings with a degree of caution bordering upon distrust. Such was the attack that brought Barry to a knowledge of his danger, and this knowledge soon led to the first preferment of the then accusing spirit. But the editorship of the 146 SALINE TREATMENT. " Cholera Gazette" was not all, for the same Dr. O'Shaughnessy was also soon appointed the official Inspector of the Camberwell and Newington districts, and in 1833, when the battle for the Board was fought and won, Sir Wm. Russell, one of its three medical members, procured the said writer for the " Lancet" an official appointment in the East Indies, that has secured their honest witness, their successful advocate and upright judge a liberal independence from 1833 to this day, as the wages of sin for aiding the human serpent in the waf that he then carried on against humanity. Such were a part of the means then used by the Central Board for the purpose of preventing the world from seeing the extent of their ignorance even at the expense of thousands on thousands of human lives. There are some individuals who may doubt the truth of the above statement, but Dr. O'Shaughnessy's paper in favour of the saline treatment, will be found recorded in the " Lancet" for December the 10th, 1831, and on the 31st of April, when he found that it would soon be necessary for him to act against the new practice, he inserted the following announcement in the journal in which he was then known to be the writer of all the editorial articles on the Cholera. L 2 147 DR. BARRY ON THE NOTE FROM DR. O'SHAUGHNESSY TO THE EDITOR OF THE " LANCET." " Sir, " The Editor of a cotemporary journal has paid me the compliment of informing his readers that I am the sub-editor of the " Lancet." Permit me to state that he is mistaken, as I have never occupied that situation. " I am, Sir, " Your obedient servant, " W. B. O'Shaughnessy." Or in other words the Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who has now undertaken to effect the ruin of the saline practice in Cholera through the medium of the " Lancet," is not the same Dr. O'Shaughnessy who wrote so strongly in its favour only a short time before in that very journal. O'Shaughnessy was right in giving this intimation, for, as we have seen, previously to December, 1831, when still a free agent, he was not only the warm advocate of the saline treatment, but he had also proved in that same journal, Dr. Barry to have been guilty of base malignity, grovelling ignorance, and cold-blooded, and heartless prejudice, by the means he had used for the purpose of rendering splendid researches unavailable to the sufferings of afflicted humanity. 148 SALINE TREATMENT. But in April, 1832, this same Dr. Barry was the leading member of the Central Board ; he had lucrative gifts at his disposal, and therefore the late coldblooded detractor had become a new man, and the same public accuser had also become a new being, for he now saw Indian preferment and ingots of gold glittering like stars in the East ; the temptation was too great for a poor reporter in Wakley's " Lancet." Barry succeeded, and Dr. O'Shaughnessy soon fell, for he then became not only an eye-witness against the improvements that he had so recently proved to be good, but the judge that gave judgment in favour of the very individual that he had so lately proved to be an evil spirit, and a sore pest to suffering humanity. A knowledge of the facts is necessary to enable the reader to know the truth ; and having made the preceding necessary remarks, we shall now return to some of the other parts of Dr. Barry's notes, or rather the fringes to the " notes,"' as we may call his preliminary remarks, which pretend to reduce the number of the Cholera cases that had occurred in the prison in June to a very small figure — to an amount, indeed, of only two persons with the appearance of Cholera in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields. For the purpose of exposing the trickery, or " cookery" of these misrepresentations, we shall here deal with them as regards Barry's account 149 DR. BARRY ON THE of the first irruption of the disease, viz., the period from the sth of April to the 1 1th of May. Referring to this period in his communication to the " Lancet" and the "Medical Gazette," of the 12th of July, Dr. Barry states as follows : "With regard to the number of Cholera cases which occurred in Coldbath-Fields prison, from the 2nd to the 26th of April, this year, or during what has been called the first irruption of the disease into that establishment, I find that twenty-four cases only, and seven deaths, were reported to the Central Board. Not having had an opportunity of seeing any of those cases myself, I shall abstain from making any further remark upon them than this : that the prison, during the period referred to, was repeatedly visited by Dr. M'Cann, the Medical Superintendent of the district, and that he has officially reported to the Central Board, that he had every reason to believe that no greater number of cases of Cholera than twenty -four had occurred in the prison." With respect to the twenty-four cases and the seven deaths reported to the Central Board, we must recollect that with the exception of Barry's agent, Dr. M'Cann, the only medical reporter to the Board of Health from Coldbath-Fields, was, as a matter of course, the surgeon, Mr. Wakefield. But how far it could be true, that twenty-four cases of Cholera only and seven deaths had occurred in the prison, between the 2nd and the 26th of April, Mr. Wakefield himself shall be made to show. We find him under the (vide page 49) date of the 25 th of April 150 SALINE TREATMENT. writing as follows to the then Editor of the " Medical Gazette :" "We have now upwards of twelve hundred persons in this prison ; and, from the commencement of the disease up to this date, there have been nearly one hundred cases where individuals have been, more or less, evidently labouring under the influence of the Cholera poison. Twenty -five of these assumed the malignant character of the disease, having the majority of the symptoms described in the printed documents issued by Dr. M'Cann. Four of the first cases, as before observed, were treated in the common way, and every one of them died. All the others were immediately put under the use of the saline practice, as recommended by Dr. Stevens, and out of the whole number who have been thus treated, we have only had three deaths from Cholera, and two of these were cases of relapse." In the same letter Mr. Wakefield also states that : " From having seen similar cases in the commencement transformed rapidly into a state of collapse, my conviction is, that every one of those [nearly one hundred] patients was more or less in serious danger ; and I believe also, that had they been either left to themselves, or improperly treated, the majority of these cases would have run into a state of collapse, perhaps in a few hours ; indeed, I have little doubt that the one half of them would have been lost under the practice which is generally adopted in the treatment of this disease." Let us now compare this with the official statement. On the 12th of July, we find Dr. Barry 151 ! DR. BARRY ON THE asserting, on Mr. Wakefield's authority, that no more than twenty-four cases of Cholera had occurred in the prison, with seven deaths, during the first irruption in April. On the other hand, on the 25 th of April, we find Mr. Wakefield himself certifying in the " Medical Gazette," that from the sth to the 25th of that month there had been in that prison nearly one hundred cases of Cholera. There is indeed a very wide difference between the above two statements. On the 25th of April, Mr. Wakefield himself writes, that to that date he had had nearly one hundred cases of Cholera ; twenty-five of which, or twenty-six, including the case in the New Prison, had assumed the malignant character of the disease, with only one death from Cholera in nearly one hundred cases, twenty-six of which were cases of collapse. It will be seen also, by referring to the table at page 65, that during the first irruption there were not twenty-four, but one hundred and sixty-five cases of Cholera, thirty-nine of which were cases of collapse, with seven deaths ; two of these seven patients were lost from premature dismissal, and four of them died under the practice recommended by the Board of Health. On the other hand, Mr. Wakefield's own verified prison journal proves, that in the first one hundred and fifty-nine of the cases treated on the new plan, there was one death and one hundred and fifty-eight recoveries. 152 SALINE TREATMENT. Let the reader contrast this true, with Barry's untrue statement, of only twenty-four cases and seven deaths, and not one word said of the one hundred and fiftyeight patients that had recovered under the new practice. The above is one specimen of the many unfair means used in 1832 to convert an important discovery into a gross deception, and a gross deception on the public into a praiseworthy act. It was, and is the opinion of the Board of Health, that the collapse stage of Cholera is incurable by any mode of treatment. Now, if this be true, what then did the Board or the Privy Council of 1832 mean by instructing Mr. Wakefield on the 29th of June, to report collapse cases only to them as cases of Cholera '? It is to be presumed that the object of directing private practitioners and medical officers of public institutions to send in statements or returns of the cases of Cholera coming under their care, is to afford to the Government the largest amount of information on the subject of the disease which it is possible to acquire. It is unnecessary to inquire into the utility of such reports, that being selfevident ; but we ask how such meagre reports as those that Mr. Wakefield sent according to order to the Board of Health or the Privy Council could assist in furnishing any adequate degree of information? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that 153 DR. BARRY ON THE the disease forming the subject of inquiry had been consumption, what would have been thought of a Board of Health that, professing to be desirous of possessing every possible degree of information by means of such returns as those under consideration, should have ordered a practitioner in some one particular hospital to return only those cases in it in which they had indubitably ascertained that the lungs of the patients were in such a state of decomposition, that the said practitioner could almost tell the exact number of inspirations which they were capable of making, before the sufferers should draw their latest breath ? Another most suspicious circumstance connected with the restrictive order of the 29th of June, to Mr. Wakefield, is the fact that no such restriction was imposed upon any other practitioner in the three kingdoms ; at least, we can find no trace of any such restriction upon any one else in the medical publications of that day. Each reader will account for so invidious a distinction in his own way ; Mr. Wakefield suffered the order and its publication to pass in silence, as he did likewise the report of the sham inspection, without offering one word in defence of his previous statements of the extent and severity of the disease among his poor patients in April. Neither did he say to the Privy Council or the Board of Health one word relative to the extraordinary efficacy 154 SALINE TREATMENT. of the saline treatment in that prison even when he knew that it had been the means of saving hundreds of lives in that prison. It has been shown that the other authorities of the prison did not allow the real nature of the sham inspection to remain unexposed : Mr. Rotch the then Visiting Justice, and Mr. Chesterton the Governor, proved that the inspection of the prison by the Board, was unworthy of one moment's consideration. They proved also that the disease had existed to a most afflicting extent, and that the result of the saline treatment had been most beneficial. We shall conclude this portion of our statement by adding from the " Medical Gazette" of August the 4th, 1832, the following extract, from the testimony of an individual who was then a resident in the prison, who had seen every one of the cases in that establishment from the sth of April to the beginning of August. The present writer did not, like the opposite party, in the " Lancet," that could deceive as well as cut both ways, write with a reference to self-interest ; and, after some preliminary remarks on a case that occurred out of the prison, he states as follows, we believe chiefly in reference to the late conduct of the Barry Commissioners: "One fact, it has been well said, is worth a thousand opinions, or speculations warped by prejudice, or wrought up so as to produce a bias on the minds of others. I would beg with 155 DR. BARRY ON THE the utmost earnestness, warn with all seriousness, conjure with the deepest solemnity, all men, as they regard their reputation and honour (medical as well as others), when they take upon themselves to instruct the public, especially in matters of life and death, that they lay aside all prejudices, where the delineation of facts is the subject, and take especial care that there be no colouring — no attempts made to give any wrong bias to the minds of the inquirer, no withholding anything essential, no addition of that which existed not, no use of equivocal expressions, 'but the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' " After giving a statement of the comparative results of the common and the new practice, Mr. Ousby adds : " Having been an eye-witness of the cases which occurred at Coldbath-Fields prison, and having had daily opportunities of observing the almost magical effects of the saline treatment, often even in the worst cases, I do not hesitate to say, one lost, thirteen saved, " Should Providence see fit to afflict me (which God forbid) with this awful malady, could I doubt a moment under what treatment I should choose to be placed ? " I am, Sir, " Your faithful and obedient Servant, " John Ousby. " Coldbath-Fields House of Correction, Middlesex, "August 1, 1832." Mr. Ousby was not aware, and so well has the secret been kept, that neither the Magistrates nor 156 SALINE TREATMENT. the Governor of that prison know even to this hour that at least seventeen of the nineteen patients that died in the admissions in June, w T ere not treated on the new plan, but lost because it had not been used. Again, we find the following in the " Medical Gazette" of the Ist of September, 1832 : TO THE EDITOR OF THE " LONDON MEDICAL GAZETTE. "Sir, "Between my leaving town on the 11th of this month (Saturday) and my return on Tuesday morning the 21st, I learned that twenty- three cases of Cholera had passed through the infirmaries of this prison ; and since that time to this evening, Tuesday the 28th, nine cases more, most of whom have returned to the convalescent ward. Those in the infirmaries are apparently doing well. I lament to say we have lost one man, so that, in addition to my statement : August Ist, under saline treatment, one lost, thirteen saved ;* I have now the happiness to state, out of thirty-two cases, one lost, thirty-one saved. I beg leave to express how astonished I am, that with facts of so * Mr. Ousby was not aware of the fact that the saline treatment had not been used in the fatal case to which he now refers, nor did he know that the patient who died on the 28th of August was only the first of the nine patients that were to lose their lives, as the result of an experiment made to prove that the poison to poison practice of the Central Board would be as successful in that prison as the saline treatment. The above fatal case was the first patient on whom the Board practice was again tried ; and though the result was death in six hours after the commencement of the experiment, still it was permitted to be used in eight other cases ; and no man on earth knows where the mortality would have ended if Dr. Stevens had not put a stop to the mischief, but only after so much evil had been done that nine of the poor patients lost their lives, who had been admitted on the 28 th, 29 th, and 30th of August. 157 ] ;¦ DR. BARRY ON THE overpowering a nature, medical men and others should be so blinded, so incredulous, so obstinate, so infatuated almost everywhere, as to run about and tell us that, in this new disease, they either know not what to do, or are so wedded to ancient prejudices, and the authority of some school or other, that they will suffer their patients to die rather than ad.pt a [new] practice so efficacious in its salutary operations, and almost infallible in its beneficial results. " I am, Sir, &c, &c, "John Ousby. " House of Correction for the County of Middlesex, "August 28, 1852." The above is the evidence of another eye-witness of the beneficial results of the new plan. We shall, therefore, now conclude this section of our history by stating that there was no want of information regarding the ravages of the Cholera poison in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, consequently, that the Privy Council were not left, as one might suppose, to acquire their information from newspaper paragraphs, the Barry Commissioners, or the then Barry Surgeon of that prison. Mr. Chesterton, in his letter formerly inserted, says : "In the official return to the Secretary of State for the preceding year, the total number of deaths in this prison, during twelve months, was sixteen, and within one little month from the 3rd of June, on this last melancholy occasion, the Cholera within these walls proved fatal to the same number." 158 SALINE TREATMENT. Undoubtedly this exhibits a comparatively high increase of mortality, but not one of these sixteen patients were lost under the new practice, consequently, we may imagine the fearful height to which it would have extended had Divine Providence not so ordered it that the human beings in that then foul prison were saved, in a great degree, from the fatal effects of the empirical treatment recommended by the Board of Health. As it providentially happened,* the result was, indeed, very different under the new practice, as the reader will find by referring to the table at page 101, where it is shown that the rate of mortality was less than one per cent. It will be seen also, that there were treated on other plans, during the same period, in that then foul prison, thirty-nine patients, all of whom died. Surely this one fact of itself affords a melancholy illustration of the worthlessness * It is not improper to use such a term here, seeing that Dr. Stevens' presence in Great Britain at the outbreak of Cholera, was an accidental, but certainly a most fortunate event. For we have no doubt, that ere long his presence at that time in England, will end in being a fortunate occurrence to the unfortunate sufferers from that fell disease, which is probably only the forerunner of a truer light than the darkness that is now sold as light by teachers who even to this day prefer the erring knowledge of men to the unerring wisdom of God. The second commandment will tell them that the punishment for this sin is the mental belief in the truth of the human invention of its own spiritual death. 159 v ; DR. BARRY ON THE SALINE TREATMENT. of Government supervision ; for is it not a sad state of affairs, to find facts like the above obscured and nullified by such miserable devices as the " notes," the mysterious postscript, the untruths in the " Lancet," and the official, but false, returns made out in obedience to the will of the Government Commissioners, and presented by the Surgeon to the Privy Council in 1832, as the official returns from the official medical attendant of that prison in which so much good had been done by the new practice, or in other w T ords, by the use of the vital electricity contained in saline matter as a certain antidote for the narcotic poison, that is, in truth, the remote cause that produces the true Cholera, or as it has been called in the East, the " Jungle Fiend." 160 ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO THE CASES OF CHOLERA THAT OCCURRED IN THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION AT COLDBATHFIELDS IN 1832. BY WILLIAM STEVENS, M.D., D.C.L., &c, &c, &c. M 1 ¦ CHAPTER I. A FARTHER EXAMINATION INTO THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE THAT DR. BARRY BROUGHT FORWARD TO PROVE THAT NOT ONE CASE OF CHOLERA COULD HAVE BEEN IN THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION AT COLDBATH-FIELDS, FROM THE IST TO THE 28TH OF JUNE, 1832. The reader has already seen that the second irruption of Cholera commenced in the prison on the 3rd, and continued without the intermission of one moment until the end of June. During this one month exactly one hundred and twenty-three patients had been admitted into the infirmary, and owing to certain causes no less than seventy-seven of these either were on admission, or soon became cases of collapse, and nineteen of the one hundred and twenty-three patients died. The reader has also seen that the reason the Privy Council gave for their interference with the patients then at Coldbath-Fields, was the paragraph that appeared in the " Globe" on the evening of the 27th of June, stating that the Cholera had raged with M 2 EXAMINATION OF great violence in that prison, and that upwards of one hundred cases had occurred there within the last twelve days. It will be seen, however, at page 105, that Dr. Barry gives two very different reasons from that of the Privy Council, for having made an inquiry into the nature of the cases of Cholera then in that prison. « The first reason that Dr. Barry gives for interfering with the Cholera patients at Coldbath-Fields, was, the circumstance of his having seen various contradictory published reports, tending (as he said) to produce vague notions and undefined alarms relative to the cases of Cholera then in that prison, and therefore he felt himself called upon to inquire into the state of the prison, and to lay before the public and the profession all the facts which had come under his observation on that subject. In answer to this or the original cause of Dr. Barry's interference, we may state that up to the 27 th of June, the only reports that had been published relating to the cases of Cholera at Coldbath-Fields, was a statement in the " Medical Gazette," of the 21st of April, by an individual who had seen every one of the fifty-three cases he referred to. These cases had occurred partly in the prison, and partly in his own private practice. Seven of the fifty-three cases that this writer had then seen had been treated in the common way, or in other words with the 164 dr. Barry's evidence. poison-to-poison practice recommended by the then so-called Board of Health; the result of this his first and last experiment with the then legitimate practice, was seven deaths in the seven cases in which it had been used. On the other hand, in the forty-six cases that had been treated on the new plan, only two deaths had ensued, and every one of the other forty-four patients had then recovered. The respectability of the writer of the above statement was vouched for by Dr. M'Leod, the then respectable Editor of the " Medical Gazette," who knew* from more sources than one, that the above statement was perfectly true, and probably it was for its truth that the above statement of facts was converted into " vague notions," that were certainly well calculated to " excite alarms" at the Board of Health, but nowhere else. For Dr. Barry saw clearly that if this new practice, founded on new T views, should be proved to be the best, then the w r orld would soon see that the opposite plan of treatment, as recommended by the Central Board, must be the worst. These new, but more correct views, were, therefore, the " vague notions" referred to by Dr. Barry, and the success of the new practice with only five per cent, loss instead of sixty, was the true cause of the undefined alarm in the minds of the three medical members of the Central Board, The only other report that had been published 165 i examination of previously to the 27th of June relative to the cases of Cholera at Coldbath-Fields, was Mr. Wakefield's letter of the 25 th, and published in the " Medical Gazette" of the 28 th of April, in which he stated that the Cholera had commenced in that prison on the sth of April, that four of the early cases had been treated in the common way, and that every one of these four patients had died after a short illness, with all the symptoms of Cholera distinctly marked. On the other hand, he stated that from the sth to the 25 th of April, the new treatment had been tried in nearly one hundred cases, twenty-six of which had been collapsed, with in reality only one death from Cholera, in all the nearly one hundred cases in which the new plan had for the first time been put to the test of fair experiment in that prison. The publication of the above true statement was probably another addition to the " vague notions" that had excited undefined alarms at the Board of Health, for the loss of one per cent, in place of sixty was enough to frighten the humane Barry out of his wits. But notwithstanding the vagueness of these notions and the undefined alarms at the Central Board, still the official journal of the prison proves that Mr. Wakefield's statement was not over, but considerably under the truth. For by referring to the first table, at page 65, it will be seen that from the sth to the 25th of April, the new practice had then been tried in about one hundred 166 % dr. Barry's evidence. and thirty cases of Cholera, thirty-four of which had been collapsed cases, with only one death in the whole of the one hundred and thirty patients that had then been suffering under the narcotic poison that produces the new pestilence. This is the true statement relative to the above cases, as proved by the verified journal of the prison, but still it appears that even Mr. Wakefield's startling statement of only one death in nearly one hundred cases was converted by Barry into " vague notions," that were well calculated to produce not only " undefined alarms" at the Board of Health, but also to excite a determination on the part of its medical members, to put down this new and alarming practice that killed only one person in nearly one hundred patients, and that too at the very time when their poison-to-poison practice was killing at the rate of sixty per cent, in every part of England in which it was used. If this statement be true, then it was the success of the new practice that constituted the crime that led to Dr. Barry's determination to put down the saline treatment as soon as it might be possible, for the medical members of the so-called Board of Health to effect the attainment of this most laudable end. But the other and the chief reason that Dr. Barry gives for interfering w_th the affairs of the prison at Coldbath-Fields, is the untruth that I had told him on the night of the 25 th of June, at the 167 examination of College of Physicians, when in what he calls a casual conversation, I had astounded him when I said that I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in the prison at Coldbath-Fields on that day. It was, therefore, chiefly for the purpose of proving that the above statement was utterly untrue ; namely, the formidable announcement that I had seen upwards of forty cases in the prison on the 25th of June, that Dr. Barry determined to force an inquiry into the nature of the Cholera in the prison, and when this was finished, he published in the " Lancet," and also in the " Medical Gazette" of the 14th of July, together with six other official documents, a return from the Surgeon of the prison made out in such a way, as to enable Barry to prove from it that not one case of Cholera could have been in that prison on the 25th of June, consequently, that I must have told Barry an untruth. For, according to that official document, there were only twenty-nine patients in the prison on the 28th, and as every one of these twenty-nine'patients had been seized with mere premonitory symptoms on the 26th and 27th, it w r as then perfectly clear that not one case of Cholera of any sort could have been in the prison on the 25th. But this was not all, for this official document from the Surgeon of the prison went still farther, for it proved that every one of the cases that were in the prison on the 28th of June were mere premonitory 168 i dr. Barry's evidence. cases, every one of which was in a state of improvement on the 28th, to the joy, or rather to the happiness of the Surgeon, who, fortunately at that time had not to deal with anything like true Cholera in that prison, for there were on the 28th only twentynine mere premonitory cases that were all in a state of convalescence on that day. For the purpose of being able to prove the truth of the above official statement, it was necessary that the eighty-two Cholera cases that were in the prison on the 28th should be cut down and reported to the Privy Council as twenty- nine mere premonitory cases ; all of which were represented to be in different stages of convalescence on the 28th, as was proved not only by the official return, but also by the expressed happiness of the Surgeon himself at this most fortunate state of affairs in that prison on the two days when Dr. Barry inspected the prison, and could find not one patient with Cholera on the 27th, and only two persons with the appearance of the new pestilence on the 28 th of June. We must now refer to the reason given by the Privy Council for their interference on the 28th, namely, the statement in the " Globe" newspaper on the 27 th of June, of upwards of one hundred patients, and of twelve deaths, in the prison within the last twelve days. We have seen that the Governor, believing the order addressed to himself, from the 169 EXAMINATION of Privy Council, had a reference to truth, stated on the 28th, that the number of Cholera patients then in the prison was about seventy, which was in reality about twelve under the true number. But the Surgeon of the prison must have seen the order in a totally different light, for he returned to the Privy Council, not the names of the eighty-two patients attacked with Cholera that were within the prison on the 28th of June, but only the names of twentynine of the thirty-six patients that had been seized with Cholera on the 26th and 27th of that month. The printed form of the official return that was given to the Surgeon of the prison to fill up had been sent from the Board of Health, and to say the truth, this official document had been most ingeniously contrived. It had one column for the names of the patients, another for the date of attack, a third for the age, a fourth for patients with premonitory symptoms, and a fifth for collapse cases. But the reader will observe that there is no column in this official document for patients with true Cholera, but not yet in a state of collapse, consequently, the Surgeon of the prison, who filled up this official return for the enlightenment of the Privy Council, had a good excuse for putting the patients with true Cholera, but not yet collapsed, into the column for patients with mere premonitory symptoms. Still, 170 dr. Barry's evidence. this putting the patients with true Cholera under the head of mere premonitory symptoms, was not the only good that was gained by the above ingenious contrivance. For, by excluding all the fifty-three patients then in the prison that had been attacked previously to the 26th, the eighty-two Cholera patients then in the prison were not only reduced to twenty-nine premonitory cases, but the thirty-seven cases that were in the prison on the 28th, that either were or had been cases of collapse, were reduced to zero. But still this deception was not all, for the fourteen patients who became collapsed from the 25th to the 28th of June inclusive, were cut down to five confirmed cases, and each of these five confirmed or collapsed cases were put into the column of patients with premonitory symptoms only. This contrivance enabled Dr. Barry to explain to the Privy Council that it was only cases of collapse that meant cases of Cholera ; consequently, as not even one figure was put in the collapse column, it was clear from this official return that there could not have been one patient with Cholera in the prison on the 25th, nor on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of June. The result of this contrivance was, that on the following day, the 29th, the Governor received an official order to cause Mr. Wakefield to transmit for the information of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council a daily return of such cases as may 171 examination of occur in the prison, instructing him at the same time to include in such daily return cases of confirmed Cholera only. The above official order or command from the Privy Council answered a double purpose, for it was not only a warrant for the Surgeon of the prison to return from that day confirmed or collapsed cases only as cases of Cholera to the Privy Council or the Central Board — but it enabled Barry to publish on the authority of the Surgeon, that not one case of Cholera had been in the prison on the 25th, or previously to the 29th of June, but only twenty-nine mere premonitory cases, and that all the patients then in the prison were in different stages of convalescence on the 28th, or the day of Barry's official inspection of the cases of Cholera in the prison at Coldbath-Fields. The many contrivances then used were bad enough, but it was the above invention of putting twenty-nine of the thirty-six patients that had been attacked during the 26th and 27th of June, with, as it was said, mere premonitory symptoms, in the place of the eighty-two patients attacked with Cholera, that were in the prison on the 28th, that enabled Barry to prove clearly, not only to the Privy Council, but to the whole world, that I had told him a gross untruth at the College of Physicians, when I said I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in the prison at 172 dr. Barry's evidence. Coldbath-Fields on the 25th of June. For if there were only twenty-nine premonitory cases all in a state of convalescence on the 28 th, and if every one of the patients then in the prison had been attacked since the 25 th, it was then perfectly clear that not one case of Cholera could have been in that prison on the 25th ; consequently, if this official return be true, it was then clear as day that I must have been guilty of a gross falsehood, when I told Dr. Barry that I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in the prison on the 25th of June. The moral to be derived from this clear conviction of a sad criminal, was, that the various contradictory reports that had been published in the " Medical Gazette," one of which was verified by the Editor of that journal, and the other was signed by Mr. Wakefield, and my statement of upwards of forty cases on the 25th of June, must have been utterly untrue; consequently, as not one of these parties had told the truth, and particularly as I had now been publicly proved by the official evidence of the Surgeon of the prison to be a dealer in falsehoods ; it was, therefore, clear that all the statements that had been published in favour of the new invention of salting the patients with common culinary salt, was successful only when and where there were no patients on whom to practise this new contrivance. Consequently, this sort of salt had now lost its savour, for it had been proved 173 examination of by the official authorities to be not nearly so good in the treatment of Cholera, as the practice of giving the astringent poison of opium to lock up the deadly poison of Cholera in the blood and the body of the poor patients, or as O'Shaughnessy called the poisonto-poison practice, the masculine recommendations of the Central Board. The following is the official return of the 28th of June, from the Surgeon of the prison, for the information of the Lords of his Majesty's Most Hon. Privy Council, which enabled Dr. Barry to prove not only to them, on the 29 th of June, but also to the w T orld, on the 14th of July, that not even one case of Cholera could have been in the prison on the 25th of June. For, as there was not even one case of Cholera in the prison on the 28th of June, but only twenty-nine patients with mere premonitory symptoms on that day, and as every one of these patients had been admitted since the 25 th, it was evident that I must have been guilty of a sad untruth on the evening of the 25 th when I said to Barry, that I had seen upwards of forty cases in the prison on that day. 174 DR. BARRY'S EVIDENCE. NOMINAL RETURN (A.) OP PERSONS ATTACKED WITH CHOLERA IN COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON, FROM THE 26TH TO THE 29TH INSTANT INCLUSIVE. •pate 0£ With Diarrhoea, Collapse Name. Attack A ° e * or otner without Premonitory Symptoms. Pulse. Jos. Catanach . . June 26 25 Confirmed cholera. — John Moore . . ditto 46 Premonitory symptoms. — John S. Gower . ditto 37 ditto — James Sullivan . ditto 18 Confirmed cholera. — James Gravenor . ditto 37 Premonitory symptoms. — Thomas Brenner . ditto 16 ditto — Thomas Green . . ditto 19 ditto — Thomas Francis . ditto 17 ditto — Charles Morley . ditto 30 ditto — John Brown . . ditto 20 ditto — Georgiana Harris . ditto 18 ditto ¦— Ann Morris . . ditto 19 ditto — William King . . June 27 34 ditto — William Thorn. . ditto 16 ditto — Godfrey Nokes. . ditto 19 Confirmed cholera. — Richard Stewart . ditto 29 Premonitory symptoms. — Henry King . . ditto 14 ditto — Henry Butcher . ditto 10 ditto — Joseph Jones . . ditto 27 Confirmed cholera. — Thomas Collins . ditto 24 Premonitory symptoms. — John Pratt . . . ditto 19 Confirmed cholera. — William White . ditto 21 Premonitory symptoms. — Caroline Thornton ditto 24 ditto — Elizabeth Leach . ditto 19 ditto — Mary Akermann . ditto 29 ditto — Mary Smith . . ditto 29 ditto — Elizabeth Isaacs . ditto 30 ditto — Mary Bloomfield . ditto 22 ditto — Eliza Groves . . ditto 26 ditto — Henry Wakefield, Surgeon. return (B.) Night of Ann Smith . . . June 28 21 Yes* Joseph Allen . . June 29 32 Yes.f * Died half-past 10 a.m., 29th instant. t Improving. Remarks.—ln relating these cases for the information of the Privy Council, I beg leave to observe, that the Cholera made its reappearance in this prison on the 3rd instant, with a degree of malignancy far surpassing the violence of the former attack; and that during the period between its arrival until the present time, upwards of one hundred cases have occurred with different degrees of severity, out of which number twelve cases have terminated fatally; but I am happy to add, that the remainder are at this moment in different stages of convalescence, and that the disease appears to be gradually subsiding. Henry Wakefield, Surgeon. 175 ; EXAMINATION OF It was the above official return from the official Surgeon of the prison that did the work, and after having settled this little affair to his own satisfaction, Dr. Barry's conscience was now free from alarm, for on the 14th of July he had proved, on the official authority of the Surgeon, that my assertion of having seen upwards of forty cases on the 25 th of June was a gross untruth, and, therefore, there was now no necessity for Dr. Barry, or the other medical members of the Board of Health, to be any longer afraid of the " vague notions" and "undefined alarms" that, if true, would have led to the ruin of their poison-to-poison practice, and that result would soon have led to the knowledge of their ignorance, and this discovery would have led to their own downfall. But all was now safe, for I had been proved to be a dealer in untruth, not only by Drs. Barry, O'Shaughnessy, M'Cann and Mr. Maling, but above all by the official return of that truly honest man, the official Surgeon of the prison, who had proved by his official return of the 28th of June that not one case of Cholera could have been in the prison on the 25th, and, therefore, as Mr. Wakefield had proved that there was no truth in me, there was now no necessity for any farther fear in the minds, or rather the cerebral secretions, or the animal lives of the then most meritorious medical members of the Board of Health, who were well paid for attending 176 dr. Barry's evidence. to the public, and, therefore, as the guardians of the public health, they were determined to prevent everything like imposition on all credulous minds, who are but too apt to allow themselves to be deceived by wicked impostors, who, under the pretence of trying to do good, are in reality the great enemies to the health of the people, and the general welfare of the human race. The statements and the apparently clear proofs that were published by Dr. Barry on the 14th of July, 1832, were well calculated to darken the true light. For at that time, for certain reasons, the great success of the new treatment was the grand stumbling-block in the way of the then active leader of the then so-called Central Board of Health, consequently every effort was made by the then medical members of the Central Board to pull the successful practice down, but above all the unfortunate individual who had invented the shameful plan that had reduced the mortality from fifty to less than five per cent, and that too at the risk of ruin to one of the three official authorities appointed by the Government to watch over the health of his Majesty's subjects. In his letter of the 1 6th of July, Dr. Barry states, that on our way to the Regent's Park, on the 27th of June, I had told him that the usual mode of treating the Cholera with opium and stimulants, is absolute poisoning. This much of his statement is true, and N 177 EXAMINATION OF he might have added with truth, that at the same time I had told him also that so long as he remained in his present state of ignorance of the true nature of things in the human frame, he ought not to be permitted to prescribe rules for, or to practice medicine even on a donkey. It was, therefore, partly as a punishment for this accusation, and partly for the concealment of the utter worthlessness of his own practice, that Barry contrived the plan of leaving out every one of the forty-six Cholera patients in the prison that had been attacked before the 26th, of putting twenty-nine of the thirty-six patients that had been attacked with true Cholera on the 26th and 27th, into the premonitory column, and then representing these twenty-nine mere premonitory cases as the only patients that were within the prison from the 26 th to the 29 th of June inclusive. It was this contrivance that enabled Barry to prove that I had told him an untruth when I said on the night of the 25 th that I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in the prison on that day. Such was the charge then made against me, and Mr. Wakefield's return was the great proof of my guilt. Consequently, the question to be decided now is simply this : Did I, or did I not tell an untruth, when in reply to a question put to me by Dr. Barry, on the 25th of June, I said I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in the prison on that day; or did I say so merely to 178 dr. Barry's evidence. glorify myself and thereby to excite unnecessary alarm at the Central Board, as is proved by Mr. Wakefield's official return ? Or did Barry and his then faithful ally, and now ready witness, Mr. Wakefield, tell the truth and " shame the devil," when the obedient servant put his signature to an official document that enabled his master to prove, not only to the Privy Council, but to the whole world, by the official document invented on the 28th of June, the day of Dr. Barry's visit to the prison, that there could not have been even one case of Cholera in that establishment on the 25th, when I said I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in that prison on that day ? The sad invention that was then used to prove my guilt, has long been believed to be true, for it is the will of God that the wicked may, and often do, prosper well in this world, but it is only for a time, for in the end, they will be sure to find their mistake and receive their punishment. For it is this very time that is the great revealer of all secrets, and when the truth is at last seen, the inventions of the wicked then become like unto the chaff that the winds of heaven drive to and fro. It was the above official, but non-verified return from the official Surgeon of the prison, together with other official, but equally incorrect returns from the same quarter, that enabled Dr Barry to prove in July, 1832, that I was a dealer in untruths, for he had N 2 179 EXAMINATION OF now proved that not one case of Cholera could have been in the prison on the 25th of June, in that year. This laudable end was then effected by a sad tissue of gross deceptions, which, we firmly believe, has cost thousands on thousands of human lives. For the evil effects of the above official return, and other sad human contrivances, continue to act with full force on suffering humanity, even until the present day ; and this suffering will certainly continue until it is the will of God, that human minds shall know that they see by sight and hear by sound, and live on knowledge as their spiritual food. For it will only be when the now erring children of good and evil shall be taught to know the mighty secret, that knowledge is the spiritual food of the human spirit, that the true light shall be made to shine on the darkness of man, not for a day, but for ever and ever. But let us again return to the prison in Coldbath-Fields, in 1832. The following is a correct Table, containing the names and showing the condition of the patients with Cholera that were in the prison on the 25th of June. It is made out from documents that have been carefully copied from the official journal of the prison for that year. This table will show whether I told Barry an untruth on the night of the 25th, when I said that I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in that prison on that day ; or whether Barry acted the part of an honest man when he used 180 dr. Barry's evidence. an official return that he knew to be a vile delusion invented for the purpose of darkening a discovery that then did more good in that prison in one day than he had ever done during the whole course of his worthless career in this world. LIST OF THE SIXTY-FOUR PATIENTS WITH CHOLERA THAT WERE IN THE PRISON ON THE 25TH OF JUNE, 1832. Date Names of £™°"h When State of the Patient The °f the cXosed Co 1" on the ultimate Attack. Patients. Cases !a Psed- 25th of June. results. June 16 B. Grundy . . .. June 23 Very doubtful. Cured July 15 „ 7 Sarah Pooly . .. „ 11 Gradually improving. „ „ 17 „ 13 Sarah Moore . .. „ 13 ditto ? „ 4 „ 14 Ann Easton . .. „ 12 ditto ? „ 17 „ 16 Jno. Morris . .. „ 16 Recovered, and „ June 27 acting as Nurse. „ 17 Rob. Collins . .. „ 17 Better. „ „ 28 „ 17 Jno. Shannon . .. „ 17 Recovered, and „ „ 26 acting as Nurse, „ 18 Jno. Akers . . .. „ 19 Very doubtful. „ July 10 „ 18 F. Dubois . . .. „ 19 Better. „ „ 5 „ 18 Clara King . . .. „ 20 Worse. „ „ 25 „ 19 Jno. Murphy . .. „ 20 Gradually recovering. „ „ 10 „20 Thomas Brown .. „22 Rather better. „ June 30 „ 20 Sus. Kelly . . .. „ 23 Much the same. „ July 10 „ 20 Ann Lambert . .. ?23 ditto ? ? 4 „ 20 Geo. Sudman . .. „ 22 Better. „ June 28 „ 20 Wm. Brown . .. „ 22 ditto „ „ 30 „ 21 Ed. Blacklock . June 22 .. ditto „ „ 30 „21 Jas. Rogers . „ 22 .. ditto „ July 4 „ 21 Chs. Bradley . „ 22 .. ditto „ June SO „ 21 Jos. James . . „ 22 .. ditto „ „ 30 „22 M. Holland . „ 22 .. ditto „ July 3 „ 22 Jno. Musetta . „ 24 .. ditto 3 „ 22 T. Hollingbury „ 24 .. ditto „ „ 3 „ 22 Wm. Barrett . „ 25 .. ditto „ June 30 „ 22 Tho. I.awrence. „ 24 .. ditto „ „ 30 „ 22 Jno. Harris . . „ 24 „26 Worse. „ July 9 „ 22 W. Hemmings .. „ 25 Much the same. „ June 29 „ 22 Geo. Cornie . .. .. Better. „ July 5 „ 22 Wm. Bryan . „ 24 .. ditto ? 3 „ 22 Sol. Taylor . . „ 24 „ 26 Worse. „ „ 3 „ 22 Josh. Thorn . .. „ 24 Recovering. „ June 27 „ 22 Rd. Jackson . .. „25 Doubtful. „ „ 27 „ 22 Jas. Holdwell . „ 24 .. Not worse. „ „ 30 „23 Geo. Pickering .. „ 25 Better. „ „ 29 „ 23 Jas. Simmonds „ 24 .. ditto „ July 3 „ 24 Jas. Carter . . „ 24 .. ditto „ „ 3 ? 24 Wm. Edwards .. „ 25 ditto „ „ 3 „ 24 Thos. Bleasden .. .. Not so well. „ June 30 „ 24 J. Shuttleworth „ 24 „ 25 Better. „ July 4 „ 24 Eliza Williams .. „ 24 ditto 4 „ 24 Eliz. Ward . . .. ? 24 .. .. „ , 10 „ 24 Ellen Connor . .. „ 24 .. ..-„,', 4 „25 Jas. Herring . .. „ 25 Doubtful. „ ,\ 6 „ 25 Jas. Hanby . . .. „ 25 ditto „ „ 4. „ 25 Hen. Cooper . .. „ 25 ditto „ June 30 181 EXAMINATION OF Date Names of .!.!!™°"L" t When State of the Patient The of the rll\a?W Col - onthe ultimate Attack. Patients. Cases la Psed. 25th of June. results. June 25 Richard Card . .. June 25 Very bad. Died July 3 „ 25 Thos. Kirby . June 24 „ 25 ditto „ June 25 „ 25 Jno. Reagon . . . ?25 ditto „ „ 25 „ 25 Wm. Davidson „ 24 „ 25 Better. Cured July 4 „ 25 C. Dunbar . . „ 24 „ 25 ditto „ „ 4 „ 25 Alex. Sessie . . . „ 25 ditto „ June 30 „ 25 David Holland. „ 24 „ 25 ditto Died July 9 „ 25 Wm. Rowland . . . „ 25 Doubtful. Cured July 4 „ 25 Jas. Allen . . . . „ 28 Recovering. „ „ 19 „ 25 Jno. Manby. . .. July 1 ditto „ „ 4 „ 25 T.Harris . . .. June 25 Much the same. „ June 29 „ 25 E. Kerry „ 25 Not so well. Died June 28 „ 25 B. Phasey . . .. „ 26 ditto Cured June3o „ 25 Alfred Miles . . . ?26 Recovering. „ June 30 „ 25 Jos. Allen . . .. „ 28 ditto „ July 17 „ 25 Jane Taylor. . .. „ 26 ditto „ „ 10 „ 25 A. Richardson . . . „ 26 ditto „ „ 25 „ 25 Julia Ingall. . .. „ 27 Not so well. „ , 17 Number of Collapse Cases on the 25th of June . . 49 I Number of Non-collapse Cases on the 25th of June .15 — 64 Total Number of Patients in the Prison Infirmary on the 25th of June 64 The above is a true statement of the patients with Cholera that were in the prison on the 25th of June. By comparing the 25th of June with all the other days of that year, it will be seen that the Cholera had attained its highest degree of severity on that day. For no less than twenty-two new cases were admitted on the 25th, and on that day fourteen of the patients became collapsed. Two died from late admissions on the 25th, and three of the other patients admitted on that day were fatal cases, one died on the evening of the 28th of June, and two that recovered from Cholera in June died from other diseases, one on the 3rd, and the other on the 9th of July. Still both of these cases are recorded in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera, which they were 182 dr. Barry's evidence. not. Now, if it be true that the new pestilence had attained its highest degree of malignancy in that prison on the 25th of June, was it not a bold undertaking in the so-called Sir D. Barry, by means of an official return that he knew to be incorrect, to attempt to prove to the world that not even one case of Cholera could have been in the prison at Coldbath-Fields on the very day when the fell poison had attained its highest degree of severity amongst the poor prisoners in that establishment? Let the reader recollect that all the deception then carried on was to enable three most wretchedly ignorant men to conceal their ignorance, and to retain their emolument as well as their power even at the expense of thousands on thousands of human lives. This is the truth, consequently, the reader, who knows the facts, may now say how much the world is indebted to the Surgeon of the prison, who supplied the Board of Health with the official but false documents that enabled Barry to attain his own selfish ends. Or to the then judge in the " Lancet," who gave the false judgments at that time, because he then held two appointments under the Central Board, with the prospect of a liberal future independence if he could only succeed in keeping his new masters in their places, no matter at what expense of human suffering, or of human life. The above were some, at least, of the fatal effects of the foul human inventions of the self-called animal 183 examination of dr. Barry's evidence. life philosophers, who continue to teach human beings to believe even to this hour that man is not merely an animal, but worse than a beast ; for the spiritual mind of a human being must be infinitely lower than the mind of a beast, if it be, as they say, a mere material, cerebral secretion, and identical with the electric life that the flesh or the muscular organs received from the blood through the medium of the material brain. But if the human mind be an intelligent spirit, then the material brain can no more be the giver of reason and judgment to the spirit in the head, than the liver can give the spiritual gifts of imagination and memory to the material bile. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the life that the flesh receives from the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. Or in other words, ye are not to put the electric life of the flesh which the cerebro spinal centres separate from the blood in the place of the human mind. For the intelligent spirit in the head can see and hear reason and judge, but the unintelligent life of the flesh can neither see nor hear reason, nor judge ; consequently, the unintelligent life of the flesh cannot be the intelligent mind or the spirit in the head, that lives not on blood nor on cerebral sensations, nor on material ideas imprinted in the material brain, but on mental knowledge, which is, in truth, the spiritual food or the daily bread of the human spirit, that lives on a knowledge of good and evil during its residence in this world. 184 STATE OF THE PRISON. CHAPTER 11. STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE 27TH OF JUNE, 1832. The account that had been given on the 1 2th of July, by Mr. Hoare, the then Chairman of the Visiting Committee to the Magistrates relative to the Cholera in Coldbath-Fields prison from the 3rd of June to the sth of July, and also by Mr. Rotch and the other Visiting Justices, of Dr. Barry's improper conduct in that prison on the 28th of June, was published in the " Medical Gazette," on the 14th of July, and put face to face with Dr. Barry's official documents. The facts that had been stated by Mr. Rotch, and the Surgeon's return of seventy-five cases on the 29th of June, gave a flat contradiction to the official statements that had been published by the then active member of the Central Board. When the true statement of these facts was published in the above journal, Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the then well-paid advocate pf the Central Board, was soon set to work to abuse the Magistrates in the " Lancet." But in addition to some very vulgar abuse of infinitely better men than 185 STATE OF THE PRISON. himself, the following communication from Dr. Barry, verified by O'Shaughnessy, was published in the "Lancet" on the 21st of July, exactly one week after Barry's official documents, and the opposite evidence of the eye-witnesses at the prison had been proclaimed to the world in the " Medical Gazette." Dr. O'Shaughnessy published Barry's statements, but he took care not to publish their antidote in the " Lancet," for the sub-editor of that journal had at that time substantial reasons for keeping the world in ignorance of the real facts. But, in place of Mr. Wakefield's statement of seventy-five cases of Cholera on the 28th of June, the following communication from Sir David Barry to the editor, was published in the " Lancet" of the 21st of July, and also in the " Medical Gazette," of the same date, accompanied with preliminary statements, most of which Barry himself knew to be untrue. "June 27, 1832. — Visited the Coldbath-Fields prison this day at 2 o'clock, accompanied by Dr. O'Shaughnessy. Learned from the Governor, in his office, that the population in the prison at this moment is about eleven hundred of both sexes, including twenty-one children ;* that the daily discharges and admissions is about thirty-five on the average, the whole composed of malefactors, vagrants and paupers ; that the daily allowance of food to an adult is, since the introduction * The exact number of prisoners on that day was eleven hundred and twenty-six. 186 state of the prison. of Cholera, 1^ lbs. of bread, 1 pint of gruel, 1 pint of ox-head soup, 6 ozs. of boiled meat four times a week, free of bone and weighed after having been boiled ; no soup on meat days. " That the deaths during Spring, Summer and Autumn months last year were only two ; during the whole of last year fifteen ; that since the 3rd of June there had been twelve deaths, all from Cholera.* That the present state of Cholera cases is, as reported to him (the Governor) : men, fifty-five cases ; women, fifteen cases. That he had not lately seen them ; he could be of no service, and was recommended not to go in the cholera- wards. "Walked with the Governor, Dr. Stevens and Dr. O'Shaughnessy round the gardens and other open spaces within the walls, and recommended the prisoners' roomsf to be thinned by encamping part of the inmates in the gardens. "Dr. Stevens, with his two assistants, J then conducted Dr. O'Shaughnessy and myself round his cholera-wards, in which there might have been thirty or forty patients, but not one in the collapse stage, though thirteen Cholera cases were said to have been admitted this morning. * There had been from the 3rd to the 27th of June inclusive, one hundred and sixty-two patients, and thirteen deaths from causes with which Barry was well acquainted. Now, if he knew from the Governor the number of cases, and if even twelve patients had died from Cholera from the 3rd to the 27th, if he knew also, that two patients had died on the 25th, then why did he not state the number of cases as well as the deaths ? But, above all, if he knew on the 27th of June that there had been twelve recent deaths, why did he so soon afterwards use what he knew to be an incorrect return from the Surgeon, to prove that not one case of Cholera could have been in the prison previously to the 29th of that month, and only two cases on that day ? f This advice was given before Dr. Barry had seen any one of the patients, or even one of the rooms in the prison. X I had only one assistant in the prison, not two. 187 STATE OF THE PRISON. " There" certainly was not a single case which, from any symptoms witnessed by me, I could point out as a case of Cholera.* I afterwards made the same observation to Dr. Stevens, in the presence of the Governor and Dr. O'Shaughnessy. I repeatedly begged Dr. Stevens to show a recent case, a case of confirmed cholera — a case of collapse. He replied it was unlucky I had come that day, that there was no case of collapse then in the house.f and remarked that, by his treatment he prevents their ever coming to the collapse stage. Yet twelve have died since the 3rd, two of whom died the day before yesterday, and he (Dr. Stevens) allows that several became collapsed after having been admitted into the hospital of the prison, J consequently, while under the saline treatment. " One boy, admitted this morning, in bed, has had neither vomiting nor purging, and presents a steady pulse. § * It is very doubtful if Dr. Barry had ever seen a case of Cholera in England until that day, and such was his dread of the Cholera poison, that it is equally doubtful if he had seen one case of Cholera during his residence in Russia. f It will be seen by referring to the table at page 90, that fourteen of the patients became collapsed on the 25th, six on the 26th, and two on the 27th of June, or twenty-two collapse cases on the 27th and the two preceding days. X I told him that the new practice prevented death even in many cases of severe collapse ; but here we have Barry making me assert that my treatment prevents the collapse in every case ; and then the next moment he makes me say that several cases became collapsed after admission, which was the case not only in several, but in many instances. § Knowing what we do now, we believe it possible that this boy was sent there for the purpose of enabling Barry to prove that this, said-tobe Cholera, was not a case of Cholera. It is rather a curious fact that thirty-six cases of Cholera were admitted on the 26th and 27th, but not one on the 28th, or the day of the official inspection ; the result was, 188 o STATE OF THE PRISON. " Two persons looked pale, sallow, and with sunken eyes, as if they had suffered some severe evacuations, but the pulse in both is good. Seltzer-water is given as common drink. Recommended grated openings to be constructed in the walls of the small yards and rooms on a level with the floors. The air in these places being more or less stagnant to the height of eight feet at least. " Dr. Stevens, during our visit to the prison, and afterwards on our way to the Regent's Park, repeatedly asserted that two-thirds of the patients which he showed us would have fallen into collapse, and most certainly v/ould have died, if subjected to the ordinary plans of treatment by calomel, opium, stimulants, &c. In short, that the present usual mode f treating this disease is absolutely poisonous. When asked if he had ever seen even one case of blue collapsed Cholera saved, that had been treated by the twenty grain doses of culinary salt and nothing else, he candidly admitted that he never had, for that he recommended in addition to the salt, large mustard poultices, hot saline and opiate enemata, and hot salt-and- water baths, friction, &c. " The substance of the above notes was written in the prison, or immediately after leaving it, and in their present state were read by Dr. O'Shaughnessy previously to the publication of Stevens' work on the Blood. (Signed) " D. Barry, M.D." " I have read the above notes, which I saw several days since, and have to state that they are accurate in every respect. (Signed) " W. B. O'Shaughnessy, M.D." " July 16, 1832." that two of the patients died from late admissions on the 29th. Consequently, there were three deaths within a few hours of the time when Barry on the 28th declared, on entering the first ward, there was not one case of Cholera in the whole prison. 189 . STATE OF THE PRISON. It was well known in 1832, that the individual who signed the above certificate to prove that there was not one case of Cholera in the prison at Coldbath-Fields on the 27th of June, was the very same Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who, after Drs. Prout and Turner, was one of the first to verify by experiment the accuracy of my views relative to the value of the electric saline matter in the blood. It was also the same gentleman from Ireland that Barry got to sign the above certificate, who, on the night of the 3rd of December, 1831, read a long paper at the Westminster Society, recommending that the saline treatment should be tried in Cholera in preference to all the other remedies that had hitherto been used with so little success, and even recommended that in bad cases, a saline fluid should be injected directly into the blood by the jugular vein. It was this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who, after the Cholera had broken out in Sunderland, in the beginning of November, 1831, went there in December to analyse the blood in the new disease, and by chemical analysis, verified the truth of my prediction, that when this was done the black blood in the last stage of the new pestilence would be found to have lost a great portion of the saline ingredients, the vital electricity in which is as essential to the continuation of life in the vascular organs as the vital electricity in the air that we breathe is necessary as the breath of life, or the cause of sensation in the material body. It was the same 190 STATE OF THE PRISON. Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who, in his own work on the analysis of the blood in Cholera, spoke of my discoveries relative to the healthy and diseased blood, as having rivetted the attention of all the scientific physiologists and practitioners, not only in Europe, but also in America, and brought forward the evidence of Dr. Prout, to prove that my recent discoveries contained the germs of improvements that would be of the last importance to the human race. It was known also to be that same Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who had only a short time before accused that same Dr. Barry of base malignity, grovelling ignorance, of cold-blooded and heartless prejudice, all of which good gifts he had used for the purpose of endeavouring to overshadow the lustre of the splendid researches of Mr. Wardrop, in another field, so as to render them unavailable to the sufferings of afflicted humanity. It was also known to be this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy who had published in the " Lancet" a communication from that same Dr. Barry, containing an announcement of the death, or the dying, of that patient from aneurism of the aorta, nearly two years previously to her death from another disease. The above are facts, for so long as Dr. O'Shaughnessy kept at a distance from Barry, and remained a free agent, he was the advocate of truth, for its own sake as well as for his own. But in the month of April, 1832, the serpent, whose appearance in the medical 191 STATE OF THE PRISON. world had been foretold by a prophet,* had now got his barbed hook in the mouth of his victim, and if on the 1 6th of July, Barry had got O'Shaughnessy to certify that there had not been even one living soul of any kind in the whole prison on the 27th of June, the one certificate would have been in reality nearly as true as the other ; but both the master and the man were then playing a desperate game, and each knew that he was trying to darken the world for the attainment of his own selfish ends. If this be true, and if the true light was then converted into darkness, even at the expense of thousands upon thousands of human lives, the world will at last know what to think of Barry's statement of not one case of Cholera in the whole prison on the 27th of June, and the above certificate of its truth. Dr. Barry states, that on the 27th of June, Dr. O'Shaughnessy and himself went round the Cholerawards. This assertion is not only untrue, but Barry knew when he made it, that it was an untruth, for on that day neither himself nor O'Shaughnessy entered into even any one of the ten Cholera-wards in the prison; on the contrary, such was Barry's dread of the poison, that the only part of the interior of the prison they visited on that day was the observation-ward, where there were many premonitory patients under observation, and some cases, like the * See Mr. Amesbury's warning to the Medical Profession in the "Lancet" of March 3, 1832, p. 801. 192 STATE OF THE PRISON. two men with the sunken eyes, from the cholerawards, that had been sent there because they were then considered as out of danger. It was only such cases as the above that were seen by Barry on the 27th, and his well-paid agent, Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who was then well known to be the writer of the editorial articles on Cholera that appeared in the "Lancet" of 1832. The fact of O'Shaughnessy's dependence on the Central Board, not only for so much of his then means of existence, but also for his future prospects in life, was so well known at that time, that this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy was publicly described in the " London Medical and Surgical Journal of 1832," as the well-paid stanch defender, and the long-tongued trumpeter of the Board of Health. The reader will see by referring to the table at page 90, that the cholera had attained its highest point of severity in the prison on the 25 th of June. Twenty-two new cases had been admitted, fourteen became collapsed, two died from late admissions, and three of the other patients admitted on the 25th are recorded in the prison journal as deaths from cholera. Thirty-six new cases were admitted on the 26th and 27th of June, consequently, when Dr. Barry asserted and Dr. O'Shaughnessy verified the assertion, that not one case of cholera had existed in the prison on the 27th of June, they not only 0 193 STATE OF THE PRISON. did so without proof, but even against their own evidence. For in his communication dated the 27th of June, Dr. Barry admits that the Governor had stated to him, in the presence of Dr. O'Shaughnessy, that seventy cases of cholera had been reported to Mr. Chesterton as the number of cases that were in the prison on that day, namely, the 27th of June. Now, after the admission of this declaration from the Governor, and if neither the master nor the man entered into any one of the ten infirmary wards where all the severe cases of cholera were, then, in the name of truth, how could Barry assert, or O'Shaughnessy give a certificate to prove, that not one case of cholera existed in the prison on the 27th of June? For eighteen new T patients were entered by Mr. Wakefield in the prison journal on the 26th, exactly the same number on the 27th, and eight of the patients became collapsed on these two days. But still Dr. Barry states that on the 27th of June, " I repeatedly begged Dr. Stevens to show a recent case, a case of confirmed cholera — a case of collapse. He replied it was unlucky I had come on that day, that there was no case of collapse then in the house." This was a gross misrepresentation of Barry's ; for the above observation was made to me, not as he asserts in the presence of the Governor, but on our way to the Regent's Park, when, in return, I told Barry that 194 o 2 STATE OF THE PRISON. if he had not seen a case of collapse in the prison on that day, it was merely because he did not wish to see them, and, therefore, he had refused to enter any one of the wards where the collapse cases were. It will be seen by referring to the table, page 90, that eight of the patients became collapsed on the 26th and the 27th. It will be seen also that Edward Kerry, who had been admitted very ill on the 25th, became collapsed on the 26th, and died on the 28th of June, or the day after Barry's first visit to the prison, but not to the patients. Thirtysix patients were admitted on the 26th and 27th, fourteen of these either w T ere or afterwards became collapse cases. Yet such was the magical effects of the new practice, that not one of the thirty- six patients were lost that were admitted on the 26th and 27th of June; but still it was the magical results of the new practice that led to its ruin. For it was the great success of the saline treatment, and false evidence, that enabled Barry and the " Lancet" to convince the world that not even one case of true Cholera could have existed in the prison previously to the 28th of June, and only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on that day. There are strong facts to prove that, until the morning of the 27th of June, Dr. Barry's great object was to get me to petition the Privy Council for a commission of inquiry. His object in doing 195 ! STATE OF THE PRISON. this at that time evidently was to take advantage of the fourteen recent deaths, to get a false return from the official Surgeon, to prove that these fourteen fatal cases were the only patients that had been in the prison since the commencement of the second irruption, all of which were mere premonitory cases ; and yet every one of these fourteen patients had died under the abominable new practice that was used by a sad impostor, in direct opposition to the legitimate, the scientific, and the masculine treatment recommended by the then well-paid army medical members of the Central Board. There is little doubt that the above was Barry's original plan ; for the fourteen recent deaths in fourteen patients, and five of them in one day, would have been strong evidence to prove that the new practice was worse than useless. But when this plan failed, in consequence of my refusing to follow the advice so earnestly given to me by O'Shaughnessy, in the " Lancet" for the 23rd, and by Barry himself on the 25th of June, and when Barry received intelligence on the 27th that not one of the patients had died on the 26th, it was then that the leader of the so-called Board of Health determined to effect the ruin of the new practice by an opposite plan. Consequently, on the morning of the 27th, when Barry was informed that the new treatment, that had been in active use since the 22nd, was 196 STATE OF THE PRISON. producing such magical results, that not one of the about seventy patients in the prison on the 26th had either died, or was likely to die, then, in place of giving me credit for the good that had been done by the new practice, the leader of the Central Board determined immediately to force an official inquiry, and then, by means of an official, but incorrect return from the Surgeon of the prison, and the agency of the " Lancet," which he knew could be made the circulating medium of untruth, to prove that there was not even one case of Cholera in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, either before or on the 28th of June. Consequently, if this fact could be proved, which it could easily be, it would then be clear that I, who pretended that my treatment was infinitely better than that recommended by the Central Board, must be a gross impostor, and a sad dealer in untruth. For I had told Dr. Barry that I had seen upwards of forty patients with Cholera in the prison on the 25 th of June ; but if it could be proved, on the official authority of the Surgeon, that not even one case of Cholera had been in the prison on that day, nor until the 28th, the world would then know what to think of my veracity. Mr. Wakefield did give on the 28th an official return to prove that not one case of Cholera had been in the prison on the 25th, and O'Shaughnessy, the then well-paid agent of the Board was brought forward to prove that not 197 STATE OF THE PRISON even one case of Cholera existed in the prison on the 27th of June. The laudable end of condemning the new practice was easily attained ; for Dr. Barry had only to get a paragraph put into the " Globe" of the 27th, to enable him to force an inquiry on the 28 th, and then to produce a certificate from that high authority, Dr. O'Shaughnessy, to enable him to prove that not one case of Cholera existed in the prison on the 27th, and this in addition to the official return from the Surgeon that not one case of Cholera had existed in that prison previously to the 26th, w r ould make it clear enough that I had told Barry a gross untruth when I said I had seen upwards of forty cases in that prison on the 25th. To enhance the value of O'Shaughnessy's evidence, Barry tells that the giver of it is the Dr. O'Shaughnessy whose Report on the Chemical Pathology of Cholera entitles him to such high consideration in everything connected with what has lately been denominated the saline treatment in Cholera ; but he does not tell us the mighty magic he had used, withal, to induce O'Shaughnessy to condemn the practice he had so lately praised, and to praise the man he had so lately condemned in that journal. The reader has already seen how utterly untrue the official fabrication was, that enabled Barry to prove that not one case of Cholera had been in 198 STATE OF THE PRISON. the prison on the 25th of June. It is proved also by the prison documents, that there were seventythree cases of Cholera in the prison at mid-day, on the 27th of June. Thirty-seven of these seventythree patients either were or had been collapse cases, and thirty-six of them had been preserved from the cold stage by the new practice. The reader has seen also Dr. Barry's admission, that the Governor had told him, in the presence of Dr. O'Shaughnessy, that about seventy cases of Cholera had been reported to him on that day. If this be confirmed by the prison documents, then Dr. Barry's assertion of not one case of Cholera in the prison on the 27th of June, though verified by Dr. O'Shaughnessy, was destitute of truth. Having now seen that about seventy was the number of the cases of Cholera on the 27 th of June, let us refer to Mr. Wakefield's official journal, to see whether Dr. Barry and his two self-chosen commissioners had truth on their side, when they declared that there were only two persons in the prison with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June ; or whether the Surgeon of the prison did or did not tell truth and shame the devil, when he reported to the Privy Council that not one case of Cholera existed in the prison on the 28th of June, but only twenty -nine patients with premonitory symptoms, that, to his great joy, were all in different stages of convalescence on that day. 199 STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE CHAPTER 111. ON THE STATE OF THE PATIENTS WITH CHOLERA THAT WERE IN THE PRISON ON THE 28TH OF JUNE, OR THE DAY WHEN THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL INSPECTORS INSPECTED THE PRISON, BUT NOT THE PATIENTS THAT WERE IN THE PRISON ON THAT DAY. The reader will recollect that the greater number of the Cholera patients that were in the prison on the 28th, had been under the most energetic treatment, both day and night, since early in the morning of the 22nd of June. The vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood is not only the stimulus to the life of the flesh, that causes the reaction in the fibres of the heart, but also in the fibres of every one of the capillary arteries in every organ in the human frame. The magical results of an extra supply of the vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood when used as an antidote for the narcotic poison that is the remote cause of Cholera, together with the sleepless watchfulness referred to by the 200 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. Governor in his letter to the " Medical Gazette," was that on the 28th of June, about seventy of the eighty-two patients then in the prison were pronounced by the Surgeon on that day to be better, or recovering, or much improved, eight were entered in the prison journal as not so well, three were declared as very doubtful, and one only of the eighty-two patients then in the infirmary of the prison was lost from Cholera ; namely, Edward Kerry, who died about nine o'clock on the evening of the 28th. Now if the above statement be correct, and if such was the real state of the Cholera patients in the prison on the 28th of June, and if about seventy of the eighty-two were out of danger on that day, or if there had been only fourteen deaths in the one hundred and eighteen severe cases that had been admitted from the 3rd to the 28th, then where was the necessity for Dr. Barry's official inquiry, or for Mr. Wakefield, when he reported to the magistrates the seventy-five cases of Cholera that were in the prison early on the morning of that day, to represent to the visiting justices that the prison was then in such a rotten condition from the Cholera poison as to induce the Visiting Justices to send their circularwarning, to inform the other Magistrates of the dangerous condition of the foul prison on the 28th of June ? For surely if sixty per cent, loss was then the average mortality in every other part of London, where the new practice was not used, if not one 201 STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE patient had died in the prison on the 26th or 27th, and if about seventy of the eighty-two Cholera patients then in the prison were free from danger on the 28th, if not one of the eight patients died that were not so well, and if only one of the eighty-two in the infirmary on that day did die, then, in the name of reason, where was the necessity for the overcharged statement that led to the circular- warning of the 28th of June? Or, if we believe Mr. Wakefield's statements to the Magistrates on the forenoon of the 28th, relative to the then rotten condition of the prison, of the seventy-five cases of true Cholera in the prison on the 28th, of the thirty-seven cases of collapse, and the twelve recent deaths, then what are we to think of Dr. Barry and his two Irish commissioners, who declared that the two men in Ward No. 1, were the only persons with the appearance of Cholera that were in the prison on that same day ? But, above all, what are we to think of the Irish return, if Mr. Wakefield did give a true statement to the Magistrates on the 28th of June of the then rotten condition of the prison, of the seventy-five cases of Cholera then in the infirmary wards, of the thirtyseven cases of collapse, of the twelve recent deaths, and the other patients that were then actually dying, of the extra allowance to those prisoners not yet attacked to keep up their strength, the smoking of tobacco to prevent infection, and the suspension of the sermon from the fear of mischief to their material 202 / DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. minds ? Now, if all this be true, then what must we think of the official return of the afternoon' of the same day to the Privy Council, made out according to order by that very same Mr. Wakefield, and in such a way as to lead to the belief in the minds of the higher authorities of the Privy Council that there was not even one case of Cholera in the whole prison on the 28th of June, or the day when Barry himself had been forced by Mr. Rotch to admit that two of the patients in the prison on that day were cases of true Cholera ? Or, on the other side, if death and destruction were -going on in the rotten prison on the 28th, why was Mr. Wakefield so happy to state to the Privy Council that all the patients in the prison on that day were only twenty-nine mere premonitory cases, all of which were in different stages of convalescence, and that too on the same day he had told a very different tale to the Visiting Justices about the rotten condition of that same prison in which there were then seventyfive cases of true Cholera ? But will Mr. Wakefield deny that when he wrote his official report on the 28th, to express his happiness to the Privy Council of twenty-nine premonitory cases only, and all in different stages of convalescence, that Edward Kerry, who had been admitted on the 25th of June, with a worn-out body from previous disease, was actually dying from Cholera at the very time when the 203 c STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE Surgeon was writing his official report to express his happiness to the Privy Council on the convalescent state of all the patients then in the prison ? The above return was written after the official visit on the 28th, yet Kerry died at a quarter before nine in the evening of that day; and this event was entered in the prison journal as a death from Cholera. But, besides this fatal case, Ann Smith and Matilda West both died from late admissions on the 29th of June. These two deaths were probably some of the many evil consequences of Barry's visit, who did not wish these recent collapse cases to be seen at the inspection. Richard Card, admitted on the 25th of. June, was dangerously ill on the 28th, and died on the 3rd of July, or the fifth day after the official inspection. David Holland, admitted also on the 25th of June, died on the 9th of July. Every one of these five cases were in the prison on the 28th of June, and every one of them is recorded in the prison journal as a death from Cholera. Now, if these five patients were all in the prison on the 28th of June, when all the cases there were reported at the Privy Council to be in different stages of convalescence, then the magistrates, the Governor, and even Mr. Wakefield himself, at the prison, were all proved at the Privy Council, by a false return, to have been most grossly in error by the same Mr. Wakefield, and that too on the same day, when for the attainment of certain 204 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. ends, he had made the magistrates believe that death was then doing his work of destruction in the foul prison ; even in spite of the saline treatment that was now found to be of no use in the severe cases then in the prison, consequently, that this new invention of a mere empiric ought to be given up in compliance with the wish of his new friends, the official medical magnates of the Board of Health. Now then, what is the real state of the facts in this affair? On the 28th of June there were eighty-*--two Cholera patients, when the Governor stated there were about seventy in the prison on that day. In my petition to the Privy Council I asserted that there had been at least from sixty to seventy cases of Cholera in the prison on the 28th of June, when the Government Inspectors reported only two persons with merely the appearance of Cholera in the prison on that day. But if a fair commission had been appointed when I sent my petition in September, not only the Visiting Magistrates, but the Governor, the Chaplain, Mr. Whitmore, and other eye-witnesses, but above all Mr. Wakefield's own verified prison journal, would have proved that the real number of Cholera cases in the prison on the 28th, was not merely two cases with the appearance of Cholera, as reported by Dr. Barry and his two self-chosen commissioners, nor twenty-nine w T ith mere premonitory symptoms, and all in different stages of convalescence, 205 i I STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE as reported by Mr. Wakefield to the Privy Council on the 28th, nor seventy-five as reported by Mr. Wakefield to the Magistrates on the same day, nor from sixty to seventy as asserted by myself to the Privy Council ; for if a fair inquiry had then been made, it would have been proved that eighty-two cases were the exact number of patients with Cholera that had been recorded in the official journal by the Surgeon of the prison on the 28th of June, thirty-seven of the eighty-two either were then or had been cases of collapse, with fourteen deaths in the one hundred and eighteen patients that had been admitted from the 2nd to the 28th of June. This is the true statement, as is proved by the verified journal of the prison for 1832; consequently, the opposite statements of twenty-nine mere premonitory cases, all in a state of convalescence on the 28th, or of not one case in the prison on the 27th, as certified by Dr. O'Shaughnessy, or of only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June, as certified by the Barry Commission, can now be proved to have been the offsprings of sin and the very reverse of the truth. It may be proper to state that, though the returns from the Surgeon of the prison to the Privy Council and the Board of Health were considered by these official authorities as officical documents, still every one of these returns rested solely on the authority of Mr. Wakefield ; for not one of these so-called official 206 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. returns was verified by the Chairman of the Visiting Justices, the Visiting Magistrates, the Governor, nor by any other authority connected with the prison. Consequently these returns were verified only by Dr. Barry, which he readily did, not only to the Privy Council, but also to the public ; for all of them appear to have been made out expressly for the attainment of his own unhallowed ends. On the other hand, Mr. Wakefield's prison journal was kept by the Warder of the prison, examined once every day at noon by the Surgeon, corrected if necessary, and then signed as correct by himself. The prison journal was also examined from time to time by Mr. Const, the then Chairman of the Magistrates, and when corrected if necessary it was also signed or verified by him ; still, at the Privy Council, Mr. Wakefield's non-verified returns were accepted as correct by the official authorities, merely because they were official, and therefore every one of the opposite statements that were made by the Magistrates, the Governor, or by any of the other parties connected with the prison, were considered by the higher authorities as wrong when they did not accord with the official returns of the official Surgeon. In 1832 I was a stranger in England, I held no official situation in this country, and therefore my evidence was considered light as a feather in the balance compared with the official testimony of the 207 ! STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE Surgeon of the prison ; particularly when Mr. Wakefield's testimony was verified by the medical official authorities of the Board of Health, and again verified by their judge in the " Lancet." Naked truth, however, is better in the end than error that can be got for gold. I was then convicted on evidence that was most foul, and by false judges, of having told Dr. Barry an untruth on the night of the 25 th of June. For if there had been only twenty-nine mere premonitory cases in the prison on the 28th, and if every one of these had been admitted since the 25th of June, it was then clear that there could not have been even one case of Cholera on the 25th, on the evening of which I told Barry I had seen upwards of forty cases in the prison on that day. We have seen, at page 175, Barry's evidence, namely, the official report of the Surgeon to prove that there had been only twenty-nine mere premonitory cases in the prison on the 28th, every one of which had been attacked since the 25th ; consequently, not one case of Cholera could have been in the prison on the day I told Barry I had seen upwards of forty cases there. We have seen also O'Shaughnessy's evidence to prove that not one case of Cholera had existed in the prison on the 27th of June. Let us now look at this same picture in another and a truer light, to see whether it was or was not true, that there were only twenty-nine patients in the prison with mere premonitory symp- 208 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. Toms of Cholera on the 28th, all of whom had been admitted since the 25 th, and all of which were in different stages of convalescence on the 28th of June. The article containing the announcement of upwards of one hundred cases and twelve deaths in that prison within the last twelve days appeared in the "Globe" on the evening of the 27th of June. This article was all that was then necessary to enable Barry to force an official inquiry on the 28th, the real object of which was to prove not only to the Privy Council, but to the whole world, that the new practice was a gross delusion on the public, and its author a sad dealer in untruth. This end was attained on the 28th, consequently, the medical members of the Central Board had nothing now to fear from any of the future statements of an individual who had been publicly condemned by an official Government Commission of having been a dealer in false statements, which I must have been when I told Barry I had seen upwards of forty cases on the 25 th, and again, that there were from seventy to eighty cases of Cholera in the prison on the 27th, nearly forty of whom either had been or then were cases of collapse. ..The reader has seen Dr. Barry's statements, to prove that not one case of Cholera could have been in the prison on the 25th or the 27th, and also of p 209 s STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June. But the following table made out from the official journal of the prison will show the names and state of every one of the eighty-two patients with Cholera that were in the prison at Coldbath-Fields on the day of Dr. Barry's official inspection. LIST OF PATIENTS WITH CHOLERA IN THE PRISON INFIRMARY AT COLDBATH-FIELDS ON THE 28TH OF JUNE, 1832. Name Premonitory Cases State of the KA-f^A of or of Patient Admitted. p atient. not Collapsed. Collapse, on that Day. June 16 Bridg. Grundy . . . Collapse. Better. „ 7 Sarah Pooley . . . ditto Recovering. „ 13 Ann Easton . . . ditto ditto ? 12 Sarah Moore ditto ditto „ 25 Julia Ingall . . . . ditto ditto „ 18 Jno. Akers . . . . . ditto ditto „ 18 F. dv Bois ditto ditto „ 18 Clara King . . . . ditto ditto ? 19 Jno. Murphy . . . . ditto ditto „ 20 Wm. Brown . . . . ditto Rather better. „ 20 Geo. Sudman . . . . ditto Recovering. „ 20 Susan Kelly . . . . ditto ditto „ 20 Ann Lambert. . . ditto ditto „ 21 E. Blacklock . . Not collapsed. . . ditto „ 21 Jos. Rogers . . ditto . . ditto „ 21 C. Bradley . . ditto . . ditto „ 21 Jos. James . . ditto . . ditto „ 22 M. Allen . . . ditto . . ditto „ 22 Jno. Musetto . . ditto . . ditto „ 22 T. Hollingsbury . ditto . . ditto „ 22 Wm. Barrett . . ditto . . Better. „ 22 Tho. Lawrence . ditto . . ditto „ 22 Jno. Harris . . . . ditto ditto „ 22 W. Hemmings . . . ditto Much improved. „ 22 Geo. Corney . . ditto . . ditto „ 22 Wm. Bryan . . ditto . . Better. „ 22 Sol. Taylor . . . . ditto ditto „ 22 Josh. Thorn . . . . ditto ditto „ 22 Rd. Jackson . . . ditto ditto 210 p 2 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. -? Name Premonitory Cases State of the .. Wl fj of or of Patient Admitted. p atieDt. not Collapsed. Collapse, on that Day. June 22 Jas. Holdwell . . . Collapse. Better. „ 23 J. Shuttleworth . . . ditto ditto „ 23 Geo. Pickering . . . ditto Not so well. „ 23 Jas. Simmonds . Not collapsed. . . ditto „ 24 Wm. Edwards . ditto . . ditto „ 24 Tho. Bleasden . ditto . . ditto „ 24 Eliza Williams . . . ditto ditto „ 24 Eliz. Ward . . . . ditto ditto „ 24 Ellen Connor . . . . ditto Improved. „ 25 Jos. Allen ... . . ditto ditto „ 25 Jas. Manby . . . ditto ditto „ 25 Hy. Cooper . . . ditto ditto „ 25 Rd. Card ditto ditto* „ 25 Wm. Davidson . . . ditto Better. „ 25 C. Dunbar... . . ditto ditto „ 25 Alex. Sessie . . ditto . . Recovering. „ 25 David Holland . ditto . . dittof „ 25 Wm. Rowland . ditto . . ditto „ 25 Ed. Kerry ditto Died 8-45 p.m.J „ 25 Alfred Miles . . ditto . . Recovering. „ 25 Jane Taylor . . . . ditto ditto „ 25 B. Phassey . . . . ditto Very doubtful. „ 25 A. Richardson . . . ditto ditto „ 26 Jno. Catanach . . . ditto ditto „ 26 Jno. Moore . . ditto . . Recovering. „ 26 Jno. S. Gower . ditto . . ditto „ 26 Jas. Sullivan . . ditto . • Better. „ 26 Jas. Gravener . ditto . . ditto „ 26 Tho. Brenner . . . ditto Not so well. „ 26 Tho. Green . . . . ditto ditto „ 26 Georgin. Harris . ditto . . Better. „ 26 Ann Morriss . . ditto . . ditto „ 26 Tho. Francis . . ditto . • ditto „ 26 Wm. King. . . ditto . . ditto „ 26 C. Morley . . . ditto . . ditto „ 26 S. Brown . . . ditto . . ditto ? 27 Wm. Thorn . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Godfrey Nokes . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Rd. Stewart . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Henry King . . ditto . . ditto * This patient recovered from Cholera, but died on the 3rd of July, from water in the chest. f This patient, David Holland, recovered from Cholera, but died from water in the chest, on the 9th of July. % This is the patient that died in less than four hours after Barry and his two self-chosen inspectors had left the prison, on the afternoon of the 28th of June. 211 STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE Name Premonitory Cases State of the When of or of Patient Admitted. p a ti cn t. not Collapsed. Collapse, on that Day. June 27 Henry Butcher . Not collapsed. . . Better. „ 27 Jos. Jones . . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Thos. Collins . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Jno. Pratt . . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Wm. White . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Jos. Green . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Thos. Stum . . ditto . • ditto „ 27 Car. Thornton . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Eliz. Leach . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Margaret Smith . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Eliz. Isaacs . . ditto . . ditto „ 27 My. Bloomfield . ditto . . ditto „ 27 Eliz. Graves . . ditto . . ditto Number of Cholera Patients in the Prison Infirmary on the 28th of June, 1832 82 Cases of Collapse 37 Cases of Non-Collapse 45 — 82 Died . 1 Recoveries . . . . . . . .81 — 82 The above is the exact number of Cholera patients that were in the prison on the 28th June, when Sir D. Barry and his two inspectors, by taking advantage of the magical effects of the new practice, could find only two persons with the appearance of Cholera, and the Surgeon of the prison reported to the Privy Council not one case of Cholera on the 28 th, but only twenty-nine persons with mere premonitory symptoms in the place of the eighty-two patients with true Cholera that were in the prison on that day, or in other words on the same day that the same Surgeon had reported seventy-five cases to the magistrates, 212 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. and gave such an account of the death and destruction then going on as to give origin to the circular warning to the other magistrates of the then dangerous state of that prison. The probable object of this gross exaggeration was to get the magistrates to put a stop to the new T practice that was now, as the Surgeon made it appear to be of no use. If this plan had succeeded, my assistant and myself would have left the prison, and then Barry and the Surgeon could have managed the cases in their own way. But if the above plan was their object, it was a miserable failure. For only fourteen deaths in one hundred and eighteen severe cases of Cholera, about sixty-five of which had been cases of collapse, was a mighty gain in comparison with the loss of from fifty to seventy per cent., which the Visiting Justices knew to be the then rate of mortality in every one of the establishments where the treatment recommended by the Central Board was adopted, and- therefore, not only Mr. Hoare, the Chairman, but Mr. Rotch and the other Visiting Justices, the Governor, and even the Chaplain of the prison all came forward of their own free will, to testify to the public the good that had been done by the new practice in the House of Correction in Coldbath-Fields, and that too at the time when the Surgeon of that prison was darkening the minds of the Privy Council, with official returns that 213 '' * STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE can now be proved to have been the very reverse of the truth, or the true light of the human mind. We have now seen the number of the cases of Cholera that were in the prison on the 28th of June. Four new cases were admitted on the 29th, three of these ought to have been admitted on the 28th, for every one of them when admitted were collapsed, and two of these three patients died on that day in consequence of late admission. But only two of these four new cases, and only one of the three deaths, were reported by Mr. Wakefield to the Privy Council that occurred in the prison at that time, although one of these three patients died about four hours after the official inspection, and the other two in less than eighteen hours after Barry had left the prison. For if all these fatal cases had been reported then, three deaths within twenty hours, in only two patients with the appearance of Cholera, must have appeared passing strange even to the non-medical members of the Board of Health. It was, therefore, probably to prevent this strange appearance of three deaths in only two patients with the appearance of Cholera, that only one of the three deaths was reported to the Privy Council, that occurred almost immediately after the official inspection. Two of the other patients that were in the prison on the 25th, the 27th and the 28th of June, died 214 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. in July. One of these, Richard Card, admitted on the 25 th of June, recovered from Cholera and died from water in the chest on the 3rd of July. The other, David Holland, was admitted on the 25th of June, recovered from Cholera, and died on the 9th of July from water in the chest, supposed to have been the effects of an old venereal disease. But, as if to increase the number of deaths under the new practice to the Magistrates, both of these cases are recorded in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera, which they were not, still, neither of these deaths were reported to the Privy Council; for, as already stated, both of these patients were in the prison with Cholera on the 28th, consequently, if these two deaths had been reported with the other three that occurred immediately after the official inspection, the whole would have made no less than five deaths in the two patients in Ward No. 1, who were the only persons that the Barry commissioners could see with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June.* Let the intelligent reader reflect on these plain facts, and then he will see the sad designs that the so-called Board of Health were then carrying on, to throw darkness on a discovery * In the table at page 92, Daniel Holland is put down as a death on the 3rd of July ; but this is an error, for he was dismissed cured on that day. Daniel and David Holland were both admitted on the 25th of June. 215 STATE OF THE PRISON ON THE . ¦¦ '' . that in 1832 reduced the mortality from Cholera in that prison to less than 1 per cent, in the four hundred and sixty-five cases during the year of its first trial at Coldbath-Fields. I have proved, on the authority of the prison journal, that such had been the magical effects of the new practice from the morning of the 22nd, that on the 28th of June about seventy-one of the patients were pronounced by the Surgeon to be out of danger on that day, eight were considered as still doubtful, and three were put down as very bad. Now, if such was the true state of affairs in that prison on the 28th of June, what are we to think of Barry's statement of only two persons with the appearance of Cholera being in the prison on that day, or of the official report of the Surgeon of the prison to the Privy Council, of not one case of Cholera in that prison on the 28th of June. The facts already stated will go far to prove, in the mind of every intelligent reader, the existence of a conspiracy organized in June, 1832, the object of which was to enable the then three members of the Central Board to retain their places, their pay and their power, even at the expense of thousands on thousands of human lives. The so-called Sir David Barry was the root of the evil, for he not only acted on, and was the cause of the evil actions in the other evil actors, but Barry was also the 216 DAY OF THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTION. official judge who gave the false judgment against the new practice, first to the Privy Council and soon afterwards to the world. Mr. Wakefield was not only to permit the new practice to fail in a sufficient number of cases, but also to supply the Board, and above all the Right Honourable, but the truly indolent members of the Privy Council with certain official, but false returns, to prove that the new practice was, of no use. Dr. O'Shaughnessy, its former advocate, was now not only a witness against the new treatment, but also the advocate, in the " Lancet," of Barry, and others of its fellest foes. It was also this same well-paid servant, or, as he was then called, the long-tongued trumpeter of the Central Board, who was the judge that gave the decision in the " Lancet" in favour of the Board, not in his own name, but in the name of the Editor of that journal, who was supposed to be unconnected with either party, and professed himself to be at that time the true friend of the profession, and a lover of truth. There were then many other minor agents employed by the Board to aid their cause, by foul means, but Dr. Barry, the false judge, Mr. Wakefield, the experimenter and the giver of the incorrect returns, and Dr. O'Shaughnessy, their long-tongued trumpeter in the " Lancet," were the then active doers of the bad work that enabled the so-called Sir David Barry to be the attain er of most unhallowed ends. 217 STATE OF THE CHOLERA PATIENTS We have seen that until the month of April, Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the then judge in the " Lancet," was a warm advocate of the new practice in the new disease. We have also seen that on the 25 th of April, when the Surgeon of the prison had seen the new practice put to the test of fair experiment in nearly one hundred cases, he could scarcely find words strong enough to express the high opinion he had formed of the new, or the saline treatment, in the true Cholera. The means that were used by the then medical members of the Central Board to convert the judge in the " Lancet" from being the warm friend, to become the mortal enemy of what he knew to be an important improvement in medicine, were sufficiently transparent. But, however visible the effects may be, still, what the nature of the negociations were that had taken place between the Surgeon of Coldbath-Fields Prison and the medical staff of the Central Board, is not so clear. But that such a negociation did take place, is sufficiently obvious from the nature of every one of Mr. Wakefield's official, but false returns to the Privy Council, as well as to the Central Board. But the time when the private understanding betwixt the official Surgeon of the prison and the Barry party did take place, may be considered as partly proved from the light contained in an official letter from Mr. Maclean, addressed to the Boards of Health 218 IN APRIL AND MAY. in Dublin and Cork, from which it appears that Mr. Wakefield, in the beginning of May, must have given a directly contrary official statement, in a private letter, to the Board of Health, to that contained in his letter to the public of the 25 th of April, in the " Medical Gazette." Consequently, from the facts contained in the letter from the Board, we may infer that Mr. Wakefield's first defection from the new practice took place between the 25 th of April and the sth of May. The letter from Mr. Maclean runs as follows : " Central Board of Health, Council Office, Whitehall, "September 11, 1832. " Sir, " On the sth of May last, by order of the Central Board of Health, I enclosed you a copy of a letter addressed to this Board by Mr. Wakefield, Surgeon of the Coldbath-Fields Prison, in this metropolis, covering details of three cases, in various stages of Cholera, treated by the saline powders recommended by Dr. Stevens, with a view to a trial being made of that plan in Ireland. " I am now desired to request that you will have the kindness to transmit to me, at your earliest convenience, a short outline of any information you may have obtained as to the result of the saline practice in Ireland. " I am, &c, (Signed) '•' W. Maclean." ¦ To the Secretary of the Central Board of Health, Dublin. Ditto ditto Cork." 219 STATE OF THE CHOLERA PATIENTS This communication is followed by four letters, denouncing the saline treatment as useless, and in some cases perfectly inert. In giving the same documents, however, the "Lancet" for October 6, 1832 — 3, introduces them as follows : "UNSUCCESSFUL TRIAL OF DR. STEVENS' SALINE POWDERS IN MALIGNANT CHOLERA. "The Secretaries of the Boards of Health in Cork and Dublin having had the details sent to them, by the Central Board in London, of three cases in various stages of Cholera, drawn up by Mr. Wakefield, Surgeon of the Coldbath-Fields Prison, which were treated by the saline powders recommended by Dr. Stevens, with a view to a trial being made of that plan in Ireland, answers have been returned to the Secretary of the London Board, from which the following are extracts." [The same letters follow after this as were given in the "Medical Gazette," and which letters it is not too much to suppose Sir D. Barry knew beforehand would be in opposition to the new practice, because the writers knew that the new treatment was in direct opposition to his own.] It is necessary here to mark the dates of these documents. The letter of Mr. Wakefield in the " Medical Gazette," announcing the successful results of the new practice in nearly one hundred 220 IN APRIL AND MAY. cases, is dated 25th of April, 1832, and in that of Mr. Maclean, it appears that on the sth of May he encloses the communication of the same Mr. Wakefield, " covering details of three cases." Why, up to April the 25 th, by his own letter, Mr. Wakefield had had nearly one hundred cases in the prison, and of these, to quote his own words, " twenty-five cases of decided Cholera, where the patients were in a state of collapse" treated by the salines, with only three deaths, and " two of these were cases of relapse," or deaths from premature dismissal; while, according to the record in his own prison journal, it appears that from the sth of April to the sth of May there were exactly one hundred and fifty-six cases, one hundred and fifty-two of which had been treated on the new plan, with only one death from Cholera to the sth of May. Now, if Mr. Wakefield's statement of the 25th be true, of nearly one hundred cases to that date, how was it that in a week afterwards, viz. : the beginning of May, he could only muster three cases, by the " details" of which to move the so-called Central Board of Health to recommend the new plan of treatment in the Sister-Isle ? On the stormy night of the 21st of June, I had told Mr. Wakefield that I intended to leave England for Denmark in the beginning of October : the letters from Ireland were not published until the 221 STATE OF THE CHOLERA PATIENTS • 6th of that month, probably the parties concerned resting secure in the hope that what had been written privately for the Central Board of Health by Mr. Wakefield, in the beginning of May, would never meet the public eye, at least until after I had left this country for a distant land. We say again, if Mr. Wakefield had written truthfully in his letter to the "Medical Gazette" of the 25 th of April, signed by himself, and the truth of which is confirmed by the prison documents, as well as by other still living authorities, it is clear that if what he said there was true, then the return that he gave to the Board of Health in the beginning of May must have been untrue. Still, had the above been the only inconsistency to be found in Wakefield's conduct, we might pass it over (though that would demand some stretch of charity) as an inadvertency. The reader, however, will afterwards find that not merely one, but every one of the official returns that the Surgeon of the prison sent to the Privy Council and the Central Board, were not only wilfully, but shamefully incorrect. The then sub- editor of the "Lancet" had sense enough to see that the date of Mr. Maclean's communications to Dublin and Cork, might lead to a discovery of unfair dealing on the part of the Surgeon of the prison, and therefore he very prudently leaves out the date of the sth of May. For 222 IN APRIL AND MAY. Dr. O'Shaughnessy knew well that in the beginning of May the new treatment had been used not merely in three, but in upwards of one hundred cases. But the Editor of the " Medical Gazette" was not at that period so deeply versed in the secrets of the Central Board, consequently he published the above documents as they had been sent to him. It will be seen at page 107 that Sir David Barry, in the official papers transmitted to the " Medical Gazette," which appeared on the 14th of July, admits that the Board had received a report from Mr. Wakefield that there had been twenty-four cases of Cholera during the first irruption, from the 2nd to the 26th of April. Why, therefore, knowing this, as they must have done at the end of April, from Mr. Wakefield's official report, did the medical members of the Central Board send over only three cases to Dublin on the sth of May . For as the last death during the first irruption occurred on the 24 th of April, and as Mr. Wakefield's letter was published on the 28th of that month, the members of the Central Board must have known before the end of April that the saline treatment had been tried in about one hundred cases, twenty-five of which had been cases of collapse, with only one death. If this true statement had been candidly made to the Boards in Dublin and Cork, it might materially have influenced them in the treatment 223 STATE OF THE CHOLERA PATIENTS they would have pursued ; and had they given the new practice a fair trial, there is little doubt that it would have rendered the mortality but trifling in the disease that was then raging in these cities. But this was not the result that was wished for by the then active member of the Central Board, consequently, his agents in Ireland acted as much in obedience to his will as the Surgeon of the prison at Coldbath-Fields, or his then witness and judge in the London " Lancet," who well knew how to deceive the world when it could serve for the attainment of a liberal independence for the rest of his life. The only cases during the first irruption to which the number three is applicable, is the three cases that were said to have died under the new practice. It is therefore probable that these were the three cases selected by Barry to send to his agents in Ireland. But if it be true that Mr. Wakefield reported only three cases to the Central Board in the beginning of May, then, even if we had no other proof, this one fact of three cases of Cholera in the place of many more than one hundred in the beginning of May, would of itself, to our mind, be evidence enough to show that the Central Board had found means to induce Mr. Wakefield, by a private letter, to try to undo within one little week the good that he had done by his letter to the "Medical Gazette," on the 25th of April, 1832. 224 IN APRIL AND MAY. We have seen that from the first commencement of the new disease until the 25th of April, the conduct of Mr. Wakefield had been beyond all praise, and had he continued in the same track myriads of human beings, yet to be born, would bless his name for the good he had done to the human race. But when Mr. Wakefield's letter of the 25th of April was published, the agents of Barry were soon set to do their evil work ; for they soon made the Surgeon believe that I was intriguing with the Magistrates to get his situation in that prison, consequently, that his own safety depended on the ruin of the new practice. They insinuated that I owed my influence with the Magistrates to that success, and, therefore, nothing but its ruin could prevent my success in this ungrateful plan. The result of this contrivance was, that as soon as this poison had produced its evil effects in Mr. Wakefield's mind, Dr. Barry found no difficulty in getting the Surgeon, not only to try to undo all the good he had previously done, but, when necessary, to make experiments on the poor patients, and, when required, to give false returns to the Privy Council. We believe that these returns were given under the belief that they would enable Dr. Barry to effect the ruin of the new practice, and this result would enable the Surgeon of the prison to get rid of a treacherous rival, who pretended to be a grateful friend. Such we believe was Q 225 _ MEANS EMPLOYED BY DR. BARRY. one of the many means then used by the Board party : the poison acted, and we know the results. In his first letter to the "Medical Gazette," Mr. Wakefield asserted that the truth of his statement, namely, of only one death in nearly one hundred cases, could easily be authenticated, but this was the very thing that Dr. Barry wished to prevent, and we may judge of his success when we find him sending only three cases to Ireland, in the place of the one hundred and forty-nine cases that had been in the prison from the sth of April to the Ist of May. Drs. Barry and O'Shaughnessy were willing agents in their attempts to extinguish a new and a true light. But still, all their efforts would have been utterly powerless had it not been for the aid they received from the Surgeon of the prison. First, by the many attempts that w 7 ere afterwards made to make the new practice a failure, in the very prison where it had been so successful during the first irruption, in April and May. Secondly, by the official returns that were given to the Privy Council and the Central Board, every one of which can now be proved to have been most abominably incorrect. But still it was these false returns that enabled Barry to triumph over truth, and to retain his power when, had the truth been told, he ought to have been disgraced for ever. It was also the means that were used by the Central Board that 226 Q. 2 TO DECEIVE THE WORLD. converted Dr. O'Shaughnessy from a humble reporter in the "Lancet," that could deceive as well as cut when deception was profitable, into an actor in India, with a liberal independence for the rest of his life. Such was the beginning of his profitable career ; but when his conscience awakes, eternal regret for the evil he has done will be the end. The prison journal for June, 1832, shows clearly that nine of the patients admitted from the 14th to the 30th of that month, were lost from late admission into the infirmary. It is also true that the five patients who died on the 22nd, and the one on the 24th, were lost, as Mr. Wakefield knows, from an experiment; Dr. O'Shaughnessy, at that time, knew just as well what was then going on in the prison as the Surgeon himself, consequently, on the 14 th of June, when the mischief commenced, it is probable that O'Shaughnessy began to write, on the same day, the following leader for the " Lancet," that was published on the 23rd of June, or the day after the five patients had been lost within twentyfour hours, and also when many of the other patients then in the prison were so dangerously ill, that it was then doubtful if they would recover even under the new practice. "If the causes of the epidemic Cholera have given rise to multifarious speculations, and if its pathological characters have perplexed all the reformers of nomenclature, the treat- 227 MEANS EMPLOYED BY DR. BARRY ment proposed for the cdre of this terrible malady has not been less the theme of controversy, and a profitable source of trade to impudent quacks, and other unprincipled pretenders to a knowledge in the science of medicine. " Did we credit a tithe of the assertions ostentatiously put forward, with all the impress of time and place, of the asserted success of a thousand alleged remedies, our wonder would be that the Cholera has not long since been spirited off to the Red Sea, or some such hospitable asylum for banished humbug. Not a journal, medical, religious, political, or literary, is printed for circulation without containing a cure, a ' certain cure' for the Cholera, with statistical tables of the results, specifying when and where, names, dates, &c, &c, in a rank and file accuracy, well calculated to carry home irresistible conviction to the uninformed mind. As this point is of some importance to be proved, we may appeal for our evidence to the history of the disease, from its irruption in Jessore to its present state in London. We find that in Bengal the moxa worked such wonders that scarcely a patient died on whom it was fairly tried. The drogue ancere was equally fortunate in Bombay. Acupuncturation saved every one in Japan. A combination of calomel and opium was a specific in Calcutta. In Persia, cold water did all that was required. In Cronstadt the actual cautery again became ascendant. At Constantinople, out of two hundred patients, Dr. M'Guffog cured one hundred and ninety- six by mere venesection. We know not in how many places burnt cork, given in milk, at once dispelled the disorder ; and our journal would hardly contain the names alone of those districts where ' pure brandy' was a never-failing panacea. What inference can we derive from the contemplation of these varied statements ? Either the disease is more contemptible than a colic, or else the narrators have exaggerated the circumstances of 228 TO DECEIVE THE WORLD. their pretended successes ; for that one and the same malady could be amenable to such a multitude of dissimilar specifics, is contrary to the evidence of general pathology and of common sense. " That the Cholera is the harmless bugbear which one branch of our inference would make it, we cannot, unfortunately, admit, while we recollect the scenes witnessed in this metropolis, and while we bear in mind the melancholy statistical facts collected during its progress over Asia and Europe. We are consequently left to the disagreeable alternative of confessing that the truth has not been rigidly adhered to in the reports which have been issued during the progress of the terrible epidemic. Under such circumstances it is manifest that, for the future, the merits of any novel mode of treatment of Cholera will be canvassed by the medical profession in a spirit of the most severe and cautious inquiry. The most scrutinizing scepticism will prevail, and no fact will be admitted until demonstrated by evidence of a perfectly incontrovertible description. "We are led to these observations by a knowledge of the fact, that two or three gentlemen (all of whom, we believe, to be strictly honourable and very meritorious individuals) are now engaged in the prosecution of clinical experiments in London and its vicinity, on the efficacy of saline remedies in the treatment of this disease. They have already, we see by the public prints, submitted to the Central Board of Health, details of great and constant successes. The county magistrates have voted two of the gentlemen a handsome pecuniary reward for the reputed triumph of the plan in the Coldbath- Fields Prison. In short, as far as we have heard of the matter, the results of "the treatment are extremely encouraging. Notwithstanding, however, our conviction of the honourable intentions and professional skill of the gentlemen engaged 229 . i DR. O'SHAUGHNESSY'S ADVICE. in these experiments, we should still do them a serious wrong, did we hold out to them any expectation that the results of their experience will ever be received by the profession, if their clinical experiments continue to be conducted in the manner at present pursued. Where so much fame is to be acquired, where profit is contingently to be obtained, it cannot be expected by the chief actors that the spirit of envy will slumber. The whisper of detraction will doubtless be heard in many corners ; the malicious will insinuate, that Dr. Stevens and Mr. Wakefield exaggerated trifling cases, in order to enhance the value of their efforts. The utterly sceptical will openly declare, that the evidence of two or more remunerated gentlemen is not to be depended on. In short, we regret to state our conviction, that the future publication of Dr. Stevens's experiments will excite a clamour which will probably defeat his benevolent intentions, unless he abide by the timely counsel of those who wish him every success in his pursuits. The only course left open for Dr. Stevens's adoption, is to memorialise the Government to appoint a medical commission to examine minutely into, and report upon, his mode of treatment of this disease. This commission should be composed of men familiar with the disease and its various modes of treatment ; above all, of men pledged to no theory, men of indisputable integrity, and well known to the profession. The commission should sedulously watch, and faithfully record, the effects produced by this remedy in an extensive series of cases, and they should unflinchingly report the issue of their inquiries. The Government could not venture to refuse to appoint the proposed commission. Slumbering as we are ona volcano of pestilence, ignorant of the hour when the calamities of Paris may be re-enacted in London, that Government would be guilty of abandoning one of the highest interests of humanity, if they turned a deaf ear to the request. It is their 230 DR. O'SHAUGHNESSY'S THREAT. imperative duty to investigate the matter, if it can be done without approach to inquisitorial meddling with the privileges of the physician. Indeed, the request being made by Dr. Stevens, it would be a full answer to any such objection. " If, as we take him to be, Dr. Stevens is a truly upright and honourable practitioner, we shall not urge this advice in vain. Should the Government reject his application, we doubt not that a most trustworthy volunteer commission could be readily formed at his desire. Our proposal is not an innovation in medical customs. In France, the Institute, or the Academic de Medecine, appoints commissions to investigate the effects of all proposed specifics, and the disinterested verdict of the reporters justly guides public opinion on the merits of this question. Should Dr. Stevens follow this example, we can assure him that he will reap a reward of fame directly in proportion to his merits. Let him, on the other hand, spurn the adoption of such a suggestion, and this Journal will at least enter its protest against an unqualified recognition of his pretensions." The above communication, for my edification, was published in the " Lancet" on the 23rd of June, or the day after five of the patients had died in the prison within the preceding twenty-four hours. Two other patients were lost on the 23rd from late admissions. Another that had been admitted on the 20th never rallied from the effects of two days' bad practice, and died on the 24 th ; and two other cases were lost from late admissions on the 25th. To account for the many losses from late admissions, I may here state that from first to last I had nothing to do with 231 THE CAUSE OF DR. BARRY'S either the admission or dismissal of the patients. I had to take the cases as they were given to me by the Surgeon, or those who were acting under his orders, and no man knows to what an extent the mischief from late admissions, foul air and underhand practices might have reached, had it not been for the return of the Governor on the 25 th of June : for ten of the patients had been lost during his ten days' absence, and two more died on the day of his return to the prison. But immediately after Mr. Chesterton's return, the most active means were used to obtain for the patients not only earlier admissions, but better attendance, and also a purer air to breathe as the breath of their lives. For it is true that the electric life of the body, or the cause of bodily sensation, derives its origin not from the brain, but from the air that we breathe as the breath of life. But this divine truth is not yet known to the self-called human philosophers, who continue to this day to prefer the knowledge of man to the wisdom of God ; and we know the result. When we reflect seriously on all the facts, there can be little doubt that up to the 25 th of June Dr. Barry's object was to get me to petition for an official inquiry, and then to obtain an official certificate from the Surgeon of the prison, that only a few premonitory cases had existed in the prison from the 3rd to the 26th of June. Dr. Barry could 232 CHANGE OF TACTICS. also find other means to prove that such was the total worthlessness of this new practice, that no less than thirteen of these mere premonitory cases had been lost, in consequence of following a new practice that stood in direct opposition to the poison-topoison, or, as O'Shaughnessy called it, the more masculine means recommended by his new paymasters, or the legitimate members of the so-called Board of Health. If I had followed the advice given to me by O'Shaughnessy, on the 23rd of June, it is clear that the new practice would have been strangled soon after its birth, and that too by the three individuals, of all others, who had the firmest conviction of its sterling worth ! But this plan failed, in consequence of my refusal to petition for an inquiry at that time, and, therefore, this failure soon led to a complete change in the tactics of the opposite party. For on the morning of the 27th, when Dr. Barry received information that the return of the Governor, the new treatment, and a purer air were producing the most magical effects in the prison, when he found that not one death had occurred on the 26th, and also that every one of the eighteen patients admitted on that day would certainly recover — it was on the receipt of this unwelcome intelligence, that the then leader of the Central Board determined <_. 3 233 DR. BARRY'S CHANGE OF TACTICS. to effect the ruin of the rival practice, by proving to the world, by means of a certificate from his then well-paid agent, Dr. O'Shaughnessy, but above all, by means of an official return from the Surgeon to prove that not one case of Cholera had existed in the prison from the commencement of what was called the second irruption until the 28th of June. When Barry had determined to act on this opposite, but now safer plan, it is probable that the first thing he did on the 27th was to send the anonymous article to the " Globe," which was all that was now necessary to enable him to force an official inquiry on the following day. This plan was successful, the commission was appointed ; we have seen, however, that Mr. Rotch compelled the Barry commissioners to admit the existence of two cases of Cholera on the 28th. But still the official return from the Surgeon of the prison enabled Dr. Barry to prove that not one case of Cholera had existed in the prison on or before the 28th, and O'Shaughnessy's certificate enabled him to prove that not one case of Cholera had existed in the prison on the 27th of June. The reader has now seen ample evidence to show that Barry's proofs were the foul opposites of the truth, fabricated on that occasion by a class of individuals who for self-sin are so cursed with selfignorance, that even to this hour they do not know 234 DR. BARRY'S ACCOUNT OF THE CHOLERA. what knowledge, or truth, or the true life is, and, therefore, their creed is, " Let us eat, drink, and be merry to-day, for to-morrow we may die." It will be seen at page 104, that in his communications to the " Lancet" and the " Medical Gazette," Dr. Barry asserts that no new case of Cholera had occurred in the prison from the 29th of June to the 12th of July. This voluntary assertion was not founded on any return from the Surgeon of the prison, but on the fact that no return had been received from Mr. Wakefield from the 29th of June to the 12th of July. Consequently, if Dr. Barry's assertion be true, the Cholera must have ceased to exist in that prison on or about the 30th of June. If the above statements be true, and if the proofs be equally correct that prove its truth, then it appears that from the 2nd of June to the 12th of July, there were only two persons with the appearance of Cholera in the prison on the 28th, other two cases on the 29th of June, and only one death on that day. Consequently, only four premonitory cases, with one death, was the mighty result of the much-boasted new practice during the second irruption, which, according to Barry, had commenced on the 28th, and ceased to exist two days afterwards, that is on or about the 30th of June. This is the official side of the picture, as painted by Dr. Barry 235 . UNTRUTH OF DR. BARRY'S STATEMENT and his agents ; but let us now look at the same picture in another and a truer light. If the reader will refer to the official list of admissions that begins at page 90, he will find that from the 29th of June to the 12th of July inclusive, exactly forty-three new cases of Cholera had been admitted into the Cholera infirmary. Eleven of these admissions were cases of collapse, and five of the patients then in the prison died from the 28th of June to the 12th of July. Consequently, if not one of the forty-three new cases was reported to the Central Board, and if only one of the five deaths that occurred from the night of the 28th of June to the 1 2th of July was reported to the Privy Council, it was probably because five deaths, in only two patients with the appearance of Cholera, as stated by Dr. Barry, might have appeared as strange to the non-medical members of the Privy Council, as five deaths in twenty-nine mere premonitory cases, as stated by Mr. Wakefield, all of whom, he was happy to state, were in different stages of convalescence on the afternoon of the 28th of June, or the day of Barry's official inspection of the condition of the prison, but most certainly not of the state of the eighty-two patients that were in the prison on that day, otherwise he would not have put two persons with the appearance of Cholera in the place of the eighty-two Cholera patients that 236 EVIL RESULTS OF DR. BARRY'S CONDUCT. were in the prison on the 28th of June, nor these two persons in the place of the three hundred and thirty-nine patients that were in that prison during the second irruption, from the 3rd of June to the 27th of December, 1832. We are not dealers in the human invention of a material or a carnal mind, nor in the sinful trash of either cerebral sensations or material ideas imprinted by images in the material brain. For true knowledge is the gift that our mind receives through the medium of its own mental organs, and its own mental knowledge of the scenes that occurred in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields, in 1832, gives to our mind a firm belief that the conduct of Barry and his agents at that period, supported as they were not only by the then deluded Privy Council, but by almost all the medical journals of that day, has since not only retarded the progress of a truer knowledge, but cost the lives of thousands on thousands of the human race. From the year 1832 to a late period circumstances led me to be a weary wanderer on a far distant foreign strand ; on my return, after so long an absence, and finding that scarcely any one of the false statements made by Barry and his party, in 1832, had been fairly contradicted to this day, circumstances led me to seek for proofs, and having now got possession of the official evidence, and knowing the deep roots of the evil that has been 237 UNTRUTH OF DR. BARRY'S STATEMENTS. done, we feel it is a duty we owe to humanity, as well as to ourselves, to endeavour to show, as clearly as we can, the bad work that was done by Barry and his well-paid agents, or rather his deluded victims, in 1832, to deceive the world on a subject that is, for more reasons than one, of intense importance to the whole human race. We have seen that in 1832 Dr. Barry proved, by the evidence of Mr. Wakefield, that not one case of Cholera had existed in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields previously to the 26th of June ; he proved also, on his own personal authority, that not even one case of Cholera existed in the prison on the 27th, and this statement, as we have seen at page 189, was verified by his then well-paid agent, Dr. O'Shaughnessy — his then not only witness, but judge in the " Lancet." Now, if the reader will refer to Dr. Barry's second communication to the "Lancet," at page 187, he will find, on his own admission, that on that very day the Governor of the prison had told Barry, in the presence of this same Dr. O'Shaughnessy, that seventy cases of Cholera had been reported to him (the Governor) as the number of patients with Cholera that were in the prison on the 27th of June, and also that he had been recommended (probably by Mr. Wakefield) not to go into the Cholera wards. Now, if the Governor had told Barry, in the presence of O'Shaughnessy, that seventy of the prisoners were 238 UNTRUTH OF DR. BARRY'S STATEMENTS. suffering from Cholera on the 27th of June, and if on that day neither the master nor the man went one step farther into that prison than the Observation Ward, to ascertain the correctness of the Governor's statement, then Barry had no more right to assert, in the "Lancet" of the 21st of July, than O'Shaughnessy had to certify, that not one case of Cholera existed in the prison on the 27th of June; or if the Surgeon of the prison had reported to the Governor seventy cases of Cholera on that day, what right had the same Surgeon to report to the Privy Council on the 28th, that not one case of Cholera had existed in that prison on the 26th, the 27th, or the 28th of June? Or if there were eighty-two cases of Cholera in the prison on the 28th, then what right had Barry and his two self-chosen commissioners to assert, that the two persons in Ward No. 1 were the only patients that could be found in the prison with the appearance of Cholera on that day? Or if forty-three new cases of Cholera had been admitted from the 29 th of June to the 12th of July, what right had Dr. Barry to assert, on his own authority, the wholesale untruth, that not even one case of Cholera had occurred in that prison from the 29 th of June to the 12th of July, 1832? We trust that we have now said enough to prove that Dr. Barry's statements relative to the 239 UNTRUTH OF DR. BARRY'S STATEMENTS. Cholera in June and July were not true ; but as these false statements have got a deep root, in addition to our other proofs, and on purpose to show that Barry's official statements were the reverse of truth, we have selected the following cases, written by an eye-witness, of every one of the patients that were in the prison at that time ; for these cases will show whether Mr. Wakefield's statement, of not one case of Cholera having been in the prison on the 25th of June was or was not the reverse of the truth ; and whether Barry's statement, certified by O'Shaughnessy, of not one case on the 27th of June, was or was not most fouly untrue. But above all, the cases will show the utter worthlessness of Barry and his two self-chosen commissioners, when they certified, not only to the Privy Council, but to the whole world, that there were only two patients in the prison with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June, or the day of the official inspection, when the inspectors visited a certain number of the wards, but omitted to examine either the journal of the prison, or the patients themselves, to know the real state of the eighty-two patients with Cholera that were in the prison on the 28th of June. These cases will show, also, whether or not the disease disappeared on or about the 30th of June, and then, after that day, ceased to exist altogether in that prison. 240 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. "John Murphy, aged 42, was admitted into the Infirmary on the 19th of June, at seven a.m. (having yesterday been discharged from the first Infirmary recovered from dropsy). On his admission this morning he had griping pains iv the intestines with purging, an icy coldness of the extremities, nausea at the stomach with vomiting, eyes weak, countenance inanimate, cramps very distressing, voice scarcely audible, and pulsation at the wrist not perceptible. " The saline treatment was immediately commenced, as also the mustard applications, injections (saline) and frictions. The saline powders were administered every hour, and sodawater at intervals. He continued in a state of collapse for several hours, but towards the evening rallied a little. Gave him a seidlitz-powder. " 20th. — Very bad ; incessant vomiting and purging. "21 st. — Still in a dangerous state. The evacuations frequent and of a decided rice-water character, and very offensive ; lips blue, stomach irritable, tongue furred. " 22nd. — A slight favourable change ; stomach more composed, pulse feeble.* " 23rd. — Again worse. " 24th. — Declining gradually. "25th. — A shade better. " 26th. — Another relapse ; excessive debility. " 28th.f — Completely collapsed, motions passed involuntarily, total suppression of urine, extremities and tongue cold, * It was early on the morning of this day, the 22nd of June, that my former assistant and myself took charge of the Cholera patients then in the prison. It will be seen, however, not only from the frequent relapses, but from other facts, that there was then an unseen, hut a strong current acting in direct opposition to the new practice. t This was the day of Barry's official inspection. R 241 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. voice lost ; repeated the mustard applications, the saline powders, and the saline injections. " 29th. — An improvement manifest ; bowels less irritable, warmth returning, and pulsation stronger. Gave him a little arrow-root, which he retained. " 30th. — Says he feels no pain, but great exhaustion ; discontinued the injections. " July Ist. — Gradually declining ; a little tea offered him, which he drank. " 2nd to 7th. — Fluctuation from better to worse ; but it is not probable that he can recover, is sensible of his approaching end. " Bth. — Much worse ; refuses all nourishment. " 9th. — Apparently gone ; pulsation quivering, and an intermission of many minutes ; much convulsed ; towards night he rallied a little. " 18th. — Frequent convulsions, in which he expired at one o'clock this afternoon."* The writer of the above case adds, that this man's constitution was so much debilitated by previous illness (dropsy), that the first attack would have proved fatal had he not received extraordinary attention, and his life been so long prolonged by the saline remedies. " 25th of June, 1832.— Joseph Allen, aged 32, was ad- * The above patient was attacked with Cholera the day after he had been dismissed as cured of dropsy. He did not die until about three weeks after the attack of Cholera, and is entered in Lonegan's journal as death from debility twenty-one days after the attack of Cholera. 242 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. mitted into the Infirmary this morning at six o'clock, complaining of griping pains in the bowels, purging irritability of stomach, great tenderness on pressure of the abdomen, coldness of the extremities, cramps, and thirst. "A seidlitz-powder was administered, and mustard poultices applied to the stomach and abdomen, which were not removed until the pains had ceased. An injection of four salines in a pint and a half of warm water was given, but as it did not fully operate in fifteen minutes it was repeated, and a copious motion immediately followed, by which the patient was relieved. The saline powders were given every hour, and saline injections were used every three hours ; the hands and feet were enveloped in warm flannel, and the chest covered with the same. Twelve, a.m Patient much better; the cramps have subsided. " Six, p.m. — Was considered so well that he was removed to the convalescent ward ; but at night was again seized with the griping cramps and vomiting, coldness, pulsation imperceptible, voice indistinct, countenance lifeless, lips blue, eyes sunk and breath cold. Mustard poultices were prepared immediately, and placed as follows : one large application all over the stomach and abdomen, one to the interior part of each arm, midway between the shoulder and elbow, one to the interior part of each thigh, one to the calf of each leg, one over the instep of each foot, and one the length of the backbone. These were not removed till animation had returned (say in fifteen minutes), when the saline treatment was again pursued. The saline powders and injections were continued, as also the friction with warm flannels ; the third of a seidlitz was given every half hour, and soda and seltzer-water were given, from time to time, to allay thirst. "27th. — Patient considerably relieved. R 2 243 i CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. " 28th. — Much more comfortable. " 291h. — Has passed a restless night ; the symptoms have returned, and he is again in a complete state of collapse. The mustard applications were repeated, as also the saline injections, friction, &c. " Eight, p.m. — A saline injection attempted to be infused into the blood, but the veins were so completely collapsed it did not succeed. The patient at this period could not swallow, but a warm saline fluid was from time to time thrown slowly into the intestinal canal.* " 30th. — More tranquil; slept last night a short time; great debility. "July Ist. — Better. The saline remedies were continued without intermission. " 2nd. — Still better ; free from pain, and has now a natural warmth. " Ten, p.m. — Urine passed copiously. — Two, p.m. Slight bowel complaint ; gave an astringent injection (a solution of tinct. of kino) with a few drops of laudanum, which allayed the purging. The saline powders less frequent. " 3rd. — Quite improved. A regular secretion of urine, and bilious evacuations ; a slight degree of appetite. Allowed arrow-root, or tapioca, but no solid food of any description. A saline powder was occasionally put into his food, and taken without knowing that he was taking medicine. " From this time the patient gradually became better, and was eventually discharged from the Infirmary (17th of July) * This is one of the cases referred to in the Governor's letter in the "Medical Gazette." This patient was so bad that he could not swallow on the 29th, the day after Barry's official inspection ; still, his life was preserved by the rapid absorption into the blood of the warm saline fluid, which from time to time was slowly thrown into the intestinal canal. 244 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. quite well, and is now in perfect health, 26th of July, 1832. [Query: Were these two cases patients with mere premonitory symptoms on the 28th of June ?] "22nd of June, 1832. — John Harris, aged 19, of a strong constitution, was admitted into the Infirmary with very aggravated symptoms of malignant Cholera. The saline remedies were closely used, as also the saline injections, frictions, &c, hot flannels, and mustard applications. " 23rd.— Much better. " 24th.— Worse. "27th.— Very bad.* " 28th Again revived. "29th. — Symptoms have returned with increased violence, and the patient is again in a state of complete collapse. The saline treatment was again pursued, and in addition a saline hot-bath was prepared in the following manner. " About twenty-five pounds of common salt to be mixed with about seven gallons of hot water, and well dissolved. Immerse one blanket therein, wring out the water, and envelope the patient in the blanket from head to foot ; when the heat evaporates supply another blanket prepared in the same manner, and continue this application about half an hour, or if the patient is much debilitated less time. "In this case the above treatment was continued the half hour, the patient was then removed into another bed, and plentifully supplied with warm, dry blankets. The cramps were removed, and a regular warmth thenceforward preserved. * This was the state of this patient on the day of Barry and O'Shaughnessy's first visit to Coldbath-Fields, when, according to their account, there was not even one patient with the appearance of Cholera in the whole prison on that day. 245 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. He still had several motions, and, therefore, an injection of kino, with tinct. of opium was thrown up, which considerably composed the intestines. " 30th. — The vomiting has entirely ceased, but the patient feels excessive thirst ;* has a particular wish for cold springwater, which was given him. " July Ist. — Better ; was allowed a little beef-tea, which his stomach retained. Continue the saline remedies. " 2nd. — Still improving; may take coffee moderately. From this date the patient made rapid improvement, and was discharged from the Infirmary on the 17th of July perfectly well. " 20th of June, 1832.— William Brown, aged 23, was admitted into the Infirmary at half-past six, p.m., complaining of sickness and vomiting, griping pains in the intestines, and .severely purged, the evacuations of a watery appearance, pulse weak, voice feeble, tongue cold, retention of urine and cramps. Was put under the saline treatment, and a seidlitz-powder administered ; saline injections, mustard applications, and friction were also pursued. " 21st. — Patient better, the dejections rather improved in appearance, warmth more natural ; the saline powders to be regularly continued. " 22nd , — Still better, pulse strong, stomach less unsettled ; took some tapioca. " 23rd. — A relapse (from some unknown cause) ; the symptoms aggravated, and the patient totally collapsed ; eyes sunk and glassy, cheeks hollow, the nose, lips, chin and hands completely blue, a cold sweat on the forehead and soles of the feet. Applied ten mustard plasters to various parts of the body, gave a saline injection, and continued the * Probably from the opium. 246 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. saline powders half hourly, and persevered in friction with hot flannels, &c, in which three nurses were employed. This evening he rallied a little ; the mustard applications, when removed, emitted a particularly offensive odour. " 24th. — Still dangerous ; pulsation scarcely perceptible, countenance sallow and emaciated, the cramps again returned; a saline hot-bath was ordered, and eight blankets were successively applied. He was removed to another bed and appeared revived. The saline remedies were unceasingly persevered in. - " 25th to 28th. — The same treatment regularly followed, patient improving, but is very much exhausted from the severity of the attack. " 29th. — Again collapsed ; the usual remedies resorted to, which were again quite successful in subduing the symptoms, and restoring the secretions. Patient evinces a wish to go to his friends, as his term of imprisonment has expired ; the medical attendants have advised his remaining tranquil for a few days. . 30th. — Renewed his desire of returning home, and at the pressing request of his relations he was permitted to leave the Infirmary ; although a few days, in all probability, would have completely restored his health. He was assisted to a coach, and left to the charge of his own friends at a late hour this morning." The above are four of the severe cases that were in the prison on the 25th, the 26th, the 27th and the 28th of June, 1832, when, according to the official statements, there was not even one case of Cholera in the whole prison on the 25th, the 26th 247 CASES OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON. and 27 th, and only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June. I have already referred to the case of Edward Kerry, who was attacked with severe Cholera on the 25th of June. From the 26th to the 28th he was in a state of complete collapse, from which, in consequence of a previously broken-down material frame, he never rallied, and died a quarter before nine on the evening of the 28th, or about four hours after Barry had finished^ his official inspection of the prison, but not of the cases of Cholera that were in the prison on that day. Richard Card, another of the patients then in the prison, was admitted on the 25th, in a state of complete collapse. This patient was also in the Cholera Infirmary on the 25th, 27 th and 28th, but he did not die until the 3rd of July, or eight days after admission. D. Holland, admitted also on the 25th of June, was very ill during the above four days. He recovered from Cholera, but died from water in the chest on the 9th of July. Two patients died from late admissions on the 29th. Every one of these nine severe cases were in the prison on the 28th of June, still not one of them was included in Mr. Wakefield's report of that date to the Privy Council. But as Barry and his two selfchosen commissioners had seen seven of the above 248 FALSE RETURN TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. nine cases of severe Cholera on the 28th, they had no more right to certify to the Privy Council that they had found only two men with the appearance of Cholera on that day, than Dr. O'Shaughnessy had to certify that not one case of Cholera existed in the prison on the 27th, or than the Surgeon of the prison had to certify to the Privy Council that all the patients then in the prison were in different stages of convalescence on the 28th of June. When Mr. Wakefield made the above return to the Privy Council, and expressed his happiness at the exemption of the prisoners from Cholera, he must have known that Edward Kerry was then dying, and also that two of the patients admitted during the night of the 28th would die from late admission early on the morning of the 29th. Now, if it be true that five of the patients that were in the prison on the 28th of June died, and if all of them were recorded in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera, the reader will then see the value of Mr. Wakefield's expressions of happiness, and the truth of his assertion, that all the persons in the prison on the day of the official inspection were in different stages of convalescence on the afternoon of that day. But the unfair use that Barry made of Mr. Wakefield's official report, relative to the nature of the cases of Cholera that were in the prison on the 249 FALSE RETURN TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 28th of June, 1832, was not the only means that were used in that year for the attainment of the unhallowed ends of the medical members of the Central Board. For during the second, as well as during the first irruption, one of the contrivances to which Barry had recourse was, to obtain from the Surgeon of the prison, from time to time, particularly on all important occasions, official returns that can now be proved to have been utterly false. For as we have said, not one of the many returns from the Surgeon, contained anything like the real number of even the confirmed or collapsed cases, that were in the prison at the different periods to which the reports referred. This, as we have seen, was particularly the case on one most important occasion, namely, the 28th of June, when twenty- nine patients with premonitory symptoms were, by a mere trick, put in the place of the eighty-two patients with true Cholera, and the twelve patients that became collapsed on the 26th, 27th and the 28th, were reduced to five, and every one of them was put into the column of patients with diarrhoea, or other premonitory symptoms; and not even one figure was put into the collapse column, to represent either the twelve cases that became collapsed on the 26th, 27th and the 28th, or the thirty- seven collapse cases that were in the prison on the 28th of June. The above gross deception was not only a bold, 250 USE MADE OF THE FALSE RETURN. but, at that time, a successful stratagem ; and even now I fancy I can see Barry, on the forenoon of the 29 th, standing before the members of the Privy Council, with Mr. Wakefield's official return of the 28th of June in his hand, requesting their Lordships to perceive that himself and his two selfchosen official inspectors had admitted that the two men they had seen in Ward No. 1, had some appearance of Cholera. But still, your Lordships will perceive, by your own cerebral perception, that we must have been in error;, for here is the official report, from that truly honest and official man the Surgeon of the prison, from which it appears that on the 28 th of June, in place of two persons with the appearance of Cholera, as admitted by us, merely to please the Magistrates, yet there were in reality only twenty-nine mere premonitory patients ; and p las e to observe, that not one of those twenty-nine cases is a case of Cholera, for Cholera means collapse, and your Lordships will perceive that every one of these cases is put in the column of patients with diarrhoea, or other mere premonitory symptoms. You can also perceive, my Lords, that the Surgeon of the prison officially expresses his happiness at being able to state that all the patients now in the prison are in a state of convalescence. Your Lordships will farther plase to recollect, that your attention was called to this apparently alarming affair 251 USE MADE OF THE FALSE RETURN. by an announcement in the " Globe" of the 27th, in which it was stated that the Cholera had been raging with great violence in Coldbath-Fields Prison, that upwards of one hundred of the inmates had been attacked, and that twelve deaths had occurred within the last twelve days ; in consequence of which, your Lordships ordered that the Surgeon of the prison might make out, without delay, a list of the names of all the persons attacked with Cholera that were within the prison on the 26th, 27th and 28th of June ; and now we find, instead of one hundred cases of Cholera within the prison during the last twelve days, that there could not have been even one case within the prison before the 26th; for there were only twenty-nine mere premonitory cases in the whole establishment on the 28th, and your Lordships will perceive that every one of these has been admitted since the 25th. I might, however, have saved your Lordships all this trouble, by informing you that I had inspected the prison on the 27th, with Dr. O'Shaughnessy ; but we did not enter into any one of the Cholera w^ards, consequently we could not perceive, .by our own cerebral perception, even one case of Cholera, nor anything like a Cholera patient in the whole prison on that day. It was, therefore, O'Shaughnessy and myself that sent the paragraph to the " Globe," for we determined to expose the falsehoods of which this 252 RANK MATERIALISM. black inventor of a new practice had been guilty, when he told me on the night of the 25th, that he had seen upwards of forty patients with Cholera in the prison on that day. This untruth of his was invented to deceive me about the value of his culinary salt practice (which is not nearly so good as my own — of giving the poison of opium to lock up the poison of Cholera in the body). For opium lulls the pain, and if the patient dies it is only stopping the action of a mere material machine; and then the material mind, or the result of the action of the brain and the material life, or the offspring of the action of all the actions of the body, can feel no more of either pleasure or pain, either in this world or anywhere else. For the belief in the immortality of the results of bodily actions, or of a mere material cerebral secretion is a gross error ; consequently, the ignorant parsons who talk about faith, and spirits, and serpents, may say what they plase about a living soul, or a spiritual mind ; but we, the only true philosophers, know well that what these foolish people call an intelligent spirit, is a mere material cerebral secretion, and what they call mental knowledge is, in truth, mere material ideas imprinted in the material brain, and, therefore, what they call true religion is nothing at all but real trash. It was probably by some such chain of reasoning on false premises, that Dr. Barry threw the mud 253 DR. BARRY'S TACTICS. of the serpent over the mental vision of the most honourable, but most deluded members of the then Privy Council. I doubt, however, if Barry did tell their Lordships that the article in the " Globe" had been sent by himself, or that their order to the Surgeon had been so worded by Mr. Bathurst, probably at Barry's request, as to be a warrant for Mr. Wakefield in reporting only the patients that had been attacked from the 26th to the 28th inclusive, for the express purpose of excluding the sixty-four cases of real Cholera that were in the prison on the 25th. For as we have seen, it was by the above ingenious contrivance that their Lordships w r ere made to believe that there were only twenty-nine persons in a state of convalescence, in place of the eighty-two Cholera patients that were in the prison on the 28th of June. For it is not probable that Barry on the 29th of June would explain to their Lordships, that the printed return which had been sent to the Surgeon of the prison to fill up for their edification, had no column in it for patients with Cholera, but not yet in a state of collapse or that the whole of the twentynine cases reported on the 28th, were in reality cases of true Cholera converted into premonitory patients, because they were then considered to be in a state of convalescence, so that not only all the cases that were recovering, or out of danger, were thus converted 254 THE GOVERNOR'S RETURN. into premonitory cases, but in that official return the twelve patients that became collapsed on the 26 th, the 27th, and 28th of June, were cut down to five, and every one of these five collapse cases was also put into the column for mere premonitory cases : so that by this invention, and other means, the eighty-two cases of Cholera that were in the prison on the 28th of June, were converted into twenty-nine mere premonitory cases on that day. By the above contrivance Barry gained an important end ; for the official certificate of only twenty-nine premonitory cases being in the prison on that day, enabled that arch-deceiver to prove that the Governor's return of about seventy cases on the 28th, must have been utterly incorrect ; consequently, as the Governor had also been proved, by the Surgeon's official return, to be a dealer in untruth, his testimony was of no value in the present inquiry, although it can now be proved that the Governor's report to the Privy Council was just as true as that the official return of the Surgeon was the reverse of truth. It was, therefore, by such unfair means that the indolent members of the Privy Council were completely blinded, and induced to believe that the true statements were untrue, and also that the false statements contained the truth, not only with respect to the nature, but also the number of the Cholera cases that were in the prison on the 28th of June, 1832. 255 DR. BARRY'S TACTICS. On our way from the prison to the Regent's Park, on the 27th of June, when I accused Barry of never having spoken truth in his life, except by mistake, he repeatedly told me that having truth on my side was of no value in the present affair, for that he possessed, and would certainly use, the means of putting me down. I believe from what I now know, that he then referred partly to the official, but false returns he knew he could obtain from the Surgeon of the prison, and partly, also, to the aid he was to receive from the " Lancet," and the other three medical journals then published in London, as well as from the one medical journal that was then issued by the Dublin press. For by getting Mr. Wakefield to include in his official return to the Privy Council only twenty-nine of the thirty-six patients that had been attacked since the 25 th, and also to represent them as the only patients in the prison on the 28th, that return enabled Barry to prove that these twenty-nine premonitory cases were the only cases then in the whole prison, and as every one of them had been attacked since the 25th, it would then be clear that I also had told him an untruth on the night of the 25th, in saying that I had seen upwards of forty cases in the prison on that day. This gross delusion of Barry's was, then, successful; but if the members of the Privy Council had referred to Mr. Wakefield's official return to 256 ( HOW THE PRIVY COUNCIL WERE DECEIVED. themselves of the 28th of June, they would at once have seen that Barry was then practising a gross deception in making their Lordships believe that not one case of Cholera had been in the prison from the 3rd to the 28th of June. For Mr. W T akefield, in his official return to the Privy Council of that date, states that the Cholera had made its re-appearance in the prison on the 3rd of June, with a malignancy far surpassing the violence of the former attack, and that during the period between its arrival until the present time upwards of one hundred cases had occurred, with different degrees of severity, out of which number twelve cases had terminated fatally. Now, if the members of the Privy Council knew, as they ought to have known, that upwards of one hundred severe cases had occurred in the prison from the 3rd to the 28th of June, they might have seen, from an official document then in their own hands, that Barry's attempt to make them believe that not one case of Cholera had existed in the prison previously to the 28 th of June, was not only a gross, but a wicked delusion. Again, had the members of the Privy Council looked a little more closely into the real facts contained in the official documents, they would have found Dr. Barry's admission that the Governor had told him, in the presence of Dr. O'Shaughnessy, that there were about seventy patients with Cholera in the prison on s 257 ! i DR. BARRY'S UNTRUTHS. the 27th of June. Now, if Dr. Barry knew that the Surgeon of the prison had reported seventy cases of Cholera to the Governor on the 27th, and seventyfive cases to the Magistrates on the 28th of June, then what right had Barry so soon afterwards to assert, and O'Shaughnessy to certify, that not even one case of Cholera had existed in that prison on the 27th of June? The proofs of this delusion, and others of a similar description then practised, are so clear that when seen no one can doubt, even for a moment, that the then most honourable, but most indolent members of the Privy Council, were entirely unqualified to be judges in a matter in which the safety of the public, and the lives of thousands on thousands of human beings depended. It was the indolence, or the ignorance of the then Privy Council, that not only prevented the good that might have been gained by the diminution of the mortality from Cholera, but also the benefit that would have resulted from a clearer light, or the diffusion of a truer knowledge of the real nature of the human race. In 1832, the so-called Sir David Barry, of the Central Board, Mr. Wakefield, the Surgeon at Coldbath-Fields Prison, and Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the then reporter for, or the Sub-Editor of the " Lancet," were the mere instruments in the hands of the higher human serpents, or the so-called physiologists, who 258 s 2 THE HUMAN TREE OF EVIL. are the leaders of the medical profession; for even to this day they are the false teachers that come in the garb of sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. For even to this hour they not only teach human beings to prefer human knowledge to divine wisdom, but, in direct opposition to the divine commandment, they continue to this day to eat of the life that the flesh receives from the blood ; or in other words, they put the electric life that the muscular organs receive from the blood, through the medium of the brain, in the place of the human mind. It is, therefore, for the commission of this, the original sin, that all such animal life sinners, or the human serpents against their God, are cursed with self-ignorance above all cattle, and rendered blinder to the true light from Heaven, than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field or the fowls of the air. For human disbelief in the truth of the word of the Deity is the root of all evil, and, therefore, to get rid of the evil we must try to strike at the roots. When the roots are destroyed the tree of evil will die, and when the cause is removed, the evil effects of human sin — viz. : sorrow and misery — will then cease to exist in this world. If the divine doctrine be true, then human philosophy, or the house that the so- or self-called philosophers have built on a bed of sand, cannot now stand much longer as the cause of the withering 259 INSTABILITY OF HUMAN PHILOSOPHY. curse of self-ignorance in the human spirits of good and evil. For when the spiritual storm will come against it, the house that is built on sand will not only fall, but it will fall never to rise again in this world. May it please God that this fall may be soon accomplished, for the destruction of the mental belief in its own death, and a firm conviction of the truth of its own immortality, will be one of the greatest blessings that has ever been given to the human race. The unintelligent properties of matter will then cease to be the original parents of human beings, the material brain will cease to be the parent of the mental spirit, true mental knowledge will take the place of material ideas imprinted in the brain, and the erring human spirit that is now crawling on the ground will then look up to the high heaven, or the dwelling of its original parent and its God, as the everlasting residence of the now erring human spiritual tree that possesses and lives on a knowledge of good and evil. For knowledge is the daily bread and the only food that the mind receives during its residence in this world. The true nature of the transactions in the prison in Coldbath-Fields was but little known to the public, or even to the medical profession in 1832, but it will now be clear that if a fair investigation had been made at that time, the medical members of the Board of Health must have fallen to the ground, 260 ULTIMATE RESULTS OF THE CHOLERA. and humanity would have gained much by their fall ; for thousands on thousands might have been saved that have since been lost from the new pestilence, which appears to have been sent to prove to the whole world the utter worthlessness of the false and sinful doctrines of the nature of man, that are still so generally taught to the members of the medical profession by a great majority of their own teachers, as if for the express purpose of keeping up the withering curse of self-ignorance, by contaminating the minds of the human race with false knowledge. But in 1832 the sinners, or the human serpents, had not been sufficiently punished for preferring human knowledge to the wisdom of God, and, therefore, the evil was permitted to continue; but still this state of wickedness is not to continue for ever, for with all its faults the human mind is the only mind in this world endowed with the godly gift of progressive improvement, consequently, the now erring human spirit will, with time, be able to trace its way to the central tree of life, in the garden of God, and then the present false doctrines must fall ; and should the knowledge we derive from Cholera assist in the destruction of all the mere human inventions of the nature of man, which most certainly a truer knowledge will destroy, then, instead of a curse, the fell poison, or the "Jungle Fiend," will, in the end, be a great blessing to the human 261 CURE FOR MENTAL DARKNESS. race, by proving that the vital, or the working spirit, can remain in the body even after the body itself is entirely dead, and also that the human mind, or the spirit that sees and wills, can remain in the head long after the material brain has ceased to act- Consequently, the spiritual mind can no more be the result of the material action of the material brain, than the vital spirit that lives in the central tree of life can be the sum of all the material results of all the material actions that are constantly going on in the material body of the living spiritual man, who lives in the material tree of life, that is placed in the very centre of his own moveable material house. For the true life that is in us is not only the speaker of every word that we will to speak, and the doer of all the work that is done in and by means of the body, but also the one parent of the human mind, or the spirit in the head, that lives on a knowledge that in its present state of darkness is only a spiritual composition of good and evil. What we have said is no human invention, but divine truth, or the true light ; and those erring minds that wish to get rid of their present total darkness have only to refer to the noblest of all the works of God on carth — the human frame, or the garden of God, and there they will find a complete confirmation of the truth of the divine doctrine of the nature of man, who, notwithstanding all 262 POSITION OF THE HUMAN MIND. his errors, in his present state of darkness, is not an animal nor a beast, as the philosophers tell us, but a human being, that is made in the likeness and after the image of God, with a spiritual intelligent mind that lives in its own material residence, not in the brain, but in the one central spot in the head, where the inner intelligent spirit can sit on its own inner material throne, where it is so placed that the one inner mind can see through the medium of both of its external transparent circular windows, and hear through the medium of its own two sounding drums at the same moment of time, for the purpose of receiving true knowledge, in return for seeing by sight and hearing by sound. There are also other material trees in the garden of God, besides the trees that are pleasant for sight and good for sound. For the inner mind is provided with other six external material organs and connecting mental nerves, through the medium of which it acquires a true knowledge of many good and evil things, that the inner intelligent spirit can neither see by sight nor hear by sound. For it is not cerebral sensations, but knowledge that is the spiritual food, or the daily bread of the human spirit, that lives not in the brain, but in its own separate and distinct material house in the centre of the human head, where every one of the mental nerves either originates or terminates, that enable the inner mind 263 POSITION OF THE HUMAN MIND. to see outwards by sight, or that conducts the electric impressions inward that enable the intelligent mind to acquire from them a necessary knowledge of the things that exist external to itself that the inner mind cannot see by sight, and, therefore, eight other material organs are organized for the express purpose of enabling the inner intelligent spirit in the centre of the head to acquire a knowledge of the many things that exist, or the events that take place, some of them at a great distance from the spot where the mind itself is placed in the one central cavity in the one central organ that is in the centre of the human head, but not in the brain. For the cerebrum is above, but the true mental organ, or the material seat of the human spirit, is placed under the arch of the tentorium, or the strong bridge that separates the cerebrum above from the material residence of the human mind that is placed under the very centre of the arch of the bridge. 264 dr. Barry's false statement. CHAPTER IV. ON THE NUMBER OF THE CHOLERA PATIENTS THAT WERE IN THE PRISON FROM THE 30th OF JUNE TO THE 12TH OF JULY INCLUSIVE. We have now seen that twenty-two of the prisoners had been admitted with Cholera on the 25 th of June, with two deaths from late admissions on that day ; eighteen new cases of severe Cholera were admitted on the 26th ; there were also exactly the same number admitted on the 27th, and eight of these thirty-four patients were collapsed cases. But still not one patient was admitted on the 28th until the eleventh hour, probably because Dr. Barry's object now was to prove that the Cholera did not exist in the prison on that day, and therefore he did not wish any of the recent cases to be seen even by his two official inspectors. One of the results of this accommodation was that Ann Smith, who was admitted late on the night of the 28 th, died at half- 265 DR. BARRY'S FALSE STATEMENT. past ten on the morning of the 29th ; and another patient, namely, Matilda West, who was also in the prison on the 28th, but not admitted into the infirmary until several hours after the official inspection, when she was so far advanced in the collapse stage, that she also died in a few hours after admission. The above were both severe collapse cases when admitted ; and four of the other patients then in the prison became collapsed on the 29 th, or the day when Mr. Wakefield returned to the Privy Council only two admissions in the place of four, and only one in the place of the three deaths that occurred within a few hours after the official inspection of the prison, but not of patients on the 28th of June. We have also seen that Edward Kerry died from Cholera about four hours after the official visit on the 28th. Ann Smith and Matilda West soon followed Edward Kerry, thus making three deaths in a few hours in the two persons only that were in the prison with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th, according to the Barry commissioners. Or in the twenty-nine convalescents of Mr. Wakefield, who were, according to his official return to the Privy Council, the only patients in the prison on the 28th. We have seen, however, that Richard Card, who had been dangerously ill on the 28th, recovered from Cholera, but died from effusion in the chest on the 266 DR. BARRY'S FALSE STATEMENT. 3rd of July. We have seen also that D. Holland, who had been attacked with Cholera on the 25 th of June, recovered from the new pestilence, but died on the 9th of July also from water in the chest, supposed to have been the ultimate effects of secondary syphilitic symptoms in a shattered frame. Every one of these five fatal cases was in the prison on the 28th of June, or the day of the official inspection, and every one of these five deaths is even to this day recorded in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera, But still only one of these five deaths was reported by the Surgeon of the prison to the Privy Council, because the circumstance of five deaths in the only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June, would probably have led to another investigation, that would not have been very creditable to the pliable Surgeon of the prison, or to any of the other members of the Barry party. For each of them ate of the fruit of his own erring tree of knowledge, of good and evil, and therefore they received from their master, the human serpent, the wages of sin, or the shame that will ultimately be the result of the evil deeds that human minds commit when they break the first mental commandment, and war against God, or the original Parent of the human race. In his communications to the " Lancet," and the " Medical Gazette" of the 12th of July, Dr. Barry 267 DR. BARRY'S FALSE STATEMENT. states that no new case of Cholera had occurred in the prison from the 29 th of June to that day. His authority for this assertion was not founded on any report from the Surgeon of the prison ; but because Mr. Wakefield had not reported even one case to the Privy Council from the 29th of June to the 12th of July. Now if the reader will refer to the table at pp. 94, 95, he will see from the 29th of June to the 12th of July inclusive, that forty-three new Cholera patients had been admitted into the infirmary within these dates, and also that eleven of these new patients became collapsed. It is also true, that from the 28th of June to the 12th of July, five deaths are recorded in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera; that is, one on the night of the 28th, two on the 29th of June, one on the 3rd, and another on the 9th of July. Every one of these five patients was in the prison on the 28 th of June, when, according to Barry's official statements on the 12th of July, there had been only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th, and the two new cases on the 29th of June, in the whole prison from the 2nd of June to the 12th of July. Now if the above statement can be proved to be the very reverse of the truth, it is then clear that it was partly by means of the official return sent by the Surgeon of the prison to the Privy Council, on the 28th of June, and partly by means 268 DR. BARRY'S FALSE STATEMENT. of others that were not sent, that the chief of the official commission contrived to reduce the one hundred and sixty cases of Cholera that had been in that prison from the 3rd of June to the 12th of July inclusive, to two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June. It was also, as I believe, by Barry's contrivance, that Mr. Wakefield reduced the one hundred and sixteen cases of true Cholera that had been in the prison from the 3rd to the 28th of June inclusive, to twenty-nine premonitory convalescents on the 28th ; and then on the 29th he added two new additional cases in the place of four, with one death, but left out the two fatal cases on the morning of the 29th of June, with two lines in the premonitory column to show that the two patients on the 29th were mere premonitory cases, and two yes's in the collapse column to make it difficult for the Privy Council to know that the twice yes was intended to represent two cases of collapse. Now if it be true that one hundred and sixty patients had been admitted into the infirmary of that prison from the 3rd of June to the 12th of July inclusive; and if about eighty of these were cases of collapse with the twenty deaths that occurred in the admissions in June, owing almost entirely to the improper interference of Barry, and the experiments of Mr. Wakefield, then what can the reader think of the attempt to prove by un- 269 DR. BARRY'S FALSE STATEMENT. fair means, that from the 3rd of June to the 12th of July, there had been in that prison only two persons with the appearance of Cholera on the 28th of June, according to the official commissioners' report, and only thirty-one premonitory convalescents on the 29 th of June, with two yes's and one death, according to the then latest official return of the Surgeon of the prison to the Privy Council on that day, when, according to Dr. Barry, the two persons in Ward No. 1, on the 28th, were the only persons with the appearance of Cholera from the 2nd of June to the 12th of July, in the place of the one hundred and sixty cases that were in the prison betwixt these two dates ? Let the mind of the reader that now possesses a knowledge of the above facts, ponder well on the false statements that were then made ; let him reflect on the long continuation of human error that has been the result of untruth ; let him recollect also that not only human self-ignorance has been permitted to continue, but also that thousands on thousands of human lives have been lost since 1832, in consequence of the evil conduct of certain official, but bad men, and then let the reader say whether or not the cursed tree of rank materialism, that is the true parent of such foul fruits, ought not as speedily as possible to be hewn down and cast into the fire to perish for ever. For time, the teller of God's 270 REASONS FOR DR. BARRY'S CONDUCT. truth, will now soon tell that at last the divine axe is laid at the root, and the total destruction of the tree of human evil will be a blessed event for the now erring members of the human race that still, even to this day, prefer a knowledge of evil to a knowledge of good, because the human sinners, or serpents, are so cursed with self-ignorance for selfsin, that though they possess an abundant supply of false knowledge, still, it is most religiously true that not one of their carnal minds knows what true knowledge is, even to this day. In the year 1832, Dr. D. Barry was the leading serpent in the medical profession, but he did not know what truth is, and, therefore, there was no truth in him. As a proof of this fact, we find him, at page 106, stating that, "In transmitting these documents for publication, I beg it to be understood that I am actuated by no wish to impede, and indeed I have no motive to oppose, the full and fair development of the merits of any medicine, but more especially of culinary salt in Cholera, having myself given a favourable report of its use in the disease so long ago as the 30 th of July last year. No one will rejoice more sincerely than I shall, at the discovery of a really efficient remedy for that dreadful disease." This assertion of rejoicing at the discovery of an effective remedy for Cholera was, in the human serpent that made it, real cant; for not one man in 271 REASONS FOR DR. BARRY'S CONDUCT. all England was more convinced than Dr. Barry then was, that a remedy had been discovered for the poison of Cholera, so far efficient as to be capable of reducing the mortality from fifty to five per cent. But, in the face of this truth, so far was Barry from rejoicing at this successful discovery, that, at the very time he made the above false assertion, it can be proved, by true facts, that the then leading serpent of the medical profession was using the most active and unfair means in his power to prevent an important discovery from being useful to his fellow beings. Partly because it would show the utter worthlessness of his own poison to poison practice, and partly to prevent the risk of an inquiry into the fact that his own cowardice was the true reason why he had not investigated, and either verified or condemned the statement that had been made in his presence, of the new saline practice having saved the first thirty cases in which it had been tried, in the Custom House Hospital at St. Petersburg. In 1831, Dr. Barry had been publicly proved, in the medical journals of that day, to have been at Gibraltar most miserably deficient in mental courage ; Barry knew the truth of this accusation, and he knew also, that if a fair inquiry had been made into his conduct in Russia, it would have been proved that his dread of what he called the germs of Cholera, that acted, as he believed, on the spinal mar- 272 REASONS FOR DR. BARRY'S CONDUCT. row, was the true reason why he had never gone near the Custom House Hospital at St. Petersburg, to inquire into the real merits of the above statement in favour of the new treatment of Cholera. It was, therefore, from the dread of the new light that was beginning to shine from Coldbath-Fields, to show the darkness of his own bad conduct in Russia, that Barry was so anxious that the matter should remain in darkness ; consequently, so far from rejoicing at a useful discovery, he determined to show no mercy to the still better saline treatment that was then so successful in that House of Correction for human sin, into which, if justice had then been done, Barry would have been sent, with some others, to have passed there a certain period of their worthless existence in this world. In April, 1832, when Dr. Barry was informed that his own poison to poison practice had failed in four of the early cases in which it had been tried in the House of Correction, and also that the new practice was producing the most magical effects in Coldbath-Fields, it was then that Dr. McCann, one of Barry's most active agents, was sent and became almost a resident in the prison, under the pretence of trying to trace the disease to its true cause ; such was the pretence, but the real object of McCann's frequent visits was partly for the purpose of giving his patron the earliest and most minute information T 273 REASONS FOR DR. BARRY'S CONDUCT. relative to the result of the new practice in that prison, but above all, for the purpose of teaching the Surgeon how to keep his prison journal ; or, in other words, how to convert cases of recovery from true Cholera into patients with mere premonitory symptoms the moment they were believed, by the Surgeon, to be out of danger from the new disease. Dr. Barry received a knowledge of the success of the new practice from Dr. McCann ; but still this knowledge appears to have been a source not of rejoicing, but, on the contrary, a cause of distress to the then humane leader of the Central Board. For the facts proved that in the last hundred cases that occurred in April and May, all of which were treated in that prison on the new plan, there had not been even one death. But so far was this cheering fact from making Barry rejoice, as he had promised to do, that it led to a firm resolution in his carnal mind to effect the ruin of this new but more successful treatment, as soon as the then leading serpent of the medical profession could make the necessary arrrangements with the pliable Sub-Editor of the " Lancet" and the upright Surgeon of the prison, to enable him to obtain the foul end of effecting the ruin of the rival, but certainly the more successful, treatment in the new disease. We know some of the means that were then used to convert two of the warmest advocates of the new practice into two of its most 274 t 2 DR. BARRY'S FALSE RETURN. bitter enemies ; we know also the evil results of their conduct; and Dr. Barry, who had wept at its success, rejoiced only when he had effected the ruin of what he well knew to be by far the most important practical discovery of that day. For the attainment of the above end, Barry obtained from the Surgeon of the prison an official return, to prove that not even one case of Cholera could have been in the prison on the 25th of June. But, on the other side, the official journal of the prison for 1832 proves that the greatest number of attacks and the largest number of cases of collapse on any one day, from the sth of April to the 27th of December, occurred on the 25th of June. For on that day, no fewer than twenty-two new cases were admitted into the infirmary ; no less than fourteen of the patients became collapsed on the 25 th, and two died from late admission on that day. It was therefore rather an audacious attempt on the part of Dr. Barry to fix on the 25th of June to prove, by means of an official but a false return from the official Surgeon, that there could not have been even one case of Cholera in the House of Correction on the very day that the Cholera had reached its highest degree of virulence in that prison. It was on this fatal day, the 25th of June, that the Governor returned, after his usual leave of absence, and then great exertions were immediately 275 DR. BARRY'S CHANGE OF TACTICS. made to purify the prison. In addition to this, the most active medical means were used day and night to save the patients ; and this attempt was attended with so much success, that when Dr. Barry received intelligence on the morning of the 27th of June that not one patient had died on the 26th, and also that not one of the about eighty patients then in the prison was likely to die ; it was then that the leader of the so-called Board of Health in place of rejoicing at its success, as he had promised to do, immediately determined to change his tactics, for the purpose of effecting its ruin ; and therefore, in place of taking advantage of the then fourteen recent deaths, and condemning the new practice on the ground of want of success, he resolved to force an inquiry, to take advantage of the magical effects of the saline treatment, and actually to deny the existence of even one case of Cholera in the whole prison, on the day of his official inspection. This was a bold experiment, but still Dr. Barry made the attempt ; and he gained his end chiefly by means of the official but false returns from the official Surgeon, which enabled him to prove that there had not been one case of Cholera in the prison on or previously to the 25 th of June ; that is, on the day in which the disease had attained its acme of virulence in the then foul prison at Coldbath-Fields. Let the mind of the reader ponder well these facts, and then say whether or 276 BREAKING THE FIRST MENTAL LAW. not the direction of the public health ought to be intrusted to men who are not only so desperately wicked as to be utterly regardless of human life, but so cursed with self-ignorance above all cattle, that even to this day they do not know what the human mind or what true knowledge is ; otherwise the human sinners, or the serpents, against God would not continue to maintain even to this hour that the human spirit in the head is a mere material cerebral secretion, or that mental knowledge is the result of nervous sensations in the cerebrum ; or, as others say, an accumulation of mere material ideas imprinted in the material brain, that can no more either see by sight or perceive by perception than the unintelligent particles of matter in the centre of any mere material barber's block. The result of breaking the first mental commandment is, that all human minds that prefer their own erring human knowledge to divine wisdom are cursed with self-ignorance above all cattle, and, therefore, they can hear, but still they hear not ; they can see, but still they see not, neither do they understand, or know what they themselves are ; nor do they know what true mental knowledge is even to this blessed day. It is true, that although they can see the material light clearly enough, they cannot see even one ray of the true light ; for to their darkened minds the ray from heaven continues to shine in darkness, for even to this hour their dark- 277 TRUE KNOWLEDGE THE SPIRITUAL ened minds comprehendeth it not. Otherwise they would not continue to put the diffused unintelligent electric life that the flesh, or the muscular organs, receive from the blood in the place of the intelligent mind, nor cerebral perception in the place of mental sight, nor material ideas imprinted in the material brain by the sensational nerves, in the place of the true knowledge that the inner mind receives, not through the medium of the cerebrum, but from the ten external mental organs that enable the one inner mind to acquire a true knowledge of both the visible and the invisible objects that exist external to itself. For we again assert that true knowledge is the daily bread, or the spiritual food of the human mind, that lives or has its residence, not in the brain, but in its own separate mental organ in the centre of the human head ; for the one central spot in the head is the true material seat of the spiritual tree, that not only possesses, but lives on a knowledge that in its present state of darkness is only a combination of spiritual good and evil. Mental intelligence is the spiritual gift, or the blessing of God, that enables the spiritual mind to acquire knowledge, not only from other intelligent minds, but also from things that are themselves destitute of knowledge. This is the truth, and if true knowledge be more precious than rubies, and of more value than material gold, then surely the true spiritual knowledge that can enable the spiritual 278 FOOD OF THE HUMAN MIND. mind to acquire a knowledge of its own immortality is infinitely preferable to either nervous sensations, or mere material ideas imprinted by images in the oval centre of the material brain, that can no more perceive by perception either cerebral sensations or material ideas imprinted by mere imaginary images in the oval centre of itself, than the matter on the surface of any mere material brick can perceive by perception the grains of matter that exist in the very centre of itself. The invention of the material brain, perceiving ideas imprinted in itself by reflected images, is the so-called philosophy of man, or the doctrine of the human serpent, that can reason, and will to speak, but the doctrine of the inner intelligent mind, seeing external objects by looking at them, and receiving in return for sight a true knowledge of the objects that exist in the external world, is the knowledge we receive from the revealed wisdom of God. The human knowledge of the truth of divine wisdom is the true spiritual food of the spiritual mind, that can see, hear, reason, judge and live on a knowledge of good and evil. But in its present state of darkness material ideas imprinted in the brain are the material food of the human mind, and this darkness will certainly continue so long as the human mind continues to prefer its own erring knowledge or material ideas imprinted in the brain to the revealed wisdom of the original parent of the human race. 279 CONVERSION OF TRUE CHOLERA CHAPTER V. ON THE MEANS THAT WERE USED IN THE PRISON, IN 1832, FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONVERTING THREE HUNDRED AND THREE CASES OF TRUE CHOLERA INTO THREE HUNDRED AND THREE PATIENTS WITH MERE PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS. We have now seen that Dr. Barry's statement of the Cholera having ceased to exist in the prison on the 30th of June was untrue ; but there is another circumstance connected with the present inquiry that is well worthy of the attentive consideration of every intelligent mind that knows what true knowledge is, that hates evil, and loves truth for its own sake. We now refer to the manner in which the Surgeon of the prison was instructed to convert the cases of Cholera in his official journal into mere premonitory cases, probably by Dr. McCann, who was in April, May and June the official inspector in the prison of Coldbath-Fields from the Central Board. It was and still is well known in every part of the 280 INTO MERE PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS. world where the Cholera has existed, that its severe symptoms — namely, cramps, a sinking pulse and coldness — are generally, but not always, preceded by certain premonitory, or warning symptoms — namely, sickness of the stomach and a bowel complaint ; this was also the case in the prison at Coldbath-Fields. The total number of prisoners admitted into that prison in 1832 was ten thousand four hundred and fifty-six. During the whole of that year the chief drain was obstructed, consequently, the poison of Cholera, or as it was called in India, the " Jungle Fiend," had in that then foul prison plenty of fuel, or human blood, human bodies, and human minds to act upon. As a general rule, when any of the prisoners complained of the premonitory symptoms of Cholera — that is, of sickness of stomach, and a bowel complaint, they were put into the Observation Ward, and treated on the plan of trying, by saline aperients, to get the poison out of the blood and thJl body as speedily as possible, and this plan, together with an equal temperature, great cleanliness, and a pure air, generally answered the purpose in preventing the severer symptoms of the then new disease. For in the year 1832, there were at least one thousand mere premonitory cases that were treated in this way and recovered ; but still it can be proved that not one of these mere premonitory cases 281 CONVERSION OF TRUE CHOLERA was entered in the prison journal as a case of Cholera. In his letter of the 25 th of July to the Editor of the " Medical Gazette," Mr. Chesterton, the Governor of the prison, states that at one period during the first outbreak there were more than eighty of the prisoners contemporally seized with symptoms of Cholera; he states also, in the same letter, that during the second eruption, "in every part of the prison, and in all hours of the day and night, to the destruction of the rest of my officers, who were harassed to death, were we called to some unhappy being seized with diarrhoea and vomiting, but most frequently the latter, to the number at one time exceeding one hundred cases. Many of these could not be so speedily removed before they exhibited the extreme symptoms of this awful malady, and who could tell how soon the slightest case, if for the shortest period neglected, not terminate in death ?" The above is the evidence of a still living eye-witness, whose word is well known to be unimpeachable. Now, if it be true that during the first outbreak in April and May there were seventy-three patients in the infirmary on the 1 7th of April, and if upwards of eighty of the prisoners were attacked within twenty-four hours, and if eighteen on the 18th of April be the greatest number of admissions 282 INTO MERE PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS. on any one day during the first outbreak, it is then clear that at least sixty of the eighty patients attacked on that one day were never entered in the prison journal as cases of Cl^plera. Or if upwards of one hundred of the prisoners were attacked within twentyfour hours in June ; and if twenty-two on the 25th of June be the greatest number of attacks recorded in the prison journal on any one day from the 3rd of June to the 27th of December, 1832, it is then evident that on some one day during the second outbreak, upwards of eighty cases of Cholera were not entered in the prison journal even as cases with the premonitory symptoms of the then new disease. From the facts recorded in the official journal of the prison, it appears that from the sth of April to the 27th of December, there were five hundred and four cases of Cholera in the infirmary of the prison at Coldbath-Fields. Of these five hundred and four cases, two hundred and one were chiefly from late admissions, collapsed cases, and three hundred and three were entered in the journal, first as patients with true Cholera, but were afterwards converted into patients with the mere premonitory, or incipient symptoms of the new disease. Now to be able to penetrate the mystery of Mr. Wakefield's three hundred and three mere premonitory or incipient cases, it will be necessary to prove that he had, in his prison journal, when it served his own, or Dr. Barry's ends, one column for the date of the 283 CONVERSION OF TRUE CHOLERA attack of true Cholera; a second for the names of the patients ; a third for the age ; a fourth for the duration of the disease, or as it is called in the prison documents, " how long the patient had been complaining;" a fifth column, to show when the patients with Cholera became patients with mere premonitory symptoms; and a sixth column, to show when the patient became collapsed. The above was then the arrangement in the prison journal, consequently every name that was entered in that journal was a case of true Cholera, and the date showed the period of attack. We all know that in every other part of the world, the premonitory symptoms preceded the attack of Cholera ; but it can be proved that in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, in every one of the three hundred and three cases that were not collapsed, the premonitory symptoms succeeded or followed the original attack of the true Cholera. For in that prison it was when a Cholera patient had ceased to be in a state of suffering, and was believed to be out of danger, that the case was then converted by the Surgeon from true Cholera into a patient with mere premonitory or incipient symptoms. Recent events have thrown a truer light on this subject, and knowing what I know now, I believe that this deception was effected in obedience to the will of the chief medical member of the Central Board. For deception was the object that he had in view. It was said of Dr. Barry, in 1831, that he was 284 INTO MERE PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS. capable of misleading all the colleges in Europe ; the more particularly as he proceeds step by step, and with no small tact, in support of the numberless errors and false doctrines which are to be found in his patron's (Sir William Pym's) book.* Such was Barry's character in 1831 ; and if the truth could be known, I have no doubt that the contrivance of converting three hundred and three cases of true Cholera into three hundred and three patients with mere premonitory symptoms could be traced to the same individual, who, on the night of the 10th of December, 1827, sent an express to the Editor of the " Lancet," to announce the death or at least the dying state of a lady, from aneurism of the aorta, about two years before the same lady actually died ; and even then she died not from aneurism, but from the effects of another disease. The way that the deception was managed in the prison, of converting cases of recovery from true Cholera into patients with mere premonitory symptoms, was simply this. When a patient was admitted on any one day with sickness of the gastric organs, a bowel complaint, a sinking pulse and severe cramps, the case was entered in the prison journal as a case of Cholera. But if in these cases of true Cholera the electric treatment produced a magical * See the "London Medical and Surgical Journal for 1831." 285 i CONVERSION OF TRUE CHOLERA effect, which it frequently did, so that in one, or two, or three days, the patient had ceased to suffer, and was considered by the Surgeon to be out of all danger, the case was then converted from a case of Cholera into a patient with mere premonitory, or incipient symptoms only. This deception may appear incredible to those who do not know the true character of the human serpent that truth had to contend against in 1832; but still it can be proved by the official documents that are still in the prison, that not even one of Mr. Wakefield's three hundred and three premonitory cases preceded the attack, but that every one of these cases invariably followed, in some instances, even many days after the original attack of the true Cholera. Let us take, for example, some of the first patients that were entered in the prison journal first as cases of Cholera, and then we will find that on recovery every one of them were converted, in the same journal, into mere premonitory cases of the new pestilence. J. Leach is entered as having been attacked with Cholera on the 6th of April. It appears, however, that the new practice must have produced an almost immediate effect in this case, for on the same day, viz. : the 6th of April, we find this case converted from an attack of Cholera into a mere premonitory case, and the patient must have recovered rapidly, 286 INTO MERE PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS. for on the 12th of April, this now premonitory patient was on that, or the following day, dismissed as cured from the mere premonitory symptoms of the new disease. The next on the list of Mr. Wakefield's premonitory cases is Thomas Clement, entered in the prison journal on the 7th of April, as a patient attacked with Cholera on that day. But this patient did not recover so rapidly as Leach did; for he is put down in the prison journal as having been in a state of suffering for ten days, and then he is converted from a patient with Cholera into a case with mere premonitory symptoms on the 24th of April, when he was dismissed cured, that is, seventeen days after the original attack of Cholera. The third of Mr. Wakefield's premonitory cases is James Jerman, who was admitted as a Cholera patient also on the 7th of April. This patient is entered in the prison journal as having been complaining for fifteen days after the original attack, and then, on the 22nd of April, when he was dismissed cured, he also was converted from a case of Cholera into a patient with mere premonitory symptoms, or in other words, he was pronounced premonitory on the day that the symptoms of Cholera had entirely ceased. The following case, extracted from the official prison journal for 1832, will show that the collapse cases 287 CONVERSION OF TRUE CHOLERA were not, on recovery, converted into premonitory patients. "April 15th. — J Palmer, age 21, was admitted this day into the Infirmary ; says he has not had an evacuation the last seven days ; he is at this time complaining of considerable pain in the head and nausea ; extremities cold, pulse fortyfive. Ordered a seidlitz-powder, and an injection (saline) to be thrown up as hot as the patient could bear it, and to be repeated in three hours. Warm flannels to be applied to the extremities. " 1 6th. — Patient appears better to-day ; his bowels have been opened by the seidlitz and injections. Still complains of coldness of the extremities and a slight degree of nausea. Let him take a saline powder every hour, and continue the application of hot flannels to the extremities. "17th. — Patient much better, but very weak. Let him have sago or beef tea. " 18th. — Patient is daily improving, much stronger to-day, takes his nourishment well. This patient got well in a few days, and left the Infirmary in perfect health." The above patient was admitted on the 15th of April, with coldness in the extremities, and the pulse down to forty- five. He was collapsed for a few hours ; on the 1 6th he was pronounced out of danger, on the 27th he was dismissed cured from Cholera ; consequently, this case was not, on recovery, converted into a mere premonitory case, like the three hundred and three patients, the majority of which were prevented, by proper treatment, from becoming 288 U INTO MERE PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS. collapsed, and from almost certain death, if the deadly poison of Cholera had been locked up in their blood and bodies with the deadly poison of opium which is so fatal in the severe cases of the new disease. The following case, taken also from the prison journal, will show the true nature of Mr. Wakefield's premonitory cases. " April 17th. — William Dormer, age 16, was admitted this day. This patient's attack has been similar to that of J. Palmer. He has been confined in his bowels for some days previous to his admission. He now complains of violent pains in the head and abdomen, nausea at the stomach, excessive debility, cramps, coldness of the extremities, and pulse fortyeight. He was ordered a seidlitz-powder, an injection of muriate of soda, &c, warm applications to the belly and extremities, and two small mustard plasters to the temples. "18th. — The seidlitz-powder has operated, but without relieving any of the symptoms. Repeat the seidlitz, and take a saline powder every hour, also let him have water when he feels thirsty. " 19. h. — Patient feels better; he is warm and comfortable, but continues exceedingly weak. Let him have a little sago or tapioca, and let the saline powders be continued. " 20th. — Better to-day, continue the powders. " 21st. — Is so much better, the saline powders may be discontinued. Let him take light nourishment. The patient's health daily improved from this date, and he was sent from the Infirmary quite well (on the 26th of April)." The above patient was pronounced out of danger on the 22nd, but on that very day the case was con- 289 THE VITAL ELECTRIC TREATMENT verted from a case of Cholera into that of a patient with mere premonitory symptoms, and this was continued in every case. Such were the means used in 1832 to convert three hundred and three cases of true Cholera, but not collapsed, into three hundred and three premonitory cases, in which it was said by Barry, and his then long-tongued trumpeter in the " Lancet," that opium and brandy, or chalk mixture, or anything else, would have cured the mere premonitory patients quite as well as the new practice, if not better. The above assertion was made by Barry, and his well-paid agent, in the " Lancet," in the face of the fact, that not one of the thirty-nine patients in that prison recovered that were not under the new practice ; and also that not one of the thirteen patients recovered that were treated on the poison to poison plan that was so strongly recommended by the then Board of Death. There is one fact connected with the history of the saline treatment in Cholera, that will be admitted by all parties acquainted with the subject to be of intense importance, for it is well known that even in the less severe cases, under every other mode of treatment, and even in the cases that were treated with cold water, a large number of the patients that did not become collapsed were attacked with a secondary fever, that was nearly as fatal as the collapsed Cholera, or in other words, the death 290 v 2 PREVENTS THE FATAL SECONDARY FEVER. of the material body from the Cholera poison previously to the true death. Whereas, in the four hundred and sixty-five patients that were treated at Coldbath-Fields, on the new plan of using vital electricity as an antidote to the Cholera poison, there was scarcely a trace of any sign or symptom of secondary fever ; and certainly, not one of the four hundred and sixty- five patients in that prison died from the secondary fever, that was so fatal in every other part of the world where the electric, or saline practice was not used. For, notwithstanding all the trash that has been taught about the forces that circulate the blood, still it can easily be proved by fair experiments, that it is not any of the other ingredients, but the vital electricity alone, contained in the saline matter of the blood, that is the true stimulus that forces the contraction, not only in the muscular fibres of the heart, but also in the fibres of every one of the capillary arteries in every part of the living material frame. It has also been proved by ample experience, that the same vital electricity that forces the contraction in the vascular organs, is a complete antidote to every one of the narcotic poisons that are the remote causes of Cholera, the yellow fever, typhus, and probably in every one of the idiopathic fevers that are so fatal, when treated according to the rules that are so generally recommended in the medical schools. 291 THE SERPENT THAT CAN SPEAK The above admitted fact of the exemption from secondary fever under the electric treatment, even if it stood by itself, ought to be to every intelligent mind a sufficient reason for using the new treatment, in preference to all the other means recommended by the teachers of the medical profession, as if for the express purpose of proving that human error, or false so-called knowledge, is even infinitely worse than human ignorance. For human error is the foul offspring of mental ignorance in all those human minds that are so darkened for self-sin, that though their carnal minds are so filled with false knowledge, such as cerebral sensations, or material ideas imprinted in the brain, that not one of them knows what true knowledge is even to this day. We are told that the serpent that could speak, or, at least, will to have words spoken for the attainment of his own evil ends, was more subtle than any of the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made ; consequently, the human serpent that preferred its own erring knowledge of good and evil to the unerring wisdom of God, was not one of the good things that the Lord God had made, for the human serpent was not only more prone to evil than good, but desperately wicked. Evil, however, must have its use, otherwise it would not be permitted to exist. The Supreme Being is the parent of all good, and every human mind is the parent of its 292 IS THE AUTHOR OF EVIL own evil ; but this temporary evil is essentially necessary, for the eternal good of the now erring spirits of the human race. We are told that the Deity is not always to be at war with man ; but in 1832 the human sinners, or serpents, had not been then sufficiently punished for breaking the first men- tal commandment, that is, preferring their own erring human knowledge of good and evil to the unerring wisdom of the Deity, and eating of the life that the* flesh receives from the blood; and, therefore, Dr. Barry and the other human serpents that aided him in his evil deeds in 1832, were all eaters of the life that the flesh receives from the blood, or in other words, they put the electric cerebral secretion in the place of the human mind ; but still they were permitted to triumph for a time, for, " They took the road that pleas'd themselves, And sac did Death !" as if for the express purpose of showing to the whole world the utter worthlessness of the medical doctrines, or the mere human inventions of the nature of man, that stand in direct opposition to both the word and the works of God. This human war of erring man against the unerring original parent of the human race, cannot continue much longer. For the human inventions of the existence of intelligence and knowledge in the material brain, 293 THE HOUSE THAT IS BUILT ON A ROCK. without the necessity of an intelligent cause, or of the material brain perceiving, by cerebral perception, not external objects, but internal ideas, imprinted in the cerebrum by images, are the human results of the withering curse of self-ignorance, that make these mere human, ungodly inventions so utterly untenable, that when the spiritual storm comes against them, the present mere material house that the so-called human philosophers have built on a bed of sand, must come down ; and when this house that is built by man does fall, great will be the fall of it, for it will fall never to rise again. On the other hand, the divine doctrine of man as a spiritual being endowed with intelligence, and also of the mind of man seeing by sight, and living on knowledge as its own spiritual food, is the house that is built on the rock of divine revelation, and therefore, because it is built on this solid foundation, the storms of human philosophy may beat against it, but still as it has stood against all human opposition to this day, so it will stand for ever. The material brain lives on blood, but the human mind is the spiritual tree in the garden of God that possesses a knowledge of good and evil ; for knowledge is the only food, or the daily spiritual bread that the mind receives during its residence in this world, 294 DR. BARRY'S CONDUCT. CHAPTER VI. ON THE STATE OF CHOLERA IN THE PRISON FROM THE 30TH OF JUNE TO THE 27TH OF AUGUST, 1832. In the month of July, 1832, when Dr. Barry found, to his great regret, that he had not been successful in putting a stop to the new practice in Coldbath-Fields ; when he found, also, from the noble conduct of the Magistrates and the Governor, that there would be danger to himself in carrying his intrigues any farther at that time, he ceased to interfere, at least, directly, with the affairs of the prison, and then the sick prisoners were exempted from the evil effects of his interference for about two months. For from the 30th of June to the 27th of August, the Cholera patients were almost exclusively under the care of either my assistant or myself, and within the above dates there were ninety-six new patients admitted with Cholera, about forty-seven of which were cases of collapse, chiefly in consequence of late admissions. There had been exactly sixty- 295 MAGICAL RESULTS OF NEW PRACTICE. three cases of Cholera in the prison on the 30th of June, consequently, when we add the other ninetysix to these, the numbers amount to one hundred and fifty-nine cases of true Cholera in that prison from the 30th of June to the 27th of August. Still, it is true that in the whole of these one hundred and fifty-nine cases only three were lost. One of these, namely, Thomas Bradshaw, was attacked on the 20th of July, and died under the saline treatment on the fourth day after the attack. One of the other two fatal cases was lost from premature dismissal, the other was lost from late admission into the Infirmary, as will be seen by the following history of that case. "July 29th, 1832. — George Alldows, age 27, was admitted into the Infirmary at half-past six this evening, with sickness at the stomach and vomiting, frequent evacuations of a white liquid, resembling rice-water, cramps most poignant and distressing, coldness of the upper and lower extremities, cold sweat on the forehead, blueness of the lips and fingers, great thirst and cessation of pulse. Mustard applications were instantly placed to the legs, thighs and abdomen, and in half an hour the patient felt relief; the saline treatment was closely adopted, and three saline injections successively thrown up. At seven o'clock the cramps were particularly violent, flying in all directions, and friction with hot flannels was kept up nearly four hours. — Eleven, p.m. Recommended a saline hot bath, and four hot blankets were supplied, by which the cramps were subdued and vomiting became less frequent, pulse stronger, eyes brighter, and countenance animated. — 296 PATIENT LOST FROM LATE ADMISSION. 12.45. Purging continued; threw up an injection of tinct. opii. and warm water, which composed the intestines ; the pulse good, the warmth returning, voice more natural; drank a little tea, which he retained. — 30. h, two o'clock, a.m. Cramps renewed with violence, darting from the lower to the upper extremities with great velocity, friction was still pursued, but the patient was much exhausted, and the pulse greatly altered ; at this time the respiration was occasionally intermitting, and the natural warmth rapidly departing. The symptoms continued to fluctuate till half-past four, when the cramps again returned, and notwithstanding all endeavours to arrest their progress upwards, they passed into the intestines, and thence into the stomach, at half-past five in the morning of the 30th, when he expired. " In this case, it is important to observe, that the patient had slept in the same cell with Barrett, who was received into the Infirmary the preceding evening, with very malignant symptoms, but who is now recovering under the saline treatment (30th July, 1832)." In the case of George Alldows, the tincture of opium was, during my absence, injected into the intestines, probably under the belief that it might check the excessive bowel complaint. But this patient never rallied sufficiently, and died from late admission at half-past five on the following morning. I may add, that I never saw the above patient ; for he was admitted at half-past six in the evening of the 29 th, after I had left the prison, and when I returned in the morning of the 30th, he had been dead some hours, probably from the combined circumstances of late admission, and the extra quantity of 297 LOSS FROM PREMATURE DISMISSAL. tinct. opii. that had been thrown into the intestines, when the Cholera poison was still in the blood. The following, or one of the above three fatal cases, was admitted on the 23rd of July, and lost on the 2nd of August from premature dismissal on the 28th of July. "July 23rd, 1832. — Daniel Sullivan, age 24, was admitted into the Infirmary at twelve mid-day, with violent purging and vomiting, coldness of the extremities and tongue. Cholera voice, increasing cramps, pulse not perceptible, countenance lifeless, blueness of the whole body and great thirst. " Prepared a very large mustard plaster for the stomach and abdomen ; threw up two saline injections, very hot ; and continued the saline powders every half, and one-third of a seidlitz every quarter of an hour ; friction, &c, unremittingly used. " Ten p.m. — In a state of collapse ; repeated the saline injections and mustard applications ; stomach more turbulent, could not retain anything; a little arrow-root was given to him, in which a saline powder was mixed ; this passed through the intestines without the least alteration, or mixture with the other aliment. " 24th, one p.m. — Purging excessive ; threw up an astringent injection, which restored tranquillity. "Four p.m. — Motions improved, rather of a bilious nature ; gave him another injection, after which he seemed inclined to doze, and slept all night without interruption, except when awoke to administer the powder. " 25th. — Apparently better this morning; no cramps; remedies continued. " 26th. — Still improving ; saline given less frequently. 298 i THE HISTORY OF THIS CASE. " 27th. — Much better, discontinued the salines ; stomach easy, gave him some arrow-root from time to time, which passed downwards ; the patient is walking about the room. " 28th. — Quite recovered, and discharged to the convalescent ward. " 30th. — This morning, at half-past seven, he was again attacked with a severe bowel complaint, sickness and cramps. He was re-admitted into the Infirmary, and, in addition to the usual treatment, mustard poultices were applied to various parts of the body ; these were continued on for three-quarters of an hour, and were very beneficial ; the cramps subsided, and he slept several hours ; persevered with the salines. " 31st. — Slight vomiting, no return of the cramps, pulse rather improved, but not strong ; stomach more composed, and has a slight appetite. " August Ist. — Better this morning ; vomiting has ceased, pulse good, warmth returned. " 2nd, ten a.m. — Cramps suddenly returned (from some unknown cause), accompanied by vomiting and purging of an intolerably offensive nature ; coldness succeeded, the pulse altered, the whole body became blue, and all animation was suspended; the thirst was unquenchable. — Two p.m. Has had several mustard plasters, which have preserved consciousness ; stomach can contain nothing, and he is now vomiting pure seltzer- water. The glass of burnt brandy, which was ordered to be given him at one o'clock, was not ejected till this moment. "I have omitted to observe that, at eleven, a.m., all appearance of life was so far extinct, that preparations were made for removing the body ; but suddenly the respiration returned, and the symptoms were all violently renewed. — Four p.m. The symptoms are still unabated in malignancy; the pain is so intense that it was necessary, by main force, to restrain him from quitting the bed ; vomiting and purging 299 THE CASE OF JAMES WATMORE. still continue, the latter passed involuntarily. — Five p.m. Quite exhausted, and at half-past six he died. "This patient's constitution was much impaired by syphilis, which had been of long standing." Lonegan, or the recorder of the above case, states that on the application of sinapisms, the above patient recovered consciousness, or in other words the spirit in the head recovered a knowledge of its own existence ; but, from some unknown cause, the agony was too great for any human mind to bear, consequently, in mercy, the human spirit was soon permitted to depart to " where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." "July llth, 1832. — James Watmore, age 35, was admitted into the Infirmary at twelve p.m., with violent cramps in the legs, arms and thighs ; incessant purging, sickness, coldness of the extremities ; pulsation feeble, countenance inanimate, with suppression of urine. Mustard applications were ordered to the stomach, and bottles of hot water to the feet ; friction with hot flannels was constantly kept up, and a saline powder administered every half-hour, and one-third of a seidlitz-powder every quarter of an hour. Three saline injections were successively thrown up between the hours of twelve and one. " 12. h, two a.m. — Repeated the mustard poultices. — Three a.m. Has had several evacuations of the rice-water character ; says he feels a whizzing sensation in his ear, accompanied by deafness ; cramps very distressing. Continue the friction, and envelope the extremities in warm flannels. As the purging was frequent, gave three injections of tincture 300 SUCCESS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. of opium and warm water, which restored ease to the intestines ; removed the mustard applications. " Ten, a.m. — Warmth gradually returning, sickness alleviated, purging less frequent, pulsation perceptible, countenance more animated ; has slept three hours undisturbed, and is altogether much improved. " 13th. — Better; no return of the cramps or pains; has some appetite ; allowed sago, or arrow-root for nourishment, but no solid food. " 14th. — Still better; may have beef-tea or coffee. " 16th. — Permitted to leave his bed, and walk about the room. From this date he continued to do well, and was discharged on the 25th of July perfectly cured." Daniel Sullivan, the first of the above two patients, was lost from premature dismissal, whilst James Watmore, the last, was saved from death by having been kept in a purer air, an equal temperature, and proper nourishment until all risk of relapse had entirely ceased. I have, formerly stated that the admissions and dismissals of the patients were entirely under the control of the Surgeon of the prison, and had it not been for the unnecessary deaths of Alldows and Sullivan, the result would have been only one death in the one hundred and fifty-nine cases of Cholera that were in the prison from the 30th of June to the 27 th of August. But even as it was, three deaths in one hundred and fifty-nine cases, a large number of which were collapsed, was a very different result from the sixty per cent., which was the average loss under the poison to poison practice, that the then leading 301 DR. BARRY'S CREED. members of the Central Board tried so hard to establish in the place of the new practice in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, even if it had cost the loss of a thousand human lives in that one place. For at that time Dr. Barry and his party most unfortunately preferred their own human errors to the wisdom of God, and therefore they were cursed with self-ignorance above all cattle, consequently the concealment of their own ignorance was the great object that the then medical members of the Central Board had in view, and therefore the evil result of their own evil creed was : Let the nobles, the clergy and the people all perish, rather than the world should acquire a knowledge of our own total ignorance of the true nature of the things that exist in the human frame. For this true knowledge would soon lead to the loss of our own place, importance and power, and then in the name of cerebral sensations, or the material ideas imprinted in the brain, what would become of us, or our human philosophy, of ourselves as the children of the earth, the offsprings of properties of matter, and the life of the flesh that the material brain separates from the other ingredients of the living blood ? For what is the human mind but the mere material secretion that the flesh or the muscular organs receive from the material blood through the medium of the material brain? or what is knowledge, but the internal material ideas that the brain perceives by cerebral perception ? 302 DARK SPOT IN THE NEW PRACTICE. CHAPTER VII. ON THE CASES OF CHOLERA ADMITTED INTO THE INFIRMARY OF THE PRISON ON THE 28th, THE 29TH AND THE 30TH OF AUGUST, 1832. We are coming now to another dark spot in the history of the new practice. For after having had in reality only one death under the saline treatment in the one hundred and fifty-nine cases that had been in the prison from the 30th of June to the 27th of August, ninety-six of which had been admitted into the Infirmary within the above dates, I then considered the question of the superiority of the new practice so completely settled, that I ceased to attend the patients at the prison, with a determination of sending a petition to the Privy Council for the purpose of accusing Dr. Barry, before his own masters, of having been guilty of foul conduct, and to request, for the sake of suffering humanity, that the Privy Council would appoint an impartial commission to investigate 303 DISUSE OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. the facts relative to the number and the nature of the cases that had been in the prison at Coldbath- Fields, not only from the 2nd to the 28th of June, but also from the sth of April to the latest date. I had therefore left the entire management of the Cholera patients to Mr. Wakefield on or about the 27th of August. But soon afterwards, or late in the evening of the 2nd of September, I received intelligence from a sure source, that the Cholera was again just as fatal in Coldbath-Fields as it had been during the first abandonment of the new practice in the month of June. Late as it was when I received this intelligence, I went immediately to the prison, and on a strict investigation, I was informed by one of the nurses that not one of the recently dead patients, nor one of those that were then so dangerously ill, either had been, or then were, under the new practice that I had used in that prison. On farther investigation, I was told by the same nurse that an Irishman, named Gannon, who had been one of the nurses under Mr. Wakefield and myself during the first irruption, had told him, in confidence, that he had had an interview with Sir David Barry at his own house, where he had told Sir David that the great success in the prison was entirely owing to the earlier admissions, the cleanliness, and the great care that was taken of the 304 GANNON DETECTED IN PRISON. patients. The said Gannon had also told Sir David Barry, not only that the above were the causes of success, but that, if Sir David w T ould get him admission again into the Infirmary as a nurse, he would prove by experiment that the opium and brandy treatment would be just as successful in that prison, in a certain number of cases, as the saline practice had been in those patients in whom it was used. On further inquiry, I found that Gannon was then actually in one of the Infirmary wards, where he had no right to be. I saw also from the negro blackness of the skin that not one of the then dying patients could have been under the saline treatment. I believed firmly, not only from what I had heard, but from what I saw, that these poor patients were then losing their lives from foul play, and late on that night I left the prison with a firm determination that the facts that had then come to my knowledge should be laid before the Visiting Justices on the following day. But in the darkness of the night reflection came. For I had been indebted to Mr. Wakefield for an opportunity of making an important experiment, and I now saw clearly that if the Magistrates were informed of the true causes of the then many unnecessary deaths, it was more than probable that the Surgeon of the prison would lose his situation for negligence, perhaps even on the very day that the facts were proved. X 305 GANNON PERMITTED TO ESCAPE. Dismissal with disgrace from that prison, was not what I then wished to be the end of Mr. Wakefield's career, and therefore on the following morning I went to the prison at an early hour, and requested as a personal favour that not one of the five individuals who had a knowledge of the discovery that had been made during the preceding night would say one word on the subject to the Visiting Magistrates, and so well has this secret been kept, that neither Mr. Rotch nor any one of the still surviving magistrates knows to this day that the nine patients, who died within one week at that time, lost their lives as the result of a cold-blooded experiment made, as I believe, under the patronage of the so-called Sir David Barry, to prove that the opium and brandy practice of the Central Board would be just as successful at Coldbath-Fields as the electric salts that had then, in that prison, reduced the mortality in upwards of three hundred and fifty cases of severe Cholera to about one per cent. Had I known in 1832 what I know now, my conduct on the morning of the 3rd of September, would have been very different from what it then was. For I know now, from a better knowledge of the facts, that though the Surgeon of the prison pretended to be the best friend I had on earth, and repeatedly spoke to me with the most thorough contempt of the imbecile and antiquated members of the 306 DR. BARRY'S RELIGION. Board of Health, still, his official returns prove that that same Mr. Wakefield was the one individual above all others who w r as then, under the surface, doing the most evil by supplying Dr. Barry and the Privy Council with the official, but false returns, that enabled the then leader of the Central Board to accomplish, first at the Privy Council in June, and afterwards with the public, in July, by means of the " Lancet," the unhallowed ends that he then had in view. When the offer was made to Dr. Barry by a late felon from the prison, of treating a certain number of the patients on his plan, any honest man in Dr. Barry's position would have ordered Gannon out of his house. For a human mind that possesses a knowledge of its own high origin from the central tree of life in the garden of God, of^its true residence in the human head, and a firm conviction of the truth of the divine doctrine of its own immortality, has as great an aversion to unfair dealing as it has to . theft, or any other criminal act. But, unfortunately, Barry's mind believed itself to be a mere material, cerebral secretion, or the offspring of the material brain and the blood that originally sprung from the earth, destined by its original parents, the* properties of matter, to live for a time in this world, and then to return again like its immediate parents, the material brain and the electric x 2 307 DR. BARRY'S RELIGION. blood, to the dust from whence it sprung. Such is the creed of the human serpents, that sin against the laws of God and man ; for if this human invention be true, it is then clear that all the material or carnal minds, must be just as destitute of intelligence and knowledge as the electric blood, or the brain itself. Consequently, if the human mind be a mere material cerebral secretion, it is certain that there can be no such thing as a conscious future existence, nor a knowledge of future rewards, nor of any punishments for the sins that such mere material or electric minds may be induced to commit in this world. It is, therefore, those cerebral secretions, or the carnal minds that are led astray by this cursed human invention, of the mere materiality of the human mind, who determine to eat, drink, and be merry to-day, for to-morrow they may die. Such was the belief of the man to whom the late felon applied for encouragement to do evil. It also appears, from facts, that Dr. Barry consented to become a party to his foul plan, for his material mind, like that of the felon, had never seen even one ray of the true light ; consequently, he had no faith in the truth of the divine doctrine of future rewards or future punishments ; and, therefore, like all the other human serpents or the human sinners who prefer their own erring, carnal, or fleshly knowledge to the unerring wisdom of God, Barry was 308 REASONS FOR GANNON'S EXPERIMENT. ' Baith careless and fearless Of either heaven or hell, Esteeming and deeming It a' an idle tale !" Such was the real character of the then leading member of the Central Board, I will not say of Health, but rather of Death, for it appears from facts that Barry then knew that a petition for a new inquiry was soon to be sent in to the Privy Council, and, therefore, he readily consented to become a party to Gannon's plan, in the hope that if the ex-nurse could be successful with the treatment recommended by the Central Board, this fact could be used as an argument in favour of his own poison to poison practice. Again, if Gannon's experiment should be successful, then this success could be used as a proof of the justness of the judgment that Barry and his two self-chosen commissioners had given relative to the two persons only with the appearance of Cholera, that had been in the prison at Coldbath-Fields on the 28th of June. But on the other hand, even if Gannon should kill a great number of the patients, so much the better, for by proper management this result might still be made to serve a useful purpose. For if the true cause of the many deaths could be kept a secret, which, as I had left the prison, it might be, then every one of the fatal cases could be put down 309 victims of gannon's experiment. in the prison journal as they actually were, as so many deaths under the new practice that was then such a stumbling-block in the way of the three army medical members of the then Central Board of — I will not say of Health, for that Board was a cause of death to thousands on thousands of the human race. I have stated that immediately after I had ceased to attend at the prison, about the 27th of August, and as I believe without the knowledge or consent of either the Magistrates or the Governor, Gannon was re-admitted by Mr. Wakefield into the prison as a nurse in one of the male wards ; consequently, all the nine patients that he selected for his fatal experiment were males. The first patient selected for the experiment with the opium and brandy practice, was Edward Dundas, age twenty-eight, who was admitted with Cholera on the 28th of August, but in this, the first case, Gannon made short work of it, for the material body of the spiritual man was dead, before what is called real death; and the spirit of the patient departed from this life in six hours from the time that the Cholera poison was locked up in the blood and the body by the astringent poisons of opium and brandy. The sudden fatal result of this, the first trial of the poison to poison practice, probably made Gannon more cautious, for after this sudden death, he used the Barry treatment only in those patients that were 310 victims of gannon's experiment. already in a state of recovery under the saline or the electric treatment. For it is the vital electricity contained in the electric salts that is in reality the life in the blood that causes the con-* traction of the heart, and this electric life in the blood is also the true antidote to the deadly poison that is the true cause of the Cholera. The following is the second case in which the poison practice was put to the test of experiment on the poor patients in that prison. Thomas Smith, age twenty-two, was admitted into the infirmary, also on the 28th of August, witn confirmed Cholera, or in other words, in a state of collapse. He was put under the saline treatment, and recovered so rapidly, that on the 31st he was removed as a case of recovery to the convalescent ward. This patient, when in this state of recovery, was the next case selected by Gannon for an experiment with the poison to poison practice. When Gannon commenced the use of the opium and brandy in this case is not exactly known, but three days afterwards, or on the 3rd of September, the patient was again dangerously ill, and died at three o'clock on the morning of the 4 th, as I firmly believe, not from Cholera, but from the quantity of opium that had been given to him in the observation ward, during the state of debility that often remains for a time after the collapse stage of Cholera has passed away. The third patient on whom Gannon practised the 311 victims of gannon's experiment. deadly experiment of adding the astringent poison of opium to lock up the deadly poison of Cholera in the blood and the body of the poor patient, was John Griffiths, age sixty-one ; he was admitted into the Cholera infirmary also on the 28th of August, in a state of collapse, probably from late admission. This patient was immediately put under the saline or electric treatment, and rallied so rapidly that he was removed to the convalescent ward, as recovered on the 3 1 st. The convalescent ward was then the scene of Gannon's cold-blooded experiments on the poor patients, for it was there and then that he carried on his fatal work, and in this case, the result was that at six a.m., on the following morning, the patient became dangerously ill, and died at six p.m. on that day, the 2nd of September. The following is the fourth patient on whom Gannon, without intending to do so, proved not only the utter worthlessness, but the destructive effects of that offspring, of error, the opium and brandy practice, that was then and still is so strongly recommended by the Board of Death, that calls itself the Board of Health. Samuel Owen, age twenty-one, was admitted also on the 28th of August, he became collapsed on the 29th, and died on the 30th, or the second day after the attack. The fifth of the nine unfortunate patients that came under Gannon's experiment was James Martin, 312 victims of gannon's experiment. age thirty-four. He was admitted on the 29th of August, and died on the same day. This was sharp work, but still the more deaths the better for Barry's purpose, and, therefore, the experiment was permitted to go on. The sixth victim to the poison to poison practice was Timothy Connell, age seventeen, admitted on the 29th of August, and died on the 31st, after an illness of two days. Still the official Surgeon of the prison permitted this sad evil to go on. The seventh case in this list of deaths treated by Gannon, was John Proctor, age seventeen; he was admitted into the observation ward on the 30th of August ; he became dangerously ill at six o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of September, and died at ten in the forenoon of that same day. George Davis, age twenty-two, was the eighth patient that came under Gannon's care ! He was admitted on the morning of the 31st of August, and so active was Gannon's treatment in this case, that the patient died on the following day. The following is the ninth and last case intrusted to the care of Gannon. J. Smith, age thirty-two, was attacked on the Ist of September; he became completely collapsed, and the result proves that he got opium enough, on the first and second day, to do its fatal work ; for though the poison was stopped on the night of the 2nd, still the patient was so ill, 313 CONCEALMENT OF THE CAUSE OF that he never rallied from that night, but lingered and died on the sth of September. The above nine patients were all attacked within three days ; they were all experimented on by Gannon, in his own way, and, in less than one little week, every one of these nine human beings was numbered with the dead. Had I known in 1832, what I know now in 1852, I w r ould at least have tried to have made that knowledge the means of putting both Barry and Gannon into that prison, from which the material bodies of nine of the poor prisoners had been sent, before their time, to the cold grave. But I believed then that the Surgeon of the prison was ignorant of the true cause of these nine deaths ; and, therefore, so far from taking any steps against Dr. Barry and Gannon at that time, the fear of doing an injury to Mr. Wakefield, induced me to go to the prison on the following morning at an early hour, to withdraw the accusation I had made on the preceding night against Barry and Gannon. This evil deed was done ; and I did so, because I then believed the Surgeon of the prison .to have been only the careless and unreflecting dupe of a wicked man ; and this belief continued, until it was too late for a truer knowledge to have been of any use at that time. One excuse for the above delusion in my mind is, that in April, 1832, Mr. Wakefield had written 314 NINE DEATHS. against the practice recommended by the Board of Health ; he had also repeatedly, in my presence, spoken of the medical members of the Central Board with such thorough contempt, that I never, at that time, imagined for one moment that he had become one of the then Barry party. It was, therefore, not from a belief in his ignorance, but innocence, that I determined to save from ruin the deluded Surgeon of the prison, whom I then believed to be a most careless individual, but never imagined for one moment that he was a party to the guilty transactions that were then going on in that prison. I had also other reasons, at that time, for wishing that the Magistrates should not become acquainted with the true cause of these nine deaths ; the result of which folly was that Barry and Gannon, w_iom I believed to be guilty, were permitted to escape punishment, at least for a time. I must now add, that I alone was to blame in preventing a statement of the true cause of these nine deaths from being laid before the Magistrates. For if I had not withdrawn my accusation and evidence, there was one individual who, I believe, would have stated the facts to the Visiting Justices from a feeling of fair play, and a conviction that an inquiry ought to be made into the cause of so many deaths in so short a time, particularly after a long period during which there were so many cases with so few deaths. But I prevented an inquiry by stating firmly to 315 CAUSE OF NINE DEATHS. this individual that I would not, under any circumstances, come forward to give any evidence that might do an injury to the Surgeon of the prison. Such were my reasons for concealment; but I have since been well punished, by being accused of being a dealer in untruths. This accusation against me was made not to myself, but privately to another, by the very individual, Mr. Wakefield, whom I had then twice saved from ruin, as the evil result of his own folly, or something that is infinitely worse than mere folly. It is now nearly twenty years since the above tragedy was performed in the prison at Coldbath- Fields ; but from what I now know, I believe if an inquiry had been made at that time, Barry would have been convicted as a consenting party to a foul crime. With respect to the nine unnecessary deaths in the end of August and the beginning of September, it may now be impossible to find the individual who stated to me, on Gannon's authority, that Barry had encouraged the said Gannon to experiment on these nine patients; but still there are other facts that appear to have escaped Mr. Wakefield's memory. For he forgets that he has recorded these nine deaths in his own prison journal ; where he says that every attention was paid to the patients, but he does not say by whom the great attention was paid, nor that they died under the opium and brandy treatment. 316 gannon's confession. W 7 e have stated that the Surgeon of the prison has recently declared that he has been the steady advocate of the saline treatment in Cholera, ever since he witnessed its effects in April, 1832. But can he deny that five patients were lost on the 22nd, and another on the 24th of June, from his having ceased to use the new practice in the six cases that were lost at that time? or can he deny that only three of the one hundred and fifty-nine patients were lost that had been treated chiefly by myself, from the 30th of June to the 27th of August? or can he deny that nine of the patients were lost that were admitted during three of the last days in August, or immediately after I had ceased to attend the patients myself? or can he deny that in his presence, and also in the presence of other still living witnesses, who saw Gannon in the prison on the night of the 2nd of September, where he had no right to be, that that individual confessed that he had been experimenting on these nine patients, although he refused to admit, in the presence of five witnesses, that he had been employed by Barry to do the evil he had done to the patients in that prison ? The occurrences which took place in the prison at Coldbath-Fields late on the night of the 2nd of September, 1832, must have made too strong an impression on Mr. Wakefield's mind, as well as on 317 efforts to save nine patients. the minds of others, to be soon forgotten ; and knowing what I do now, my belief is that the fact of Dr. Barry's being aware that I was about to petition the Privy Council for a fair inquiry, was the true reason why he wished Gannon to poison as many patients in that prison as he possibly could, so that if an inquiry did take place, the lost cases could be brought forward as evidence to prove the worthlessness of the practice that he had officially and publicly condemned in June and July. It is also true, that though Mr. Wakefield knew in the beginning of September that every one of these patients was lost under the poison to poison practice, still he entered every one of these nine losses in his prison journal as deaths under the saline treatment, and even to this day every one of them is recorded in the prison journal as having been lost under the new practice. And further, to show how useless the saline treatment had been in these cases, the Surgeon inserted in the prison journal a notification, for the edification of the Magistrates, that in seven of these nine fatal cases every attention had been shown to the patients ; or in other w T ords, that notwithstanding this great attention on his part, they all died. It was, therefore, clear that in these severe cases of Cholera, do what he could, the new practice, which he had praised so highly in April, had been of no use. Such were the entries 318 SEAT OF THE SPIRITUAL MIND. then made, but in so far as I can learn there was not one word entered in that journal that could have led the minds of the Magistrates to a knowledge of the fact that every one of these nine patients had died as the result of the practice that was then recommended by the three army medical members of the Central Board, not of Health, for in 1832, Barry, the then leader of the Board, was in reality not only a doer of evil, but the patron of other doers of bad deeds who were in truth his instruments of evil to the human bodies of those human spirits that were then attacked by the new pestilence, that is, like human sinners, more active in darkness than it is by day. For it is true that those human minds that cannot see even one ray of true light are wicked just in proportion to the extent of their ignorance of the truth. For even to this hour the human serpents, or the sinners against their original Creator, are so cursed with self-ignorance, that they know even less of the true nature of themselves than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field, or the fowls of the air, otherwise they would not continue to trace their own origin to certain unknown properties of matter, nor to put the mere material diffused cerebral secretion, or the diffused life that the flesh receives from the blood through the medium of the brain, in the place of the one spiritual entity, the human mind, that has its 319 SEAT OF THE HUMAN MIND. material residence, not in the cerebrum, nor in the flesh, but in its own one separate and distinct material organ, that is placed not in the brain, but in the very centre of the human head, where the two mental nerves originate that enable the one inner sensitive and intelligent mind to see by sight, or where the mental nerves terminate that enable the inner mind to hear, to smell, to taste, and to acquire, through the medium of its own external mental organs, a true knowledge of all the good and the evil changes that are going on in all those parts of the material frame that are organized for the express purpose of enabling the human spirit to acquire a true knowledge of the things that exist out of itself, either in or out of its own material frame. The material blood is the material food of the material brain, but knowledge is the spiritual food of the one spiritual human mind, or the spiritual tree in the garden of God, that lives on a knowledge of good and evil. We are told also, that the tree of knowledge of good and evil is the one spiritual fruit of the one central spiritual tree of life. For the one central organ that exists in the material body of every spiritual man that cometh into this world can be clearly proved to be the material residence of the true life, or the spiritual man, that is not only the intelligent organiser and worker of his own material frame, but the one parent of the human mind. 320 EVIL SOMETIMES THE PARENT OF GOOD. CHAPTER VIII. ON THE CASES OF CHOLERA THAT WERE IN THE PRISON OF COLDBATH-FIELDS FROM THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST, TO THE TWENTY- SEVENTH OF DECEMBER, 1832. The discovery of the evil cause of the nine deaths in nine of the patients admitted on the 28th, 29th, and the 30th of August, was productive of one good effect. For Dr. Barry soon knew that I had acquired a knowledge of the true cause of these nine deaths, and this circumstance prevented him from interfering again with the patients in that prison at least for a time. The same discovery produced also a favourable impression in the mind of Mr. Wakefield, for he then knew that it was again in my power to do him a serious injury at any moment I pleased, by putting a statement of the true cause of these nine deaths before the then Visiting Justices, which I certainly would have done had I seen any more signs of the same bad work still V 321 SUCCESS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. going on. It was probably for this reason that Mr. Wakefield readily consented to my again taking charge of all the Cholera patients in the prison. In consequence of which, early in the morning of the 3rd of September, my former assistant and myself returned to Coldbath-Fields, and took charge not only of the many cases then in the prison, but also of all the cases admitted after that time. My assistant left at an earlier date, but I continued to attend the patients from the 3rd of September to about the 15th of October, or the day when I left London to go to the north of Europe. In addition to the forty patients in the prison on the 3rd of September, that had been admitted previously to the 30th of August, there were from that date to the 15th of October, exactly ninety-five new patients adfnitted by the Surgeon into the infirmary as cases of Cholera. In consequence of earlier admissions, only eighteen of these ninety-five were cases of collapse, and not only the forty of the old, but every one of the ninety-five new cases, or in all, about one hundred and thirty-five patients with the true Cholera were treated on the new plan ; and, as if to show the difference betwixt the good and the bad treatment, it is proved by the official prison journal, that not one of these one hundred and thirty-five was lost either from Cholera, or from any other cause, except one patient, namely, Jane Miller, aged sixty, who was lost 322 TWO DEATHS IN SIX CASES. from late admission on the 29th of September. This result of only one death in one hundred and thirtyfive cases makes a bright contrast to the nine deaths in the nine patients that had been treated by Gannon with opium and brandy in the end of August, and the beginning of September, 1832. I left England about the 15th of October, and then the patients were left under the entire control of the Surgeon of the prison. And now, if the reader will refer to the table, page 99, he will see that not one case was entered in the official journal from the 14th to the 30th of October. On that day one patient, viz., William Nowland, was admitted, and died on the 31st, partly from late admission, but chiefly from the effect of the state of starvation he was in when admitted into the prison. Still, as if to increase the number of deaths, both Jane Miller and William Nowland are recorded in the prison journal as deaths under the saline treatment, which most assuredly they were not. There were only six cases entered in the prison journal from the time I left England on the 15th of October, 1832, to the end of that year, but though these six cases were left entirely to the tender mercy of Mr. Wakefield, still, strange to tell, only two of these six patients were fatal cases. One was the case already referred to, namely William Nowland, who was lost partly from the V 2 323 THE COLD WATER TREATMENT. effects of previous starvation, and partly from late admission into the infirmary. The other fatal case, was that of Mary Driscoll, who was admitted on the 18th of December, and became collapsed on the 1 9th. The saline treatment that had formerly been so successful in that prison under my care, was now in my absence abandoned, on purpose to try a new experiment, for in the cold month of December, the cold collapsed patient was placed in a tub, and large quantities of cold water were dashed over her cold body. But surely the Surgeon of the prison could have known but little of the true cause of bodily heat or of bodily sensation, when he imagined that the external application of cold water could restore heat to a human body already colder than death from the narcotic or the deadly effects of the Cholera poison, or if he expected that external cold could restore new electric life to the cold blood, and the cold body, that are in Cholera both dead even before real death. For in these cases the body dies from the loss of the vital electricity evolved in it, and the blood dies from the loss of the vital electricity contained in its saline matter, that is in truth the life of the blood, that by its electric impulse causes the contraction not only in the fibres of the heart, but also in the fibres of every one of the capillary arteries in every part of the human frame. It is therefore not cold, but vital electricity that alone can restore the electric life to a 324 THE COLD WATER TREATMENT. body that has lost its material life from the poison of Cholera, that can kill the body, but not the intelligent spirits that can remain for a time after the body is dead, and only flit from their own material house, and leave the body to return to the dust as it was, when it loses the spirit that gave life to its own material frame. Mary Driscoll, the patient on whom the above experiment was made, as might have been expected, soon died, and Mr. Wakefield not only published the case in the " Medical Gazette," but stated that the want of success that had attended the experiment of trying to cure the cold stage of Cholera by means of cold water, and that too in the cold month of December, would not deter him from repeating that experiment when a patient was presented to give him an opportunity of making a similar experiment. We do believe, however, that the true meaning of the publication of the above fatal case was simply this : "It is true that I, Mr. Henry Wakefield, in April, wrote in this journal, strongly in favour of the saline treatment in Cholera, and said that in nearly one hundred cases the new practice had reduced the mortality to about one per cent. It is also true that I have now seen it tried in four hundred and fifty cases with only four deaths in the whole of these cases. But still I have changed my opinion since 325 a- mr. wakefield's conduct. April; and the public will now see clearly, that after long experience, I must have lost all confidence in the saline treatment, otherwise I would not have permitted so many lies to have been published against it by Sir David Barry and his party ; neither would I now, at this, the close of the epidemic, be reduced to the necessity of having recourse to such a cruel experiment as that of attempting to cure the cold stage of Cholera, by dashing cold water over the cold body of a collapsed patient, particularly in the month of December, in the last stage of the disease,' when the material bodies of the still living patients are not only dead, but colder than death." This, we believe, was the true reading of Mr. Wakefield's last announcement to the public on the subject of Cholera in 1832. The above was the sad offspring of human error, but still we believe that the human mind can learn a mighty lesson from the then new disease. For the undeniable fact of the true life, or the living spiritual man still existing in a dead material frame, will soon put an end for ever to the doctrine of the. human serpents, or in other words, of the mere materiality of a living intelligent man. But still Mr. Wakefield did not learn either this or any other good lesson from the things that he saw, and though no man in England knows better the evil that Dr. Barry inflicted on the human race in 1832, 326 CAUSES OF FORTY-THREE DEATHS. still for certain reasons the Surgeon of the prison has been silent on the subject of Cholera from that time till this day. We have now seen that from the sth of April to the 27th of December, 1832, Mr. Wakefield had recorded five hundred and four cases of Cholera in the verified journal of the prison at Coldbath-Fields. We have seen also that two hundred and one of these were cases of collapse, and that three hundred and three of the patients were converted from cases of Cholera into patients with mere premonitory symptoms, as soon as they were believed by Mr. Wakefield to be out of danger. We have likewise seen that forty-three of the five hundred and four cases were recorded in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera. But still it can be proved that four of these forty-three patients were lost from premature dismissal, that is two during the first, and two during the second irruption. Four of the other cases were put down in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera, that recovered from Cholera, and died (some of them long afterwards) from other diseases. Thirteen patients in thirteen cases were lost under the practice of giving the poison of opium to retain the Cholera poison in the blood and the body. Four of these cases were under the care of the Surgeon of the prison in April, and nine were treated by Gannon, as we believe, in obedience to the wish of Dr. Barry, 327 L WORTHLESSNESS OF MEDICAL IDEAS. in the end of August and the beginning of September. We have seen also that six patients were lost from an experiment in June, and also that five of the six died in one day. Eleven were lost from late admissions, and one patient died soon after an experiment with the cold bath in December, thus making in all thirty-nine deaths in the thirty-nine patients that were not treated with the vital electricity contained in the neutral salts, or the cause of life in the living blood. On the other hand, we have seen that there were only four deaths in the four hundred and sixty-five patients treated on the new plan, consequently, there were four hundred and sixty-one recoveries in these four hundred and sixty-five cases of the true Cholera. We have seen also that about one hundred and sixty of these patients recovered after the death of the body, and that one fact is of itself a sufficient proof that the electric life that has left the body cannot be identical with the true life, or the vital spirit that remains for hours in the body after the body itself is completely dead. The above facts prove the utter w 7 orthlessness of the present medical theories, and also of the uselessness in severe cases, of all the other plans of treatment that are only the offspring of human ignorance, for ignorance is the parent of human error, and error is one of the links in the chain that leads to death. For when the narcotic, or the deadly I 328 POISON TO POISON IS CERTAIN DEATH. poison, that is the cause of Cholera, enters the blood, the poisoned blood soon contaminates the material body. It is this deadly poison, that when left to itself, or when locked up in the blood and the body by improper means, that is in Qjaolera the fell foe that possesses a deadly enmity to the electric life that exists in the blood and the body of the spiritual man, for it is this poison that soon causes the death of the material frame before real death. But still we have seen ample facts to prove that the vital electricity contained in the neutral salts, when it enters the blood and the body, is a complete antidote to the narcotic poison that is the true cause of the true Cholera, or the disease that is produced by the jungle fiend of the East. We have seen that in 1832, it was proved in the prison at Coldbath-Fields, in thirteen patients, that the opium and brandy practice, in severe cases of Cholera, is certain death ; for not one of the thirteen patients recovered that were treated on that plan. It was proved also, in the same prison, in four hundred and sixty-five equally severe cases, that the saline treatment is all but a certain antidote against the new poison. Mr. Wakefield had the proofs of these facts recorded in his own verified prison journal for 1832. There were then, also, many witnesses who could have verified the truth of the facts contained in his official records. But still 329 THE CONCEALMENT OF TRUTH. these proofs have been carefully concealed from the world even to this day; and probably they would have been lost for ever, had it not been for the goodness of the then Magistrates in giving an order that I should receive a jjjst of all the cases, and of any other information that I wished for, from the official journal for 1832 and 1833. It must now be clear, that if in the beginning of 1833, Mr. Wakefield had sent in a true statement of the above facts to the Privy Council, he would have done his duty to himself, to true knowledge, and also to his fellow-men. But in place of this, though Barry's public statements to the world proved Mr. Wakefield's published statements, in the " Medical Gazette," to be untrue, he has kept the truth locked up in his own prison journal for nearly twenty years. For instead of contradicting Barry's false statements, which proved the Surgeon of the prison to have been a dealer in that which is the reverse of truth, it is proved, by his own verified records, that Mr. Wakefield, in 1832, not only concealed the truth from the world, but supplied the Privy Council and the Central Board with the many official, but false reports, that enabled Barry and his then well-paid agent in the " Lancet," to conceal from the world that which they both knew to be by far the most important discovery of that day. It must now be clear that at the end of 1832, 330 TEMPORARY RUIN OF THE NEW PRACTICE. or in the beginning of 1833, if Mr. Wakefield had laid a fair statement of the facts before the public, or if he had sent in a statement to the Privy Council of the thirty-nine deaths in the thirty-nine cases that were not treated on the new plan, and also of the four hundred and sixty-one patients in four hundred and sixty-five cases of true Cholera that had been saved under the new practice, this official return must have led to an official inquiry, and a fair inquiry would have led to important results, even long after I had left England for a distant land. But in place of stating the facts to the public, or of sending a true statement where it might have been useful, we find this same Mr. Wakefield, this now warm advocate of the new practice at the eleventh hour, or in the end of December, indirectly unsaying all that he had said in its favour in April, 1832. And yet, after having by improper experiments, incorrect returns to the Privy Council, and other means, assisted in causing the temporary ruin of a mighty improvement in medicine, still, in a letter to one who had some knowledge of the real facts, one who had publicly accused the Surgeon of the prison of having, on certain important occasions, completely abandoned the new practice, and also of having been the cause of its ruin; still, even in 1850, we find Mr. Wakefield making the following assertions : "To say that I 331 MR. WAKEFIELD'S LETTER. abandoned the saline treatment is as unjust as it is untrue, a warmer and a more steady advocate of that plan does not exist. I have never given up the principle since I first [in April, 1832] witnessed its success ; and although it may have been varied in the proportions given, still the saline practice of the non-purgative salts has been the sheet-anchor upon which I have relied, up to the present moment, in the treatment of Cholera, and which has been successfully carried out, not only this year, but during the last, in the prisons under my care," &c. In another part of the same letter, Mr. Wakefield says : "What will the profession say, when they read that I, who have been the warm supporter of the saline treatment from the commencement to the present moment ; I, who have upheld it in all its integrity, never having, on any one occasion, given opium or calomel," &c. The reader has already seen strong facts to prove that next to Barry and O'Shaughnessy, the Surgeon of the prison was, under the surface, the most active agent Dr. Barry had in enabling the Central Board to effect the ruin of by far the most important medical discovery of our day, and one that will soon lead to far more important results than the discovery of a cure for Cholera. It appears, however, that Mr. Wakefield came under the influence of the Barry party, in the beginning of May, and continued to 332 FALSE RETURNS. be so until he indirectly told the world, in the end of December, 1832, that, after a long trial, he had been so completely disappointed with the new practice, that he now at the eleventh hour preferred dashing cold water over the cold collapsed body, and even death, to the saline treatment, of which he had spoken so favourably in April, before he had seen it sufficiently tried to know how worthless it is in the new pestilence. We have seen, during the first outbreak in April and May, that this same Surgeon of the prison, and the now warm advocate and steady supporter of the new practice, reported to the higher authorities only twenty-four patients, and seven deaths in the twentyfour cases, in the place of the one hundred and sixty-five with only one death, in the first one hundred and fifty-nine cases in which the saline treatment was first put to the test of a fair experiment. We have seen, also, that it was an official, but a false return, from this same Surgeon, that enabled Barry to deceive the Privy Council, and the whole world, relative to the nature and the number of the cases that were in the prison on the 28th of June. The reader will also soon see that it was another official, but a double-distilled false report, from this same now warm advocate of the new practice, to the Privy Council, on the 28th of July, 1832, that prevented a fair inquiry, that must have ended in a result that would have been long ere now 333 SAD EFFECTS OF EVIL COMMUNICATIONS. the means of conferring some mightier blessings on the human race, than even the discovery of a certain remedy for the new pestilence. I have stated at page 303, that I had ceased to attend the patients in the prison about the 26th of August, 1832. I have stated, also, that my reason for leaving the patients at that time, was to prepare a petition to request the Privy Council to grant a new and fairer inquiry into the real nature, and the true number of the cases of Cholera, that had been in the prison on and previously to the 28th of June, and even up to the latest date. But the sad scenes that had occurred in the prison in the beginning of September, in consequence of the fatal results of the Barry and Gannon conspiracy, prevented me from sending my petition to the Privy Council until the Bth of September; and even then my request was very differently worded from w 7 hat it would have been, but from a wish to prevent blame or disgrace, for gross negligence, from falling upon the individual to whom I had been indebted for the first opportunity of making a most successful experiment on the patients in the prison that were under his care ; but besides this, I then felt most grateful to Mr. Wakefield, in consequence of his noble conduct from the beginning of April until the beginning of May, when he had the misfortune to receive evil communications, which are known to be the sad 334 PETITION TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. corruptors of good intentions. It was chiefly from a recollection of Mr. Wakefield's kindness in April, as well as for other reasons, that in my petition to the Privy Council I did not say one word relative to the true causes of eighteen of the twenty deaths that had occurred in the admissions in June, nor one syllable relative to the true cause of the nine deaths in the patients that had been admitted on the 28 th, 29th, and 30th of August ; for I believed then, as I do now, that had the Visiting Magistrates known that in the patients admitted in June and August, twenty-seven human beings under their protection had lost their lives from cruel experiments, Mr. Wakefield, in all probability, would have been no longer the Surgeon of the two prisons after the day the Magistrates became acquainted with the true cause of these twenty-seven premature, and as I believe, unnecessary deaths, thirteen of which had occurred during the ten days that the humane, the attentive and intelligent Governor had been absent from the prison from the 14th to the 25 th of June. The following is an outline of the petition I sent to the Privy Council on the Bth of September, 1832 : "TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORDS OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL. " My Lords, " I should not have presumed to present myself before your Lordships, were it not from a conviction that in the present 335 PETITION TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. state of the kingdom, the following statement is of sufficient importance, to entitle it to the immediate and best consideration of the Supreme Council of the British Empire. " In the year 1810, I entered on an extensive field of medical practice in the West Indies ; since which period I have passed the greater part of my time within the Tropics, where I have had an extensive opportunity of studying the phenomena, and attending to the cure of malignant fevers. " For many years after my commencement, I employed the different modes of treatment recommended by the various writers on the West India fevers ; but with these, like my fellow practitioners, I was most unsuccessful, and after having long deplored their inefficiency, I was at last perfectly satisfied that most of the medicines in common use were not merely of no value, but some of them actually so injurious, that the most successful practitioners were decidedly those who left febrile diseases to the efforts of nature to accomplish the cure. "During my residence in the island of St. Thomas, an irruption of the yellow fever occurred in 1827. Some strong facts which I then observed induced me to form new views of the nature of fever, and to adopt a new practice, that has since proved most eminently successful. " Having learned, in 1828, that the yellow fever was then raging in Trinidad, and particularly disastrous amongst the troops, in the month of August I made a voyage to that island, with a view of communicating my new method of practice to the military surgeons. Many physicians were aware of the dark putrescent state of the blood in that disease; but if was not then known, that this morbid condition might be remedied, or almost immediately corrected, by the administration of the neutral salts. This plan of treatment was immediately adopted with the soldiers, and from that period up to the latest accounts I have received from Trinidad, the 336 PETITION TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. average mortality in that hospital, from the various West India fevers, has not exceeded one in fifty, whereas the Royals alone, out of about two hundred and fifty men, had lost upwards of forty, within a few months previous to the 28th of August, 1828. " Having witnessed the beneficial effects of this mode of treating the yellow fever in several of the West India islands, I deemed it my duty to return to this country in order to lay an outline of this practice before the public. " Soon after my arrival in London, the Cholera made its appearance in England, and from the close analogy in the state of the blood in the advanced stage of the yellow fever and in this new pestilence, I was led to conclude that a similar treatment might be applicable to both. I have now had ample opportunities of trying this practice in Cholera ; and from what I have seen of the new disease in its varied forms, I am certain that the administration of simple saline matter is better able to counteract the effects of this pestilence than any other means that has yet been used. " Up to the 27th of June, the saline practice had been rapidly advancing in public estimation ; but on that day an event occurred equally inauspicious to its just merit and to the public welfare. On the 27th, Sir David Barry visited the prison at Coldbath-Fields, where there were then many Cholera patients, most of whom had been successfully treated with the saline medicines. The rapid cure which this treatment effects, when rightly administered, had removed nearly the whole number of the patients then in the prison from the immediate precincts of death, from which happy circumstance Sir David took occasion to declare that there was no Cholera in the prison, or, in other words that he had not seen one case of that disease in the whole establishment on the 27th of June. But the utter incorrectness of this statement (to use the mildest expression) can be proved by witnesses who 22. 337 t PETITION TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. had seen more of, and were much better acquainted with, the nature of the cases than Sir David Barry. "Next day, or the 28th, Sir David paid his second and last visit to the prison ; and on this occasion he found three of the patients so dangerously ill, that he was then forced to confess the existence of Cholera amongst the prisoners. On the following day the Central Board of Health announced to the world that there were, at that time, only two cases of Cholera in the whole of the said prison. But it can be proved by the most positive evidence, according to the established usage of reporting cases, that there were then in that prison not less than from sixty to seventy patients, the whole of whom would have been considered cases of Cholera in any Cholera hospital in this kingdom. Now if, on inquiry, this statement should be found to be correct, your Lordships will admit that Sir David Barry was guilty of a signal act of in-, justice, not only to the medical individuals connected with the prison, but to the whole nation, and even mankind in general ; since, by his official mis-statements, he has prevented, or obstructed, the general adoption of a salutary practice. " There is another fact, to which I most respectfully, but earnestly solicit your Lordships' consideration, namely, the deleterious operation of opium in persons attacked with Cholera. It is susceptible of the clearest proof, that the administration of this drug, unhappily urged by the Central Board, is one chief cause of the prevailing mortality; for I firmly believe, that for one death caused by the disease itself, two, at least, may be ascribed to opium and stimulants. Hence, those practitioners who abstain from these, and use cold water alone, are comparatively much more successful than those who treat Cholera with opium, and the other improper remedies recommended by the Central Board. That such is the fact, is evident from the numerous successful cases which are cured by cold water only, and to prove that opium cannot cure the 338 PETITION TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. disease, I have only to refer your Lordships to the bills of mortality. "Notwithstanding the misrepresentations that have been made against me, I may venture to assure your Lordships, that in presenting this memorial, I am actuated by motives which are neither mercenary nor vain. lam on the eve of embarking from this country possibly for ever, and have no favours to ask. Since my arrival in England I have sought, without fee or reward, to benefit those of my fellow- creatures who were labouring under a new, but most malignant disease ; / see, with regret, that the most unjustifiable obstacles are thrown in the way of the public good, and that, too, chiefly by individuals who are liberally paid, by the Government, for watching over the public welfare. I doubt not that truth and justice will ultimately prevail. But the Cholera is now raging in almost every town and village in the British Empire, whilst many thousands are dying, that by proper treatment might easily be saved ; and this evil will continue probably for a long period, unless your Lordships shall command an immediate investigation on this subject. I trust, therefore, that for the sake of truth, and suffering humanity, your Lordships will be pleased to appoint an impartial commission to inquire into the facts relative to the cases of Cholera at Coldbath-Fields ; but above all, into the value of the saline remedies in the treatment of the new epidemic which is now so fatal in this country. " I have the honour to be, " With much respect, " Your Lordships' obedient servant, "W. Stevens, M.D. " 157, Albany Street, Regent's Park, September 8, 1832 About ten days after I had forwarded the above z 2 339 THE REPLY TO THE PETITION. petition to the Privy Council, I received the following reply : Council Office, Whitehall, " September 18, 1832. " Sir, " I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the Bth instant, relative to what you consider an incorrect announcement, made by the Central Board of Health, as to the cases of Cholera in Coldbath-Fields Prison, with a statement of the success which has attended the use of saline medicines administered by you to the Cholera patients in that establishment, as well as in yellow fever in the West Indies ; and requesting the Lords will appoint a committee to inquire into the facts. "In reply, I am directed to state to you that, in consequence of a paragraph in the ' Globe' evening paper of the 27th of June, announcing that upwards of one hundred persons had been attacked with Cholera within the twelve previous days, in the Coldbath-Fields Prison, their Lordships were induced to call upon the Governor of that establishment for a statement of facts as to the paragraph alluded to, when he replied, ' that the medical attendant of the prison is not now in the way, but the number of persons now labouring under the disease, in its various degrees, is about seventy.' " This alarming report induced their Lordships to direct a deputation of medical gentlemen, viz. : Sir David Barry, M.D., Deputy Inspector- General of Hospitals, Maling, and Staff- Surgeon Dr. M'Cann, to visit the prison on the 28th of June, from whose report their Lordships were satisfied that there were then very few cases of decided Cholera in that establishment — a fact which was confirmed a month afterwards by the Governor's reply to their Lordships, transmitting an official report from the chief medical officer of the prison, dated 28th of July (copies are enclosed), by which it appears that fifty- 340 THE REPLY TO THE PETITION. nine cases (only) of decided Cholera had occurred in the prison from the commencement of the epidemic on the 3rd of June, up to the 28th of July. " I am directed further to state, that their Lordships are not inclined to take into consideration the disputes on differences of opinion between medical men, in reference either to the symptoms, or treatment of the disease termed Cholera. " Their Lordships, however, will be much gratified to learn that the success of your particular practice has been confirmed by extensive experience, and by the concurrent testimony of other medical men ; but they do not consider it expedient, at present, to appoint a commission for the purposes stated in your letter. " I am, Sir, "Your obedient servant, " C. Grenville." It will be seen by the above reply from the Privy Council, that their Lordships assigned two reasons why they did not consider it expedient to appoint a fair commission of inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the real facts. The first reason assigned is, their Lordships' belief in the accuracy of the decision that had been given by their own official servants, Dr. Barry and his self-chosen commissioners on the 28 th of June, particularly as we have seen that the justness of their decision was confirmed by an official report from the official Surgeon of the prison, certifying that not one case of Cholera had existed in the prison on the 28th of 341 FALSE RETURNS TO June or the day of the official inspection, and expressing his happiness that the only patients in the prison on that day, consisted of twenty-nine mere premonitory cases that were all in different stages of convalescence, on the day of Dr. Barry's official inspection of the prison — that is, on the 28th of June. We have seen, however, that the above official return of nothing like real Cholera being in the prison on the 28th of June, was given to the Privy Council on the very clay that this same Mr. Wakefield had certified in his own prison journal to the truth of the existence of eighty-two patients with Cholera in the prison on that day. But still from the Surgeon's official report to the Privy Council, it was evident that the Cholera had ceased to exist in the prison on the 28th of June, or the day that the very same Surgeon reported to the Visiting Magistrates that seventy-five cases of Cholera were then in the prison, thirty-seven of which were cases of collapse, with twelve recent deaths, and gave an overcharged statement of the rotten condition of the prison, of the necessity for smoking tobacco to prevent the action of the Cholera poison, of the evil that might be done by the sermon in the material brains of the prisoners, and also of the death and destruction that were then said to be going on in that prison. We have seen also that it was the many recent deaths, 342 THE PRIVY COUNCIL. and the eighty-two patients then in the prison, that led the Visiting Magistrates to send the circularwarning to the other Magistrates of the dangerous state of the prison on the 28th, and that all this was done on the very day, on which, according to the same Mr. Wakefield, at the Privy Council, there was not one case of real Cholera in the whole prison, that is on the 28th of June. Nor had there been, according to the same official, but false return, even one case of true Cholera in the whole prison, either on, or since the 25th of June. The above official return from the official Surgeon of the prison was, we have little doubt, one of the chief means that Barry used to cause the members of the Privy Council to refuse their consent to a second investigation. But still, the intelligent reader must now see that if a fair inquiry had been made in September, 1832, Wakefield's official return to the Privy Council could then have been easily proved to have been the very reverse of the truth, and if so, the official but false return of the 28 th of June could no longer have been used as an official shield to save Dr. Barry from disgrace for the guilt of one of the blackest transactions agauist God and man, that any sinner or human serpent has ever been guilty of in this world. The reader has seen that the other reason given by the members of the Privy Council for their refusal to grant another inquiry, was the complete 343 FALSE RETURNS TO confirmation of the justness of the judgment of the Barry commission, which was justified by another official report to themselves, also from the same official Mr. Wakefield. For the second proof of the justice of the decision of the Barry commission on the 28th of June, was another official report from the Surgeon of the prison, dated the 28th of July, or exactly one month after Dr. Barry and his two self-chosen commissioners had officially inspected the prison, and given a report to the Privy Council that they had seen only two persons with the appearance of Cholera in the whole prison on the 28th of June. In my petition to the Privy Council, I asserted, and offered to prove that there had been not fewer than from sixty to seventy patients with Cholera in the prison on the 28th of June, or the day when the Barry commission certified that there were only two persons with the appearance of Cholera in the whole prison on that day. But when my petition was sent in, an official certificate from the Surgeon of the prison, dated 28th of July, was laid before their Lordships to prove that my assertion could not be true. For this precious document showed that there had been only fifty-nine cases of Cholera in the prison from the 3rd of June to the 28th of July. Consequently, it was clear as day that my assertion of from sixty to seventy cases of Cholera having been in the prison on the 28th of June must be the reverse of truth. It was this official, but doubly distilled false return, 344 THE PRIVY COUNCIL. from the Surgeon of the prison that was used to prove to their Lordships the untruth of my statement ; and, therefore, the Privy Council came to the conclusion that there was no necessity whatever for any farther inquiry into this affair, as it was so clear, from the official return of the official Surgeon, that my assertion of from sixty to seventy cases having been in the prison on any one day in June, must be an utter untruth. The refusal to grant my petition was accompanied by the following official report from the Surgeon of the prison, to prove to me that my assertion of from sixty to seventy cases having been in the prison on any one day in June, could not be true. No. 3. CHOLERA. DAILY NUMERICAL REPORT OF CASES FOR THE PARISH OR DISTRICT OF COLDBATH-FIELDS PRISON. Date Remained at New p, , Reco- Remaining this last Report, cases. ' vered. day at 12 o'clock. 1832. July 28 3 1 — 3 1 From the commencement of the disease on the 3rd of June. Cases. Died. (Signed) Henry Wakefield, Surgeon. 59 17 Note. — The numerous premonitory cases are not included in this Report.— H. W. 345 PRIVY COUNCIL EASILY DECEIVED. The above official certificate from the official Surgeon of the prison was the proof that induced their Lordships to believe the incorrectness of my assertions, and the refusal to grant a fair inquiry was founded on their belief in the truth of the Surgeon's official report. For it was the above official return that induced the Privy Council to believe that the Governor and myself had been guilty of at least gross exaggeration relative to the number and the nature of the cases that had been in the prison on the 28th of June. Consequently, that we had made false statements when the Governor had reported about seventy, and myself from sixty to seventy on the 28th of June, for that these were both false statements was now clearly proved, not only by the Surgeon's official return of the 28 th of June, but particularly by his return of the 28th of July. Still, in the face of all this, it can be proved that their Lordships of the Privy Council had then in their own possession the means of proving, and that, too, on the official evidence of the Surgeon himself, that his official report of the 28 th of July, was not only incorrect, but utterly false. For if their Lordships had referred to Mr. Wakefield's return to themselves of the 28 th of June, they would have found that the official statement that Dr. Barry used to prove the existence of only fifty-nine cases having been in the prison from the 3rd of June to the 28th of July, was completely contradicted by the following equally offi- 346 CONTRADICTORY RETURNS. cial statement from the same Surgeon, who in 1850 is the warm advocate, but who was, in 1832, the fell destroyer of the new practice in the new disease. For in his official return to the Privy Council of the 28th of June, Mr. Wakefield states that, "In relating these cases [that is, the twenty-nine mere premonitory cases that were in the prison on the 28th of June] for the information of the Privy Council, I beg to observe that the Cholera made its re-appearance in this prison on the 3rd instant [June], with a degree of malignity far surpassing the violence of the former attack [in April and May], and that during the period between its arrival until this time, upwards of one hundred cases have occurred with different degrees of severity, out of which number twelve cases have terminated fatally ; but I am happy to add that the remainder are at this moment in different stages of convalescence, and that the disease seems to be gradually subsiding. (Signed) " Henry Wakefield, Surgeon." It must now be clear, from the above official communication, that, if on the 28th of July, their Lordships of the Privy Council had referred to Mr. Wakefield's return to themselves of the 28 th of June, and compared it with the return of the 28th of July, they must have seen in one moment that the one or the other of these two equally official documents must have been utterly untrue. For if during the second attack the Cholera had raged in that prison with such surpassing violence, and if there had been upwards of one. hundred severe cases 347 DR. BARRY'S CHARACTER. of Cholera from the 3rd to the 28th of June, and if the Cholera had continued to rage without intermission from the 28th of June to the 28th of July, it was then clear as day that the return of only fifty-nine cases from the 3rd of June to the 28th of July, must have been the very essence of untruth. It must, therefore, now be clear that if their Lordships had used their own eyes, the above discovery of such false returns must have led to a suspicion of unfair dealing by their own party. And if so, then the above strong proof of official, but false returns, must have led to the discovery of the wickedness that was then going on for the suppression of an important discovery, and that, too, merely for the protection of three of the most ignorant men in all England, one of whom, Dr. Barry, had only a short time before been proved in the " Lancet," and also in other journals of that day, to be not only one of the most ignorant, but one of the m.ost worthless men that then existed on the face of the earth. These accusations against Barry were proved by facts, and if so, it is clear that the then Privy Council committed a fearfully wrong act when they appointed a man who had so recently been publicly convicted, by his now wellpaid advocate, of gross ignorance, wilful falsehood and base malignity, to be either a witness against any human being, or the judge to give judgment on the conduct of other men, who must have been, in truth, very bad if they had not been infinitely 348 NUMBER OF PATIENTS IN JUNE AND JULY. better men than Barry himself, or any one of the many individuals whom he then prevailed on to conspire to deceive the world with an energy that was exerted, in proportion to the amount of the wages they received from the then leading human serpent for the foul commission of a deadly sin. We have seen Mr. Wakefield's admission of there having been upwards of one hundred cases of Cholera in the prison from the 3rd to the 28th of June. Now, to settle this important question for ever, we beg the reader to refer to the table at page 9 1 , where he will find, on Mr. Wakefield's authority, that from the 3rd of June to the 28th of July, inclusive, not merely fifty-nine, but exactly one hundred and seventy-six cases had been admitted into the infirmary of the prison between these two dates as cases of true Cholera. It will be seen also from the same table that about ninety of these one hundred and seventy-six patients were cases of collapse, with only about twenty deaths in these one hundred and seventy-six cases of true Cholera. The large number of collapse cases at that time was owing to several causes, but chiefly to late admissions into the infirmary, and partly to premature dismissals. We have seen also from the frequent relapses in some of the cases that there was, particularly in June, a strong counter current running under the surface, and acting with deadly force against the new practice. Still, in the above one hundred 349 WEAKNESS OF UNTRUTH. and seventy-six cases of severe Cholera, there were only twenty deaths recorded in the prison journal. But still eighteen of these fatal cases occurred in the admissions in June, when the human serpents were active, and the poor patients lost their lives like rotten sheep from improper experiments, late admissions, and the other deadly causes then at work to prove for the benefit of the so-called Board of Health, that the then new practice was of no value in that prison, notwithstanding the strong facts that had been published in its favour by Mr. Whitmore in the "Medical Gazette," of the 21st, and also in the same journal by Mr. Wakefield, on the 28th of April, 1832, before evil communications had corrupted the good manners of the Surgeon of the prison in Coldbath-Fields. We have now seen some, at least, of the unfair means that were used, in 1832, for the attainment of vile ends. But time tells us that dealing in untruth is in the end only a profitless calling. For those carnal minds that use false statements for the concealment of the truth use weapons that will ultimately be as harmless against those they were invented to injure, as they will at last be fatal to those sinners or human serpents against God and man, who were originally the inventors of sad fictions that they knew to be the very reverse of the divine truth, or the true light of the human mind. We have seen the sad work that went on in 350 mr. wakefield's false returns. the prison during the Governor's absence from the 15th to the 25th of June, and again in the end of August during the absence from the prison of my assistant and myself. Independently of the many patients that were lost from late admissions and premature dismissals, about eighteen of the admissions in June, and nine of the patients admitted in the end of August, were lost when, as I believe, every one of these twenty-seven patients might have been saved by proper treatment. For, as we have seen, from the sth of April to the 27th of December, 1832, there were about four hundred and sixty-five cases under the saline, or rather the vital electric treatment, and certainly not more than four of these four hundred and sixty-five cases were lost under the practice of using the vital electricity contained in saline matter as an antidote for the Cholera poison. From the facts that have been stated and proved, it must now be clear to every intelligent mind, that the Privy Council in 1832, Were completely deceived by the official, but false statements that were put before them by the official commissioners who inspected the prison on the 28th of June.. But above all by the official, but still more false returns that were sent by the Surgeon of the prison to the Privy Council on the 28th of June, but above all by the doubly-distilled return of the 28 th of July. For we trust we have clearly proved that both of these official returns that did so much evil, not only 351 mr. wakefield's false returns, in 1832, but ever since that time, were the very essence of untruth. The reader has now seen that the so-called Sir David Barry was the root of the evil. He has seen also that Dr. O'Shaughnessy was Barry's witness, advocate and judge, in the " Lancet," but still it was the double distilled untruths contained in Mr. Wakefield's official returns, that enabled Barry and O'Shaughnessy to do the evil work that was done by them in 1832. For O'Shaughnessy and Wakefield were the true working instruments that enabled Dr. Barry to prevent an inquiry, that the reader must now be aware would have done more good in one hour than has been done by all the Boards of Health that have ever existed in this world, not for good, but for the concealment of medical ignorance, and also for the protection of the doctrine of the serpent, or the human sin of preferring human knowledge to the wisdom of God. For this is the sin that is the true cause of the infliction of the withering curse of self-ignorance, on all those human minds that identify themselves with the electric life that the flesh receives from the blood. For the trail of the serpent is over them all, the consequent evil results being that their minds can hear but they hear not, they can see but they see not, neither do they know what true knowledge is, and, therefore, the human serpents against God are cursed with 352 HUMAN INGRATITUDE THE ROOT OF EVIL. self- ignorance above all cattle even now to this day. The breaking of the first mental commandment is the true cause of evil ; we have seen some at least of its fearful effects in the medical profession, but we do trust that the night of human darkness is now far spent, and that when the spiritual dawn, or the true light begins to appear, there will be an end to the sin of preferring human knowledge to divine wisdom. For then there will be an end to the withering curse of self-ignorance that is now inflicted on every human mind that prefers its own erring spiritual composition of good and evil, to the unerring wisdom of the original, but not the immediate parent of the human race. If what we have formerly said relative to the Cholera be true, it must now be clear to every intelligent mind that Dr. Barry and his party, have much to answer for to God and man for the unfair means that they used in 1832, and also since that time, to prevent the shining of a truer light which must have led, long ere this, to a more successful practice, not only in Cholera, but also in every one of the fevers from poisons. For knowing what I now know, I believe firmly that, in 1832, at least one thousand human lives were preserved from death by the new treatment in the then foul prison at Coldbath-Fields, not one of A A 353 ERRORS OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH. which was entered in the prison journal of that day. I believe also, that if every one of the five hundred and four severe cases, two hundred and one of which were cases of collapse, that were entered in the prison journal in 1832, had been treated exclusively on the new plan, four deaths, and five hundred recoveries would have been about the result of the first trial of the new treatment in the then new disease. But if we admit, for the sake of comparison, that every one of the forty-three deaths that are recorded in the journal of the prison had been lost under the saline treatment, still this loss of eight per cent, in about five hundred and four severe cases of Cholera would have been a mighty gain over the about sixty per cent, loss, which was the average result, not only in 1832, but even still greater in 1849, under the poison to poison practice, recommended by the medical members of the so-called Board of Health, that has been in reality, and still is, a Board of Death to the patients with Cholera. For from the ignorance and the false knowledge of the medical members, in place of a blessing, the so-called Board of Health has been a complete curse to humanity, by preventing the diffusion of a truer knowledge, or a purer light, than the sinful trash that they patronize. For even to this hour they convert the true light into a lie, when they put a material mixture 354 EVIL OF SELF-IGNORANCE. of all the secretions and excretions of the mere material frame in the place of the true life that is in us, and the mere material cerebral secretion, or the life of the flesh, in the place of the one intelligent spiritual mind. Or when they put cerebral perception in the place of mental sight, and convert the mental organs into organs of sense, and then put either nervous sensations, or material ideas imprinted in the brain in the place of the true knowledge that the one inner mind receives through the medium of its own ten external material mental organs that are organised by the true life out of the living blood for the express purpose of enabling the human spirit in the head to acquire the knowledge that is, in truth, its true spiritual food. For the human mind lives not on blood like the material brain, but on spiritual knowledge, which in the present state of human existence is converted, by the erring mind itself, into a mental food that is only a spiritual compound of good and evil. Human ingratitude is the true root of the tree of evil, for human ignorance leads wicked men to prefer their own erring knowledge to the unerring wisdom of God, and therefore, for this sin they are so cursed with self-ignorance, that even to this day they do not know what knowledge is. Men in power do not wish the world to know that they are ignorant of things that they ought to know. It was, therefore, to A a 2 355 MR. WAKEFIELD'S OFFICIAL REPORTS. prevent the exposure of their own ignorance that the medical members of the Central Board, in 1832, secured the aid of the " Lancet," on certain conditions, to assist them in the concealment of a true light, that but for the darkness that was then thrown on it would soon have led to still more mighty discoveries than a remedy for Cholera. It was, also, for the concealment of their ignorance, that the Surgeon of the prison was induced by means best known to himself, not only to be silent with respect to the success of the new practice, but to supply the Central Board and the Privy Council with false returns that enabled the Board of Death and the " Lancet," that could lie, to effect the ruin of a practice that even the Surgeon of the prison now admits to be a mighty improvement in the practice of medicine. We have stated that Mr. W'akefield denies that he has ever abandoned, or ever said or done anything to injure the new treatment in Cholera. We know also that human minds are liable to err, and therefore we admit that our own mind may have acted improperly in judging too hastily of the conduct of an individual to whom at one period we were under a great obligation, for having given us the means of making a fair experiment; and therefore, for the sake of truth, and also of suffering humanity, we must request the Surgeon of the prison, who has 356 ; MR. WAKEFIELD'S OFFICIAL REPORTS. not only his own memory, but his prison journal to refer to, to say whether the following be absolute facts or not. Is it true, that on the 25th of April, 1832, Mr. Wakefield sent a letter to the "Medical Gazette," in which he stated that the Cholera had appeared in the prison on the sth of that month? — that four of the early cases had been treated in the common way, and also that every one of these four patients had died after a short illness? Is it true also, that he stated, in the same letter, that from the appearance of the new disease on the sth of April, up to the 25th of the same month, there had been nearly one hundred cases, twenty-six of which, including the one in the new prison, had been collapsed cases, with only three deaths in all these cases, and of course nearly one hundred recoveries ? On the other hand, is it true or not, that in the end of April or the beginning of May, Mr. Wakefield sent a private letter to the Central Board, worded in such a way as to authorise that Board to publish to the world on his authority, that only three cases of Cholera had existed in the prison from the commencement of the disease on the sth of April to the beginning of May ? Now, if this be true, then what are we to think of his statement that was published in the " Medical Gazette," of nearly one hundred cases from the commencement of the disease on the 357 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED. sth to the 25th of April? Was the private letter intended to tell the Barry Board in the beginning of May that the Surgeon of the prison was wiser in May than he had been a week before, for though twenty-six of the said cases had been cases of collapse, still that he was now convinced that only the three patients that died had been cases of true Cholera? But, if it be true that there were only three cases from the sth of April to the beginning of May, then Mr. Wakefield will please to explain how we are to account for the fact that one hundred and forty-nine admissions in April are recorded in his own verified prison journal, thirty-nine of which had been cases of collapse. Now if the above be the truth, then Mr. Wakefield will, perhaps, please to explain how his private letter was written to the Central Board, in such a way as to enable the medical members to convert the one hundred and forty-nine admissions in April into only three cases of Cholera in the beginning of May. Again, we find that the Surgeon of the prison has recorded in his own verified prison journal, one hundred and sixty-five cases of Cholera from the sth of April to the 11th of May, thirty- nine of which were cases of collapse, and nine cases are entered in the prison journal as deaths from Cholera, although it is admitted that two of these nine patients recovered from Cholera and died afterwards 358 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED. from other diseases. Four of the early patients died under the opium practice, and two were lost from premature dismissal. This is the true statement, as it stands in Mr. Wakefield's prison journal ; but Dr. Barry tells us, at page 107, that the Surgeon had reported to the Central Board only twenty-four cases, and seven deaths, as the number of cases that had been in the prison during what was called the first irruption. Barry tells us also that his agent, Dr. M'Cann, was as ready to certify as Mr. Wakefield himself, that not more than twenty-four cases had been in the prison during that period. Now, if one hundred and sixty-five was the exact number of cases in the prison during the first irruption, then Mr. Wakefield will please to explain why he reported only twenty-four cases to the Central Board, when he had recorded one hundred and sixty-five cases in his own prison journal, and seven deaths in the twenty-four cases instead of one death in the one hundred and fifty-nine cases in which the new practice had been first put to the test of a fair experiment in that prison. Again, is it true or not, that on the 28th of June, Mr. Wakefield certified in the prison journal to the truth of eighty-two patients with Cholera as the number of patients that were in the prison on that day ? Is it not also true, that early on the forenoon of the 28th of June, he reported seventy-five cases of 359 1 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED. Cholera to the Visiting Justices, thirty-seven of which either were or had been cases of collapse, and twelve recent deaths under the new practice ? Again, is it true or not, that on the afternoon of the same day, the same Mr. Wakefield forwarded an official return to the Privy Council, made out in such a way as to enable Dr. Barry to prove that not one case of Cholera existed in the whole prison, either on or from the 25 th to the 29 th of June ; but only twenty-nine patients with mere premonitory symptoms on the 28 th, every one of which had been attacked since the 25 th ? Is it true, that these twenty-nine were then stated to be the only cases then in the prison, as if for the purpose of enabling Barry to prove that I had told him an untruth when I said that I had seen upwards of forty cases of Cholera in the prison on the 25th of that month? Is it not also true, that the Surgeon of the prison knew that Barry made a bad use of that return ? Still, notwithstanding Mr. Wakefield's now warm advocacy of the new practice, he has not contradicted either that or any one of the many official falsehoods that Dr. Barry published to the world in July, 1832, even although he knew that these falsehoods not only did a foul injustice to one for whom he had then professed friendship, but also that they contradicted his own published statements. He must know, also, that the uncontradicted un- 360 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED. truths then published by Barry have cost the lives of thousands on thousands of his fellow beings in this world. Again, is it or is it not true, that on the 28 th of July Mr. Wakefield forwarded an official report to the Privy Council, certifying that there had been in the prison from the 3rd of June to the 28th of July only fifty-nine cases of Cholera, and seventeen deaths, well knowing when he gave this official, but false return, that he had put fifty-nine in the place of the one hundred and seventy-six Cholera patients that he had recorded in the prison journal between these two dates, about ninety of which, owing chiefly to late admissions, had been cases of collapse? Neither did the Surgeon state to the Privy Council that nearly every one of those seventeen deaths had been the sad results either of late admissions, or the cruel experiments that had been made on the poor patients in June, for the purpose of enabling Barry, and his well-paid agent in the " Lancet," to effect the ruin of the then new, but most successful practice. If such had been the conduct of Mr. Wakefield on the 28th of July, 1832, then what right had he to declare, in 1850, that he had been the warm advocate, and the steady friend of the saline treatment in Cholera, ever since he had first witnessed its beneficial effects in April, 1832 ? But if Mr. Wakefield be still the steady advocate of the new 361 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED. practice, then, perhaps, he will now explain to the world why, in 1832, he furnished the Privy Council with the official, but false returns, that enabled Barry to effect the ruin of what he knew to be the most important discovery of that day. Again, is it or is it not true, that Mr. Wakefield knew that the above false return to the Privy Council was used as the means of preventing an official inquiry, that would have ended in the saving from the effects of a fell poison many of the thousands on thousands of human lives that have since been lost, as the result of the wickedness that Barry and his well-paid agents had been guilty of in 1832 ? Mr. Wakefield can scarcely be ignorant of the fact that the increased mortality in the last irruption, in 1849, was the result of the bad use that was made of the official, but false returns that he gave to the Privy Council in 1832; and if he be the steady friend and the warm advocate of the new practice, then why is it that from 1832 to the present day he has not said one syllable to the Government, or to the public, to undo the evil he had then done ? Still, so far from making any attempt to undo the evil that was done in 1832, or 1849, is it not a fact, that in the end of 1832, he published a letter in the " Medical Gazette," the evident object of which was to announce to the medical profession that he was then, at the eleventh 362 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED. hour, giving the preference to a most dangerous experiment and certain death? Consequently, they must now consider this one last fact as a sufficient proof that he must have lost all confidence in the saline treatment of which he had, in that same journal, spoken so favourably in April, when he had tried the new practice only in a limited number of the mildest cases of the then new disease. Again, is it or is it not true, that during the last irruption in 1849, owing partly to the then better drainage of the prison, and partly also to Mr. Wakefield's better knowledge of the true treatment of Cholera, he lost only one patient in the same prison, where in 1832 about thirty-nine of the Cholera patients had been lost, partly from the foul state of the drains, partly from late admissions and premature dismissals, but above all, from wanton experiments, made for the express purpose of effecting the ruin of the new practice ? Still, Mr. Wakefield knows that in 1832, at least one thousand human lives had been saved in that prison by the use of the neutral salts, when used as an antidote to the deadly poison that is the cause of Cholera. Mr. Wakefield knows, also, that the great increase of the mortality in London in 1849, was owing to the greater ignorance of the sterling worth of the saline treatment; still, so far as we know, he did not say one word to the Privy Council, nor did he 363 WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT; publish one syllable to the world, for the purpose of pointing out the mighty advantage of proper drainage, or making his professional brethren acquainted with the fact that he possessed the knowledge of a practice that was perfectly capable of reducing the mortality in Cholera from sixty to five per cent. The above are not all, but they are some of the many points we wish Mr. Wakefield to explain to the public. The human mind is the spiritual tree that not only possesses, but lives on a knowledge that, in its present state, is partly good and partly evil, consequently, every human mind is liable to err, without even the slightest intention of deceiving the world. In our present state of knowledge, we believe Mr. Wakefield to have been the author of great evil; but still we admit that our own mind may be in error, and, therefore, if he can prove to the world that I have made any statements which are not true, or that I have done him an injustice in believing not only that he has been guilty of a cruel injury to himself, but also that he has been the cause of great evil to his fellow-men, I shall then, without one moment's hesitation, come forward, not only to admit the truth, but to do everything in my power to undo the injury that I may unjustly have done to him. But if, on the other hand, he still shrinks from a fair investigation into the truth, 364 REASONS FOR REVEALING THE TRUTH. and still continues to go about prowling in the dark, accusing me of " distorting facts," and of causing statements to be published that are utterly at variance with truth, for the purpose of proving the infallibility of the saline treatment in Cholera, I shall then either trust the decision of this important subject to a higher tribunal, or leave Mr. Wakefield to God and his own conscience, and continue to believe that I have at last done my duty to my God, to my fellow-men and to myself, in putting a fair statement of at least the leading facts before the world, for the benefit of the human race, who are not beasts, nor animals, as the so-called philosophers tell us, but human beings, made in the likeness and after the image of God ; and, therefore, they ought to be, and soon will be, when they can acquire a truer knowledge of themselves, a better race of beings than they now T are, and will continue to be, so long as they remain under the withering curse of self-ignorance, for the sin of preferring human knowledge to the unerring wisdom of God. I trust I have now said enough to convince the intelligent and reflecting portion of my fellow-men, that I had not been guilty of making false statements in 1832, relative to the success of the new practice in Cholera. After a long silence I have now, I believe, revealed enough of the truth, not only to exculpate myself, but I trust to induce thousands of medical 365 EVILS OF MATERIALISM. practitioners, even in distant parts of the world, in future to give a fair trial to the vital electricity contained in saline matter, as a most valuable remedy not only in Cholera, but in all the diseases of the blood and the body, produced when the deadly aerial poisons are permitted to enter the human frame. For the attainment of this good end, it has been necessary to show the wickedness of some men, who may profess to believe, on faith, in the truth of the divine doctrine of their own immortality. But still, if their own invention, or, in other words, the doctrine of the serpent, be true, of what value would immortality be to an unintelligent, mere material cerebral secretion, an electric life, that is just as destitute of intelligence as the gastric juice, and of knowledge as the bile ? Consequently, a mere material cerebral secretion can possess no self-knowledge of its own existence ; neither can an unintelligent electric life, or a cerebral secretion, be responsible for the things that are done by it in the human body. It is this belief in their own materiality, that makes men that are made in the likeness and after the image of God, more prone to evil than good; and not only more ignorant of the true nature of themselves, but more desperately wicked than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field, that have not been contaminated either by human philosophy or human philosophers, and, therefore, their minds see external objects by 366 PRESENT STATE OF THE MEDICAL WORLD. looking at them, and receive a true knowledge of their existence in return for sight. In the present state of medical knowledge, that is, of nervous sensations conducted to the insensible cerebrum, or of material ideas imprinted in the oval centre of the brain, every individual who may make a discovery in medicine, however useful it may be, must also, in making it known to the world, make up his mind to great opposition from human ignorance, and also to becoming acquainted with much of the wickedness that is still so rife in this world. In the present work, we have revealed the facts relative to the Cholera, in as far as they are necessary for the establishment of an important truth ; but we warn certain individuals not to imagine, that because we have not told all that we know, we are therefore ignorant of their dark doings. For if we were to reveal the whole truth connected with this subject, there are certain animal life, or cerebral secretion philosophers, who are now carrying their heads high, that might run the risk of passing the rest of their residence in this world in some far distant penal settlement, where they would find, undergoing punishment, many of their erring fellow-men, who are far less guilty of sin against God and man, than some of our opponents have actually been. Let one individual recollect, that on certain occasions, when for certain reasons he wished the new practice 367 EVIL RESULTS OF SELF-IGNORANCE. to be successful, he trusted entirely to its own sterling worth. But that, on other occasions, when for certain reasons he wished the same treatment to fail, he used ingredients of his own with the electric salts ; consequently, in all these cases, failure soon followed this new plan of using the new treatment. Let another individual also recollect that in a certain hospital in the centre of England, in which the new practice was producing the most magical results, it was found, all at once, to have completely failed. It was then discovered that a certain local leader of the medical profession had visited the hospital, on the preceding evening, at a late hour, like a thief in the night, and after telling the patients that this new practice w T as all tom-foolery, that had been condemned, and proved to be trash, by an official Government commission, in 1832, after thus making an unfavourable impression, he persuaded the hospital attendants to use his own bad, or poison to poison practice in place of the good; and then when this same medical leader was permitted to take his own way in that hospital, so did death, " For wherever the slime of the Serpent fell, Hope shuddering fled, and Mercy shrieked, farewell i" If human ingratitude be the root of evil, and if evil be the parent of ignorance, then to get rid of ignorance we must strike at the root of the evil tree. 368 CHOLERA IN GREVILLE STREET HOSPITAL. * CHAPTER IX. on the result of the new practice in cholera at the free hospital in greville street, in 1832. The Free Hospital in Greville Street was the second of the large establishments in London in which the saline treatment was put to the test of a fair experiment during the first visit of that scourge, the Cholera, to the metropolis of England. The following is an outline of the history of the new practice in the Free Hospital. In 1832 there lived, nearly opposite to the prison at Coldbath-Fields, Mr. Whitmore, a medical practitioner, who had been sent for at the commencement of the Cholera, to visit some of the patients which had been suddenly attacked in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields after the Surgeon had left the Prison. Mr. Whitmore learned that Mr. Wakefield was putting a new practice to the test of experiment, and after witnessing its magical effects B B 369 MR. whitmore's first communication. n several severe cases, he not only became a daily visitor at the Prison to see its results, but he soon commenced using it in every case that occurred in his own private practice. On the 14th of April — that is, about ten" days after the disease had commenced in the Prison, and after Mr. Whitmore had used the new plan in several severe cases in his own practice — he sent the following communication to the Editors of the " London Medical and Surgical Journal." " TO THE EDITORS OF THE ' LONDON MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL.' " Gentlemen, "So much has already been written on the subject of Cholera, and moreover, as we have the most cheering prospect before us of the disease lessening in its devastating progress in the neighbourhood of London, I hardly know whether any communication upon the subject will be acceptable to you at this, the eleventh hour; but, as I have never contributed towards this ' unprofitable mass,' and, indeed, as I have never, till very lately, had opportunities of watching the progress of the disease through all its stages, I may perhaps hope to be forgiven for troubling you with a few observations on the subject — the more so, as it is yet to be feared it may make some further ravages in different parts of England, as well as on the continent. First, then, I should say we have in this disease, as on many other occasions, shown too great a fondness for referring the existence of one symptom as being dependent upon, or caused by the presence of another ; in 370 MR. WHITMORE'S FIRST COMMUNICATION. other words, of supposing that we have satisfactorily referred the effect to its legitimate cause. Thus, in Cholera, the prostration of strength, the coldness of surface, the sunken countenance, the shrivelled and blueish condition of the extremities, are, by far the greater number of persons who have written upon the disease, referred to the diarrhoea which, in a majority of cases, had existed for a longer or shorter period before those symptoms had manifested themselves. Now, it must be evident to the most superficial observer, that none of these last-mentioned symptoms are at all proportioned, either to the length of time, or to the severity with which the diarrhoea had existed. Nay, as far as my own observation has gone, those cases which have not been preceded by diarrhoea have more hastily run into a state of collapse, and that, too, of the most intractable and fatal kind. And again, we do not find that the subsidence of any of these symptoms is in any degree governed by the continuance or cessation of diarrhoea. Nor, in my mind at least, are any of these symptoms, any more dependent on the co- existence of each other, than they are upon any symptom which may have preceded them. Here, then, we feel ourselves driven to look further afield for some common cause which may, and which is likely to have produced this whole train of symptoms; and this, I think, has been well explained by Dr. Stevens, late of St. Croix, as being entirely referrible to a certain condition of the blood of those people who become the subjects of this disease — that is, to the entire absence of any saline matter therein.* This gentleman states that he has been led to * I told Mr. Whitmore that I believed the presence of a specific poison in the blood and the body to be the cause of the new disease, and also that the loss of the saline matter of the blood in the last stage was generally, but not always, the true cause of death. B B 2 371 MR. WHITMORE'S FIRST COMMUNICATION. draw this conclusion from a careful analysis of the blood of Cholera patients, and its great affinity to the chemical condition of that fluid in patients afflicted with the yellow fever of the West Indies, and which complaint that gentleman is said to have treated with unparalleled success during the many years he was resident in that part of the world. But to be brief: I have been led to the above remarks from having witnessed that gentleman's treatment in a very considerable number of cases which have occurred in a public establishment in this vicinity, as well as in several instances in my private practice occurring in a neighbouring parish. I have avoided stating numbers, because I am aware that the treatment in some of these cases was commenced before the existence of some of the worst symptoms of Cholera had manifested themselves ; but to a hackneyed observer, the presence of some two or three of the premonitory symptoms constitute a sufficient earnest of what a few hours will produce ; and I think you will agree with me, that it would be very cruel in every instance to wait for the arrival of fatal symptoms before any curative plan was pursued ; though, by the bye, I saw the treatment commenced in several instances, after the stage of collapse had set in, with the happiest results. Suffice it to say, that the official returns to the Board of Health for the above establishment alludes only to sixteen cases — that is, twelve recoveries, and four deaths. The twelve recoveries are those which were subjected to Dr. Stevens' plan of treatment, the others were subjected to the ordinary treatment in use before the Doctor's plan was made known. It consists in introducing as much saline matter into the system as possible ; to this end, he orders one of the following powders to be taken every hour in beef-tea, or half a tumbler of toast-and-water, until reaction takes place, and then to 372 MR. WHITMORE'S SECOND COMMUNICATION. be continued at more distant intervals ; viz., carbonate of soda, half a drachm ; muriate of soda, a scruple ; oxymuriate of potass, seven grains. If the stomach be very irritable, a seidlitz powder may precede the use of the above, or be introduced occasionally ; a mustard poultice to be applied to the most painful parts ; and an enema, composed of a large spoonful of common salt, and two large table- spoonfuls of sugar, to be administered in half a pint of water, as hot as it can be borne, the patient to be indulged with as much toast-and- water as he chooses to drink ; a good fire to be kept in the room, with as great an interchange of air as can safely be effected. "I repeat, that it is an incontrovertible fact, that not a single instance of fatal termination has occurred in any case, either in my private practice, or in the House of Correction, where the above treatment was had recourse to — a fact which certainly cannot be too generally made public. Begging a thousand pardons for having occupied so much of your valuable columns, " I am, yours, &c, " Henry Whitmore. " Coldbath Square, " April 14th, 1832.' ; Mr. Whitmore also published the following case in the "Medical Gazette" of May 26th, 1832, p. 259: " Sir, " I am induced thus publicly to communicate a recent case of Cholera successfully treated by the saline practice, and under circumstances which may perhaps render its recital not altogether uninteresting to the profession. 373 MR. WHITMORE'S SECOND COMMUNICATION. "May 12tk. — I was consulted in the afternoon by Mrs. L -, aged forty- two, the mother of twelve healthy children, the eldest twenty-three, and the youngest three years old. Supposes herself about three months advanced in uterogestation; complains of diarrhoea, of two or three days standing, with great prostration, and cramps in her lower extremities. Pulse infrequent, and feeble. " Ordered, $> Mist. Creta f., 3_v, Tinct. Opii, mxl, capiat 4 tarn partem statim et repetatur post singulus dijectiones. " In the evening, her daughter came to say, her mother had taken all the mixture, without experiencing any benefit ; indeed, to her former symptoms were superadded vomiting of a violent character. "Ordered the mixture to be repeated, with the addition of Tinct. Catechu f., §ss. " 13th, six a.m.— -Mixture all used, but the patient is considerably worse. Has passed a very restless night; countenance much sunk, voice peculiar, and little more than a whisper, stools fceculent; a bilious fluid was also ejected from the stomach, and complains of a bitter taste in the mouth. " Ordered, Pulvis Cretse C. c. Opio, sj ; divide in Pulvis iv, to be taken in the same manner as the mixtures were directed. Noon. — The powders have all been taken, without the slightest improvement. Stools liquid, and now, for the first time, of a rice-water colour. The fluid which she vomits, however, is still bilious ; tongue flabby, coated, and cold, pulse scarcely perceptible at the wrist, complains much of headache. " 9>, Liquoris Opii Sedat., 5j ; Amnion. Carb., 5j ; Syrupi Aurantii f., ; Aquae, v; misce capiat Coch., ii. Secund quaque hora cum Acid Tart., gr. xv, in statu effervescentia. Ten p.m. — No better. Some discharge from the uterus 374 MR. WHITMORE'S SECOND COMMUNICATION. of black blood, with bearing down sensations, as if about to abort. 14./-, seven a.m. — Miscarried in the night ; appears to be very correct in her calculation as to her period of gestation. Purging and vomiting not at all relieved ; extremities cold, pulse gone, and appears to be fast approaching to a state of dissolution. Ordered a seidlitz powder to be taken directly, and repeated at pleasure ; also one of the following powders to be taken in twenty minutes after the seidlitz, and repeated every hour : " Jic, Soda Carb., s s s ; Soda Mur., 9j ; Potassse Oxymur., gr. vii, miser. Noon. — Vomiting has ceased, purging less frequent ; pulse begins to be perceptible, but small, slow, and tremulous ; some return of heat on the surface. One seidlitz-powder has been taken, also four of the other powders ; all of which have been retained. These were ordered to be continued. " Ten p.m. — Nine of the above powders have now been used, and retained. Considerable reaction has taken place ; voice and countenance much improved ; pulse eighty, and begins to be more full. Lochia beginning to be florid in appearance, and of the usual quantity. Only one dejection since my last visit. Powders ordered to be continued every hour. From this time she rapidly improved, and is now out of danger. "It is worthy of remark, that the eldest daughter, and the husband of this woman, have also been attacked with diarrhoea and cramps in the extremities, for which Pulv. Creta C. c. Opio was given, without affording the slightest relief. After persisting in their use for some time, and as the symptoms were evidently becoming worse, recourse was had to the above saline remedies, and speedy recovery was almost the immediate result. 375 MR. WHITMORE'S SECOND COMMUNICATION. " You will observe, Sir, I was very tardy in putting these patients under the saline treatment ; but I must beg to observe that this did not arise from a conviction on my part that they were not cases of Cholera, for perhaps a better marked case than the first was never witnessed ; but I was anxious to try whether, while bile continued to pass into the duodenum, the diarrhoea and vomiting could not be arrested by any other means than the saline medicines, as recommended by Dr. Stevens, which I had seen used with so much success in the prison at Coldbath-Fields. I think, however, you will agree with me, that I gave chalk and opium (the usual remedies) a very fair trial in the above cases. lam the more particular in pointing out this, as my belief now is, that the non-purgative alkaline salts are, as Dr. Stevens asserts, more useful in relieving the sickness at the stomach, and checking the diarrhoea, than common astringent or absorbent medicines. I may also observe, that these cases show that the rice-water evacuations are not always invariably present in the early stage of the Indian Cholera; and from what I have seen of this malignant disease, though I believe that no treatment will be successful in every case of collapse, yet my thorough conviction is, that a much greater number of patients will be saved by the saline treatment, than by any other practice that has yet been tried. " I have been the more induced to communicate the above facts, as I observe that others (even the Central Board of Health) are still recommending the use of medicines which have been long used in Cholera, fairly tried, and found to be, not only useless, but actually injurious. " I am, Sir, &c, " Henry Whitmore, " Coldbath Square, "May 21st, 1832." 376 MR. CLAINES AND THE NEW PRACTICE. " I may add that, on last Sunday night, just before midnight, I was called on to attend another female, who resides in the same parish, and at no great distance from the above patients. This woman had been suffering for two or three days from vomiting and purging, but when I saw her for the first time she was in a state of collapse. She was also exceedingly emaciated from previous bad living. She was immediately put under the saline treatment ; reaction soon came on, with general amendment in all the symptoms. She has since continued to improve ; the kidneys are again acting, and I have now great reason to hope that she may recover. She is, however, in a very low state, not merely from the effects of the disease, but also from previous ill-health. She is suffering also from great mental anguish for the loss of two children, one of whom had died on Saturday, and the other on Sunday, the same day that she was herself attacked. I did not see either of these children ; but both of them w T ere reported as having died from confirmed Cholera. " Thursday evening, nine o'clock." The Free Hospital in Greville Street was then near to the House of Correction in Coldbath-Fields, and Mr. Whitmore lived in Coldbath Square, at no great distance from either the Prison or the Hospital. About the 15th of May, Mr. Claines, one of the acting Governors of the Free Hospital, had received information of the great success that had attended the use of a new practice in the treatment of Cholera in the House of Correction, Coldbath- Fields, by means of which the medical attendants at that establishment had saved twenty-nine out of 377 MR MARSDEN AND THE NEW PRACTICE. every thirty cases of Cholera that had occurred in that prison. In consequence of this information, Mr. Claines first took great pains to ascertain the truth of these reports, and having convinced himself of their accuracy, he consulted the other Governors, and the conference ended in a firm determination on their part that the Cholera patients, in that Hospital, should receive the advantage of this new and far more successful treatment. Mr. Marsden, the senior Surgeon of that Hospital, was consulted ; but he first demurred, and then asserted that the saline treatment was all quackery, and finally refused to have anything to do with what he termed empirical trash. Mr. Marsden having refused to have anything to do with the new practice, Mr. Whitmore was applied to, and requested by the Governors to give it a fair trial in their Llospital. Mr. Whitmore agreed to treat the first twelve cases, provided the medical attendants of the Hospital would give their free consent to his doing so. By the interference of the Governors their consent was obtained, and Mr. Whitmore most willingly undertook the task. Twelve o'clock on the 20th of May was the hour agreed upon, after which the first twelve cases admitted were to be submitted to the saline treatment. The experiment commenced on the night of the 20th of May, and such was the interest that Mr. Claines 378 FIRST EXPERIMENT IN GREVILLE STREET. felt in the result, that he left an order that he should be sent for, on the admission of the first new case of Cholera, at whatever hour in the night that might happen to be. At what hour the first patient was admitted is doubtful; it appears, however, that the case was not yet in a state of collapse, and, therefore, instead of sending for Mr. Whitmore and the Governor, when the patient was admitted, Mr. Marsden first made his own experiments on this patient, and did not send for Mr. Whitmore and Mr. Claines until late in the night of the 20th, after his own treatment had completely failed, and the patient had become collapsed. The saline treatment, therefore, was not used in this case, until Mr. Marsden considered the patient to be in a hopeless condition, and admitted that the patient could not recover under any mode of treatment that he (Mr. Marsden) had seen tried. Mr. Whitmore said the case was bad enough, but still he had seen worse cases recover under the new plan, not only in Coldbath-Fields Prison, but also in his own private practice. The saline treatment was then commenced in its most energetic form, and such was its magical results, that in less than four hours the patient had so far recovered that Mr. Whitmore pronounced him to be out of danger. It is in such cases as this that the magical effects of the new practice are so clearly seen; for it can be proved that the poison of Cholera produces 379 THE TRUE ANTIDOTE FOR CHOLERA. its deadly effects in the human frame by its action on the electric life that the blood receives from its electric salts, for the body receives its electric life from the living blood, and the blood partly from the vital electricity contained in the oxygen of the air that we breathe as the breath of our lives. The heart, and all the vascular organs, receive their terrestrial electricity from the grey matter of the brain, but they receive the stimulus that forces their action from the vital electricity, or the electric life that is contained in the saline ingredients of the living blood. In Cholera, and all the other diseases of the blood, the saline matter we use as a remedy owes its virtue to the vital electricity that it contains, consequently, even during the collapse stage, the moment this electric, or life-giving remedy enters the cold blood, it soon forces the terrestrial electricity contained in the fibres of the heart, and all the capillary arteries, to re-act on itself. When this occurs, the vital air is now again attracted into the blood in the pulmonary 'organs, and in a short period it is this vital electricity, evolved in the extreme circulation, that re-animates the body that had been dead, perhaps even for days. This change from death to life in the material frame of the spiritual man is so sudden, and so striking, that there is no one thing in the whole range of medical practice so much like magic, or enchantment. But it is those only who have seen the wonderful effects of the new practice that 380 MR. MARSDEN'S RECANTATION. can believe in their reality. Mr. Marsden was an eye witness of the magical effects of the electric salts in the above case; and when Mr. Whitmore declared the patient to be out of danger, the head medical practitioner in the Greville Street Hospital admitted that he had never seen anything so like a miracle. This was the first Cholera patient that had ever rallied from a state of collapse in that establishmen — a most welcome circumstance to the kind heart of the good Governor, who had so much interested himself in trying to counteract the sad mortality in that hospital from the then new disease. Even Mr. Marsden again admitted that he had never seen so miraculous a change from any previously known treatment : he acknowledged, also, that he had now before him a strong fact in favour of the new plan of treating Cholera; and we all know that facts are " Chiels which winna ding, And downa be disputed." On the morning of the 21st, I received the following note : " Coldbath Square, " May 21st, 1832. " Dear Sir, " I was called up last night by Mr. Marsden, the Surgeon to the Institution at Greville Street, and a very active Governor to the same, Mr. Claines, saying they had just taken a case of Cholera in, and were anxious I should super- 381 MR. WHITMORE'S NOTE. intend it, subjecting it to the same treatment which had succeeded in the prison. It is the devil's own case [I don't mean my Cholera patient]. Very many eyes are upon vs — ay, and ill-natured ones too; the success, or otherwise, which we meet with, will do much in establishing or condemning your plan of treatment. Do you think it worth your while to see the patient with me to-day ? or, in other words, can you make it convenient ? And if so, send word by the bearer, my son, what time you will call here, and I will accompany you. " The case is in the Free Hospital, Greville Street, Hatton Garden. " You recollect this is the Hospital where I told you the saline treatment had been tried unsuccessfully, " I am, &c. &c. (Signed) " H. Whitmore." Immediately after the receipt of the above note, I went to Mr. Whitmore, and we proceeded to Greville Street Hospital, where the patient was found to be doing well ; the symptoms of collapse had entirely vanished, without leaving any consecutive fever, or bad effects of any kind. From this time, Mr. Whitmore and myself attended every new case that was admitted into the Hospital. The cases came in slowly, and most of them were of the worst description ; still, under the new treatment, everything progressed favourably. On the night of the 25th, three female patients were admitted, all of them exhibited severe symptoms; they were all 382 MR. MARSDEN'S CONFESSION. subjected to the same treatment, and on the morning of the 27th these three patients had recovered from the stage of collapse. Indeed, so energetic had been the treatment, and so successful had been the result, that by ten o'clock in the morning of that day, not only these, but every one of the other six cases then in the Hospital, were believed to be out of danger. It appears that Mr. Marsden had visited the above patients early that morning, and from what he had already witnessed, no doubt now existed in his mind that the new practice in Cholera was, indeed, a most important discovery. According to the original agreement, the saline treatment was to be put to the test of experiment in twelve cases ; it had now been tried in ten, of which number only one patient perished — a case affording little or no hope when admitted. There was now every reason to believe that the remaining two cases would also do well, thus leaving a result, in twelve severe cases, of one death and eleven recoveries. During the forenoon of the 27th, after Mr. Whitmore, two other medical gentlemen and myself, had examined the above cases, Mr. Marsden entered the ward, and made the following observations in a very impressive manner, as if he felt sincerely the truth of every word he uttered. He said : " Dr. Stevens, I candidly confess that before I had seen this new treatment of yours fairly put to the test of experiment, I not only thought, but spoke 383 MR. MARSDEN'S PROMISE. of it with the most thorough contempt ; but now, after having seen it tested in so many severe cases, I believe that even you are not more convinced of the sterling worth of the saline treatment in Cholera than I am ; and such being the case, if you and Mr. Whitmore will now leave the management of the Cholera cases to me, I give you my solemn promise that, in future, every patient with Cholera admitted into this Hospital shall be treated in the same manner that Mr. Whitmore and yourself have treated these cases ; I pledge you also my honour, that at the cessation of the present epidemic, the result shall be made known, not only to yourself, but to the public." The above was said in a manner that appeared to be perfectly sincere, and therefore I exerted my influence with Mr. Whitmore to cede over the future cases to Mr. Marsden, who was in reality the legitimate medical attendant of that hospital. So long as I remained in England, no man could have acted more uprightly than Mr. Marsden did. In a letter to the Editors of the " London Medical and Surgical Journal," recommending the new practice, Mr. Marsden says, that not one case of collapse had recovered until he had adopted the saline treatment. And after a much more extensive trial, the following extract from a communication that was sent to the Editor of the "Medical Gazette," will show the 384 MR. MARSDEN'S TESTIMONY. results of the new treatment at the Greville Street Hospital. In this communication to the public Mr. Marsden says : " It is right to remark that the saline treatment in this Hospital was first adopted by Mr. Whitmore, of Coldbath Square, in a patient that was abandoned by myself as a hopeless case ; although this patient recovered, and by the like plan many lives were prolonged, yet no uniform success ensued, until the saline powders were faithfully administered every fifteen minutes night and day, with an unlimited quantity of cold water. Hot saline baths were an important auxiliary ; in fact, they never failed in relieving the cramps and exciting the extreme circulation, and thereby diminishing the lividity of the extremities. In every attack of the disease that was not followed by purging and vomiting, all remedies were found perfectly useless, as all such individuals died generally within six, never exceeding eight, hours from the seizure ; which to me affords ample illustration of the important effects of vomiting and purging in the collapse stage of the complaint, or even in the early stages, when the function of the liver is arrested. It is worthy of remark that out of thirteen patients, from the age of ten to twenty years, only one was lost, and this died after a long struggle, having been injected nine or ten times with a saline fluid, rallying more or less after each addition to the venous fluid, the pulse being perceptible at the moment of death. In the three hundred and fifteen cases there was not one who had bilious diarrhoea. From the above facts, it is quite evident that until the saline medicines, hot saline baths and water without limitation, was steadily and faithfully administered, almost every case, in the second stage of the disease, terminated fatally ; while, on the other hand, nearly every patient who had not been previously treated by other C C 385 : MR. MARSDEN'S RESULTS. remedies, but with whom the saline only had been pursued, almost every one survived, as the preceding report sets forth (that out of eighty-one cases in a state of collapse only seven deaths) . With the above facts before me, I must be not only blind to justice, but to all sense of honour and candour, were I not publicly to acknowledge, that until this treatment, suggested by Dr. Stevens, was forced upon my notice by stubborn facts, I not only treated it with disdain, but with determined opposition ; yet I feel that I have been amply repaid, inasmuch as I have been taught a salutary lesson — never again to treat with indifference the suggestions of any man, without due reflection and careful investigation. Notwithstanding all the conflicting opinions respecting Dr. Stevens' hypothesis, whether true or false, I care not ; but I do feel that to him alone is the profession and the public indebted for the path that he has opened — the beacon that he has lighted in the vast labyrinth of humoral diseases ; for the new era that has commenced in both the pathological and therapeutical sciences, and for having thus cleared the threshold and opened the gates, from whence we view the distant light glimmering over the darkness of past ages, yet sufficiently bright to stimulate every scientific inquirer to a thorough cultivation of this unknown portion of human diseases. (Signed) " William Marsden." Surgeon to the Free Hospital, Greville Street. " 2, Thavies Inn, "October 10th, 1832." According to an official list that Mr. Marsden sent to the Central Board, dated December 15th, 1832, the new practice had then been tried in the 386 EVIL RESULTS OF EVIL COMMUNICATIONS. Greville Street Hospital, in eighty-one cases of collapse, with only seven deaths, and seventy-four recoveries. In a work which he published in 1834, Mr. Marsden gave a list of the names and residences of the greater number of the eighty-one patients that had recovered from a state of collapse. He commences this list, however, with the three female patients admitted on the 25th of May, consequently, he left out the other six patients that had been previously saved by Mr. Whitmore and myself. Had these been included, the true number would have been eighty-seven cases, with eighty recoveries from the collapse stage. In the same work, Mr. Marsden gives a list of about fifty-five patients that had been saved from the collapse stage in 1833. We know, also, on good authority, that he used the same practice, with similar success, during the last irruption in 1848 and 1849. We believe it is also true, that about sixty of the cases of Cholera that were sent from Tooting to the Free Hospital, now in Gray's Inn Road, were treated also on the new plan, with only one death in the sixty cases. So long as I remained in England, in 1832, no one could have acted more fairly than Mr. Marsden did ; but evil communications corrupt good manners, for soon after I left, the Surgeon of the Free Hospital c c 2 387 EATING OF THE LIFE OF THE FLESH. became under the influence of Barry, or the gentleman in black. Mr. Marsden knew that Dr. Barry had been guilty of the most infamous conduct in 1832. Still in 1834, Mr. Marsden tells the world that his new master is a gentleman of the first respectability, and of high professional character. It was soon after the commencement of this acquaintance, that the Barry party brought forward the invention of the two saline treatments, the good and the bad. By this contrivance, they flattered Mr. Marsden's vanity by making him the author of the good, and myself the parent of the bad. Mr. Marsden, unfortunately for himself, soon swallowed the bait ; but the end is not yet come. In 1834, Mr. Marsden brought forward, as true, what he knew to be the reverse of truth; but when the facts connected with the subject shall be generally known, the Surgeon of the Free Hospital will then find that in 1834 he was induced, by worse men than himself, to do a deed that, in the end, will not gild his humble name. The above transaction is another proof of the sad effects of eating of the life that the flesh receives from the blood, or, in other words, of human minds identifying themselves with the electric life that the muscular organs receive from the blood, as the result of the action of the material brain. It is for the commission of this sin that 388 THE CRIME AND THE CURSE. the human sinners, or serpents, are, even to this hour, cursed with self-ignorance above all cattle, and a greater darkness to the true light, or a true knowledge of the true nature of themselves, than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field. For the mind of even a donkey knows that it sees external objects by looking at them, and also that it receives a true knowledge of their existence in return for sight. But the material brain of a human philosopher can only perceive by cerebral perception, not external objects, but cerebral sensations, or material ideas, imprinted by images conducted by nerves that neither originate nor terminate in either of the two hemispheres of the one cerebrum. If this be true, then the eaters of the life that the flesh receives from the blood must be blinder to the truth than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field, when they put the cerebral secretion in the place of the human mind, and cerebral sensations, or material ideas, imprinted by images conducted by nerves, that neither originate nor terminate in any part or portion of cerebral hemispheres, in the place of the true knowledge that the intelligent mind receives through the medium of its ten mental organs and mental nerves. But if human beings choose to give or sell such false selfknowledge to the world, then the world ought to know how utterly worthless the false knowledge is that the philosophers sell to the human race. 389 THE NEW PRACTICE IN BRIDEWELL. CHAPTER X. ON THE RESULTS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT IN THE CHOLERA PATIENTS IN BRIDEWELL, IN 1832. The prison of Bridewell was the third of the large establishments in London, in which the new practice in Cholera was put to the test of a fair experiment. The following is an outline of the facts : If the reader will refer to page 122, he will find it stated by Sir Peter Laurie, at a meeting of the Magistrates at Coldbath-Fields, on the 12th of July, 1832, that his reason for wishing to know the result of the new practice in that prison, was not only that the public were anxious on the subject, but that the Cholera had broken out also in Bridewell, and that at his suggestion I had been called in to assist the Surgeon of that Prison (Bridewell), where the saline practice had already produced such a highly favourable result, that it induced him to believe this new practice was capable of subduing the new disease. 390 THE CHOLERA IN BRIDEWELL. The following facts will prove, that the new practice is, in truth, perfectly capable of subduing this awful pestilence in every establishment, where ventilation and drainage are in the same desirable state of perfection that they were at that period in Bridewell. July, 1832, George Dean, age seventeen; Francis Ryan, fifty-five ; and Richard Collins, twenty-five, were simultaneously attacked with Cholera about three o'clock on the morning of the Bth of July. They were removed to the Cholera apartments in the Court, and immediately attended to by Mr. Wheeler, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and his brother. A few of the other prisoners on the male side of the prison were suffering from pain, purging, and other symptoms of disordered bowels, but the prisoners on the female side were free from the new disease. I do not know what the medical treatment was in the first . cases, for the medicines are not mentioned in the document from the Governor of Bridewell, that I have now before me, but under date of the Bth of July (the day of attack), I find porter ordered for seven attendants on the sick, by Mr. Lawrence, and two bottles of brandy for the Cholera patients, on the same day, by Mr. Wheeler, opium was probably given with the brandy, for it appears, that George Dean, the first patient attacked, died at 391 NOTE FROM MR. LAWRENCE. ten minutes before seven, on the evening of the day of attack. Under date of the 9th of July, it is stated in the said document, that Francis Ryan continues very ill, but Collins is convalescent ; it is also stated, under the same date, that J. Martin, George Davenport, and D. Lee, have been attacked to-day, and are all dangerously ill. Under date of the 10th of July, I find that not only George Dean, but John Martin, admitted on the 9th, and Francis Ryan, admitted on the Bth, are dead ; D. Lee, attacked on the 9th, is stated to be extremely ill, but George Davenport is reported to be much better on that day. On the forenoon of the 1 1th of July, I received the following note from Mr. Lawrence, marked " Immediate." " Bridewell, "July 11th, 1832. " My dear Sir, " The Cholera having appeared in the prison of Bridewell, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, a Committee of Aldermen, before whom the matter has been brought, and the Treasurer of the Institution, wish that your assistance should be given to such persons as may be attacked. Will you, therefore, attend at your earliest convenience ? " I remain, dear Sir, &c, &c, (Signed) "William Lawrence." 392 THE LATE MR. JOHN WOOD. Immediately after the receipt of this note I went to Bridewell, and inquired for Mr. Lawrence ; but he was not there, neither had he informed the then medical attendant that he had sent for me. The following extract from the " Lancet," of the 21st of July, may explain the cause of the absence and the omission of Mr. Lawrence, to have left any instructions relative to his note to me of 11th of July. "THE LATE MR. JOHN WOOD. (from a correspondent.) " The premature death of this promising surgeon, who fell a victim to Cholera on the 9th instant, after a few hours' illness, while it is an overwhelming affliction to his family and friends, must be regarded as a loss to the profession and the public. After receiving a good general education, Mr. Wood began to study medicine at St. Bartholomew's, as the articled pupil of his relative, Mr. Lawrence. He then visited the medical schools of France and Germany, and subsequently filled the situation of House-Surgeon for a twelvemonth. From the commencement of his studies, he displayed superiority of talents, indefatigable industry and an ardent desire for knowledge. His greatest pleasure was in the performance of his duties, observation of disease at the bed-side, study of the best writers, and reflection on the materials derived from those sources. " These valuable endowments were adorned by a most amiable private character, by a benevolent and humane disposition, honourable principles, and the most exemplary conduct in the relations of life. "As this case affords an awful lesson of the severity and 393 i i THE LATE MR. JOHN WOOD. untractable nature which this frightful malady sometimes exhibits, we shall communicate a few particulars from an authentic source. " Mr. Wood was regular and temperate in his habits, and accustomed to take regular and strong exercise, particularly in walking. He slept at the house of a relation several miles from London on the 7th, rose early on the Bth, and took a hearty breakfast. Between two and three o'clock he visited, with Mr. Lawrence, the Prison of Bridewell, in which the Cholera had suddenly broken out, and again attended the patients in the evening. He was called to the prison two or three times in the night, so that he got little or no rest. When he met Mr. Lawrence next morning (the 9th) at Bridewell, before breakfast, he looked pale, and said he had been a little purged, which he attributed to having eaten gooseberry-fool for supper on the 7 th. Mr. Lawrence advised him to take a little opium with chalk, to check the purging; but he entertained no suspicion of Cholera. Mr. Wood went home to breakfast, and took an ounce of castor-oil. He continued in conversation with two friends ; the purging increased; but he felt so little alarm, that he was with difficulty prevailed on to go to bed between eleven and twelve. " One of his friends, perceiving a rapid alteration in his countenance, sent for Mr. Lawrence, who saw him about one o'clock. Dr. Tweedie was also requested to visit Mr. Wood soon after. The disease had, at that time, assumed a decided character of the collapse stage of Cholera, and impressed them with the alarming progress it had made. The measures pursued were ineffectual in producing reaction: the vital powers continued to sink, the countenance and extremities became blue, the voice peculiarly characteristic, the spasms incessant, and he died at ten o'clock in the evening." 394 ! MR. COX'S OPINION OF THE NEW PRACTICE. When I arrived at Bridewell on the 1 1th, and found that Mr. Lawrence was not there, I inquired who had charge of the Cholera patients, and was told that the Messrs. Wheeler had left, that Mr. Wood was dead, and that a Mr. Cox was now attending the Cholera patients, I expressed a wish to see Mr. Cox, and he soon appeared. I told him who I was, and why I had come there; Mr. Cox replied, that Mr. Lawrence and the prison authorities also had used him very ill, by appointing him to attend the patients, and then sending another individual to tell him how they were to be treated. Mr. Cox then went on to say, that he had heard a great deal about the saline treatment, but from more sources than one he knew it to be a mere delusion. When he had got this far, he said he should like very much to see the saline treatment tried on one of the cases then in the prison, adding, if you can cure that patient, I will then admit, that your treatment is better than my own. He then showed me the patient he referred to, George Davenport, who had been attacked on the 9 th, and reported as much better on the 10th. But so far from being better on the 11th, he had now been five hours in a state of complete collapse. After I had examined this case, Mr. Cox said I might do what I pleased with this patient ; but he would treat the other cases in his own way, until he saw whether 395 \ NOTE FROM MR. COX. Davenport could be rallied or not by the new practice, that if he did rally, he would then admit the superiority of the saline treatment, and all the other cases should be treated at once on the new plan. Davenport was immediately put under the new practice in its most active form, I remained at Bridewell nearly an hour, but when I left it was still doubtful whether the patient would live or die. Other engagements prevented my seeing this patient again on that evening, but Mr. Cox had promised that the new T practice should be faithfully pursued in that case, which appears to have been done, for at an early hour on the following morning I received the following note : " 8, New Bridge Street, " Friday morning. "My dear Sir, " Davenport, in Bridewell, took three [more] powders, after which reaction took place ; he then commenced your diuretic powders, and urine has passed twice. Altogether the improvement is well-marked, and highly satisfactory. " Believe me, with many thanks for your kind assistance, "Yours very sincerely, (Signed) " Harry Cox." " The diarrhoea patients are doing well." When I visited Bridewell early on the 12th, I found Davenport a new being, he was sitting up in 396 THE NEW PRACTICE IN BRIDEWELL. bed, with a good pulse, and in good spirits. I found also that the patient, D. Lee, who had been attacked the same day with Davenport (the 9th), and who had been not nearly so ill on the 1 1th, had died during the night, under Mr. Cox's narcotic treatment. The opposite results of these two cases had evidently made a favourable impression on the mind of Mr. Cox, for every one of the other patients were now under the saline treatment, and all doing well. When I visited Bridewell on the 12th, I had a long conversation with the Governor, and finding that the disease was confined to the male side of the prison, and also that the drains were in good condition, I recommended the Governor to make a thorough clearing out of the infected part of the prison to prevent the disease from spreading. This was immediately done with a most favourable result. Mr. Cox had also acquired a truer knowledge of the treatment, the result of the purification of the prison and this truer knowledge of the treatment was, that from the recovery of Davenport, on the morning of the 1 2th of June to the end of that year, not one patient died from Cholera in the prison of Bridewell. The foregoing is a true statement of the result of the electric treatment in Bridewell. To prevent is better than to cure, but as my knowledge of the nature of Cholera is founded on views that are essen- 397 THE MATERIAL LIFE OF A MATERIALIST. tially the reverse of the utterly untenable and sinful trash that is generally taught to the medical profession, it may still take some time before these views be generally admitted. In 1832, some, at least, of the then teachers of the medical world were sad defilers of the temple of God. The new practice was founded on a belief in the truth of the divine doctrine, consequently, the fact of its successful result in Bridewell, was sent to keep company with the vital principle of John Hunter in the vault of all the Capulets. For those so-called philosophers who eat of the life of the flesh, do not love the true light, otherwise they would not continue to convert the electric life of the body into the sum total of all the secretions and excretions of the material frame, neither would they defile the temple of God by putting the sum total of this material mixture in the place of the true life that is in us. It is the will of the Deity, that erring human minds are not only the judge of themselves, but also of Him who was the original giver of the first vital spirit, that was and is the original parent of all the spirits in the body, that are in truth the true parents of the spirits in the head. The medical self-called philosophers have now had a long reign, but if they continue to put the sum total of a vile stinking material mixture in the place of the true life that is in us, or a mere material cerebral secretion in the place of 398 CEREBRAL PERCEPTION. the human mind, time will tell that in the end they will not prosper well. For if it be the object of medicine to retain the true life in the body as long as we can, and if the life that the materialists give us will cause death if it be retained in the body for five minutes, then the teachers of the human inventions of a material vegetable life in man, and an animal life in human beings ought not to be permitted to practice medicine even on donkeys, much less on beings of the human race, that they maintain to be infinitely worse than the beasts of the field. For the human minds that the philosophers make, can neither see nor hear, reason, nor judge, but the mind of even a donkey can see and acquire knowledge from sight, and reason and judge of the nature of its knowledge. But the carnal mind of a self-called philosopher can only perceive by perception not the objects that exist in the external world, but nervous sensations, or internal material ideas, imprinted by images in the oval centre of the insensible material brain, that can no more feel nor acquire knowledge from nervous sensations than a material brick, nor perceive ideas imprinted in the centre of itself than any mere material barber's block can acquire knowledge from the external impressions that are made on itself by heat, cold, light, or any of the other secondary causes of action in the material world. If what we have said be true, then the teachers of 399 I THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE TRUE LIFE. the medical profession must be cursed with selfignorance above all cattle, and if so they ought not to be permitted to be teachers of knowledge until they try to find out whence cometh true knowledge, and what it is. But above all, if the object of medicine be to preserve life in the body, then the said teachers ought not to be permitted to practice medicine until they can find out what and where the true life is, and then they will not kill the bodies of their patients in Cholera, by giving the astringent poison of opium to retain the deadly poison of Cholera in the body, that is the true cause of the death of the material frame of the living intelligent spiritual man, or the true life that in the Cholera can remain in the body even for days after the body itself is completely dead. Now, if it be true that in Cholera the working spirit can remain in and reanimate the dead body, then the true life may be the cause of all the movements that are made in the body, but it cannot be the result, or the sum total of all the material actions of the material frame. And if in Cholera, the human mind can remain in the head long after the cold material brain has ceased to act, then the spirit in the head cannot be a mere material cerebral secretion, nor identical w T ith the electric life that the flesh, or the muscular organs receive from the living blood through the medium of the material brain. 400 THE CHOLERA IN ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL. CHAPTER XI. ON THE RESULTS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT IN THE CASES OF CHOLERA IN ST. LUKes HOSPITAL, IN 1832. In 1832, the Cholera patients in St. Luke's Hospital, in the City Road, were under the care of Mr. Ranee, a respectable practitioner, who lived near to Finsbury Square, and Dr. Cambridge, who then acted as House-Surgeon in St. Luke's. During the second irruption of Cholera in Coldbath-Fields, soon after the return of the Governor on the 25 th of June, Mr. Ranee visited the prison almost every morning at an early hour. On one occasion he waited until I came, and then said his reason for wishing to see me was, that Dr. Cambridge and himself had been using the saline treatment in St. Luke's Hospital, but though they had found it much more successful than any other plan that they had tried, still it was not nearly so successful in their hospital as it appeared to be in the prison. D D 401 THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE AT ST. LUKE'S. After some conversation, Mr. Ranee expressed a wish that I should visit St. Luke's, to ascertain, if possible, what could be the cause of the different results of the same practice in the two places. At the time appointed I went to St. Luke's, where I found Mr. Ranee and Dr. Cambridge waiting for me. I then, in their presence, examined every one of the many Cholera patients in that hospital, and ascertained from Dr. Cambridge the exact treatment that had been used in each case. After a strict examination, we retired to Dr. Cambridge's room. I then said the different results, in Coldbath-Fields and in their hospital, were entirely owing to the circumstance, that in the prison we trusted entirely to the saline treatment; whereas, in this hospital you continue to use at the same time, opium, calomel, chalk-mixtures, and other improper medicines, the evil produced by which almost entirely undoes the good that is done by the saline remedies that you use along with them. In the prison, we never use any of these medicines, particularly in the early stage of the new disease ; but in the last stage, when we have reason to believe that the Cholera poison is removed from the blood and the body, then if the bowel complaint still continues, chalk mixture, tincture of kino, or a little warm brandy and water, or even a few drops of tincture of opium is occasionally used with advan- 402 «- THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE REMOVED. tage, but not one of the astringent nor the narcotic medicines are ever given until the last stage of the disease, when we feel certain that the Cholera poison is either completely expelled from the body, or neutralized in it by the alkaline salts ; warm brandy and water, or astringent medicines, or even small doses of laudanum may then be given, but not until then. Such is the plan that we invariably follow in the prison, and if you will do the same thing at this hospital, you will soon find that you will be just as successful here, with the unmixed saline medicines, as we are at Coldbath-Fields, or as Mr. Marsden now is at the Greville Street Hospital. Both Mr. Ranee and Dr. Cambridge promised to give the unmixed saline treatment a fair trial. From that time they did so, and, many weeks afterwards, Mr. Ranee told me that both Dr. Cambridge and himself were then following the new plan with great success; not only in St. Luke's Hospital, but also in every case of Cholera that they attended, either in their own districts or elsewhere. Mr. Ranee added, that they had already saved hundreds of patients, many of whom had been in a state of complete collapse before they saw them, and though he knew that the saline treatment was a sore stumbling-block to the medical members of D D 2 403 •* CURTAILMENT OF MR. RANGE'S RETURN. the Board of Health, still, notwithstanding the false decision that the Board had given against the new practice, Dr. Cambridge and himself were both determined to tell them the truth relative to the superiority of the saline treatment in the Cholera. On the 29th of September, Mr. Ranee sent in a Report to the Central Board of Llealth, in which he stated that he had tried opium for a time, but had given it up on account of its tendency to produce apoplexy. He also stated strong facts in favour of the saline treatment in Cholera, accompanied with a request that his Report might be published both in the " Medical Gazette" and the " Lancet." But still Sir D. Barry kept this Report back until the 20th of October, and when he knew that I was on my way to Denmark, then he sent a mere outline of an analysis of Mr. Ranee's Report to be published in the " Medical Gazette," accompanied with fifteen other returns of his own selection, as though it were desirable that the ray of true light in Mr. Ranee's return should be completely extinguished by the mass of total darkness contained in the other returns that had been selected for the purpose of concealing the truth ; and to effect this, the fifteen opposite Reports were all published in the " Medical Gazette" at the same time. The following is an extract from the Barry, or 404 ._ CURTAILMENT OF MR. RANGE'S RETURN. the Board analyses of Mr. Ranee's Report, as published in the " Medical Gazette."* " The last remedy for Cholera that I shall notice is the saline, recommended by Dr. Stevens. Our attention was directed to its use by the reported success of the cases at the House of Correction for the County of Middlesex. The salutary effects at the first administration was not equal to the extent we had anticipated ; but since our first interview with the Doctor, he has kindly furnished us with more minute particulars of his plan. Dr. Cambridge (the medical gentleman appointed by our local Board of Health to the care of the Cholera patients of this parish), with myself, have seen in a large number of cases its exhibition attended with the happiest results, not only in the rice-water evacuations, but also in the stage of collapse. From what I have witnessed, it is but justice to Dr. Stevens to acknowledge that I place more reliance upon the saline treatment, than on any other that has as yet been recommended. " Mr. Ranee thinks favourable of venous [saline] injection : has tried it five times ; two recoveries." In the above communication, as manufactured by Barry or the Board, Mr. Ranee is made to say : " Our attention was directed to the use of the saline treatment, in consequence of the reported Success of the cases in the House of Correction for the County of Middlesex." I do not believe that Mr. Ranee ever made any such statement to the Central Board; * Vol. ii, p. 83. 405 dr. Cambridge's evidence. for he commenced the new practice at St. Luke's, in consequence of having been an eye-witness of the successful results of the saline treatment in the House of Correction in the end of June and early in July, or about the time that Barry and O'Shaughnessy denied the existence of even one case of Cholera in the House of Correction at Coldbath- Fields on the 27th of June. Mr. Ranee was well acquainted with that black transaction, and this is probably one reason why Barry converted Mr. Ranee's positive testimony into hearsay evidence. In the beginning of October, Dr. Cambridge also sent a firm Report in favour of the saline treatment to the Central Board of Health, and probably from having a shrewd suspicion that the Board would put his report into the fire, he sent the following notification to the " Medical Gazette" of what he had done.* " TO THE EDITOR OF THE ' MEDICAL GAZETTE.' " Sir, " Government having required information concerning the different modes of treatment adopted by medical gentlemen who have had opportunities of attending patients labouring under the Asiatic, or Spasmodic Cholera, I have drawn up a report for the Central Board, and beg to send you the following brief communication for your journal. " Having, since the month of June, been engaged in attend- * See "Medical Gazette," Vol. n, p. 46. 406 dr. Cambridge's evidence. ing cases of this character at a public institution, I have naturally felt extremely anxious to avail myself of every source of information I could obtain. " The sphere of my practice has been extensive, comprising not only such patients as were received into the Hospital, but such also as were out-patients in a large and extensive parish in the metropolis. " I soon found, upon conversing with several respectable practitioners in the neighbourhood, that a variety of conjectures had, as usual, been formed concerning the nature of the new epidemic, and, consequently, a diversity of opinions existed as to the most effectual method of cure. " Under this perplexity, from the discordance of sentiments entertained by intelligent professional men, I was induced to pursue that mode of treatment which had been previously adopted by those gentlemen who had been in the daily habit of attending and prescribing for the sick ; consisting chiefly of calomel and opium, which were exhibited conformably to the symptoms and urgency of the case, and which, I believe, were deemed the best remedies in general use. " But finding much disappointment in pursuing this plan, and considering it as merely combating with the symptoms of the disease, instead of striking at the root of the malady, I abandoned the pursuit, and adopted that mode of treatment denominated the saline, in the manner laid down and recommended by Dr. Stevens, in his recent publication on ' The Healthy and Diseased properties of the Blood ;' and, in as far as relates to Cholera, I am decidedly of opinion, from my own personal observations and experience in the treatment of this direful disease, that the saline remedies are not only the most rational, but decidedly the most successful that have yet been tried, and from what I have seen of their effects, I am induced to believe that they demand the attentive consideration and 407 THE VALUE OF TRUE KNOWLEDGE. practical test of the profession, in preference to remedies which have been so extensively used with so little advantage. " I am, Sir, &c, "S. Cambridge, M.D." "¦ Cholera Hospital, St. Luke's, City Road, " October 2nd, 1832.' At one time the Cholera was very severe in that part of London, and I firmly believe that in 1832 Mr. Ranee and Dr. Cambridge were the s means of saving at least a thousand lives. But still the strong facts that they stated made but little impression, for at that time the members of the medical profession had not then been sufficiently punished and degraded for being breakers of the first mental commandment, that is, preferring their own erring human knowledge to the unerring wisdom of God, consequently, they have since been sorely punished with self ignorance, for though true knowledge is more precious than rubies, still the medical teachers continue to this day to put ten organs of sense in the place of the ten material mental organs, and material^sensations in the unintelligent material brain in the place of the true knowledge that the intelligent spiritual mind receives through the medium of the two eyes, the two ears, and the other six mental organs that are organized, not for the purpose of giving sensation to the insensible and senseless brain, but for the 408 THE DEADLY SIN. express purpose of enabling the erring spirit in the head to acquire a true knowledge, even of things that are themselves destitute of knowledge. But those human minds are still in a state of total spiritual darkness, that put cerebral sensation in the place of mental knowledge, and a mere material mixture of all the secretions and excretions of the body in the place of the spirit of God in man. It is for committing the sin of preferring human knowledge to divine wisdom that the human serpents are cursed with self-ignorance above all cattle; and so long as this self-ignorance continues, the said human serpents or sinners will be permitted to take the road that may please themselves, and so will death. For death will do his work so long as the practitioners of medicine continue to put the cerebral secretion, or the material life of the flesh, in the place of the spiritual mind, and the sum total of a vile stinking material mixture in the place of the true life that is in . us. It is this human sin that constitutes the defilement of the temple of God, for which, we are told, there will be no forgiveness, either in this world or in the world to come. We are told, also, that " the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness."^ * Ist Corinthians, c. iii, v. 19. 409 r THE NEW PRACTICE IN THE CITY HOSPITAL. CHAPTER XII. ON THE RESULT OF THE NEW PRACTICE IN THE CITY HOSPITAL, ABCHURCH LANE Those who were behind the scenes in 1832, and knew the true nature of the secret springs which then moved the opinion and conduct of the medical world, were well aware that the opposition to the new treatment derived its origin chiefly from one of the three medical members of the then existing Central Board of Health (?), two of the members of which had recently given official opinions and instructions relative to the nature and treatment of Cholera, which were in reality the very reverse of the theory and practice recommended by me. It was therefore clear, that if their theory and practice were right, mine must be the reverse ; on the other hand, it was equally clear, that if my views and practice were right, then theirs must be wrong. At that period, Sir William Pym and Dr. Russell 410 __ MR. TWEEDIE AND THE NEW PRACTICE. were the passive, and Dr. Barry was the active member of the so-called Board of Health. The evidence that had been brought forward in favour of the truth of the new views, and the value of the new practice founded on them made in the beginning a strong impression on the public mind. Drs. Prout, Turner, and O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Pretor, and many others, published most favourable opinions with respect to the accuracy and importance of the new views ; whilst Mr. Wakefield, Mr. Whitmore, Mr. Marsden, Mr. Tweedie, Dr. Cambridge, Mr. Ranee, Mr. Moss, Mr. Bossy, Dr. Kendrick, and a host of others, had given ample testimony of the practical value of the neutral salts in the treatment of the then new disease. On the other hand, we have seen that the then active member of the Central so-called Board of Health, was exerting every means in his power to counteract the impressions that had been made on many minds, in favour of the new plan of treating Cholera with the vital electric salts. In 1832, the Cholera patients in the City Hospital, in Abchurch Lane, were under the charge of Mr. A. Tweedie, a young practitioner, who had given proof of some talent in a paper on the contagious nature of Cholera, in the " Medical Gazette," for April of that year, and by another dated the 4th of June of the same year, in which he gives two cases 411 MR. wakefield's private reports. wherein saline injection into the veins had not been successful. Lie also gave an account of some cases, that were treated on the new plan at Greville Street Hospital, in May. At this period, Mr. A. Tweedie was evidently a lover of truth, for though he brought forward two cases of failure under the saline treatment, still he says, on the other hand : "As an offset to the above cases, it may be stated, that Mr. Whitmore has had in all about thirty cases of Cholera since he commenced the saline treatment, and of this number he has lost only two. One of these cases, was that of a man who was brought into Greville Street Hospital in the very last stage of Cholera, and died soon after admission." Mr. Tweedie adds also, "In addition to these, there have been lately in the same hospital seven cases of Cholera, six of which were very severe. They have all been under the saline treatment, four of them have been dismissed cured, and the other three are now considered as out of danger." We have formerly seen, that within one week from the time that the Surgeon of the prison in Coldbath-Fields published his Report in favour of the new practice, means were used by the Central Board, not only to keep Mr. Wakefield silent from that day to this in favour of the new practice, but also to induce him to give official but false returns to the Privy Council, that were the great cause of its 412 SECOND ATTACK ON THE NEW PRACTICE. ruin. It is also equally true, that soon after the above communication was published in the " Medical Gazette," means were used to convert the said Mr. Tweedie from a warm friend into one of the most bitter enemies of the new practice. His first and best papers had appeared in the rival " Medical Gazette," still, soon after he became a convert to the use of opium and brandy, he was mentioned with praise in the " Lancet ;" which was then through Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the chief organ of the Barry or Board party. It was under this new state of things, that Mr. A. Tweedie, not only abandoned his advocacy of the saline treatment, but ere long under the patronage of his new master (the gentleman in black), he became, not only an eater of opium, but one of the most bitter enemies of what he knew to be the true method of treatment in the then new disease. We have seen, that it was in the end of June, 1832, that Dr. Barry made his first attack upon the new practice in the Prison at Coldbath-Fields ; but finding, in July, notwithstanding all his opposition, that the new treatment was still most successfully practised, not only in that prison, but also at the Greville Street Hospital, Bridewell, St. Luke's Llospital, St. Giles's, and other places. It was then that another fresh attack against the new practice was determined upon ; and this time the Cholera 413 LETTER FROM THE CITY BOARD. Hospital, in Abchurch Lane, was selected to be the scene of the new experiment. Dr. Barry was well aware, that Mr. A. Tweedie's recantation and evidence against the saline treatment would not be received without sufficient proof by the medical profession ; and to obtain their own ends, there is reason to believe that Dr. Barry acted on Mr. Tweedie, and Mr. Tweedie on some of the medical members of the City Board. Several of these gentlemen were well known to be upright and talented men, and I believe that some of them at least had no knowledge of the deep-laid plot, that w T as then going on to make the saline treatment not only a complete failure in the City Hospital, but also if possible to render it a complete failure even under my own direction. As the first step in this new and most nefarious transaction, early in the morning of the 18th of July, 1832, I received ,the following communication from the City Board of Health. " Guildhall, « July 17th, 1832. " Sir, " I am instructed by the medical officers of the City of London Board of Health to state, that in consequence of the success you mention in your late work to have attended your treatment of the Spasmodic Cholera, they feel great anxiety to put that treatment into practice in the Cholera Hospital, in Abchurch Lane ; and think it would be most satisfactory 414 THE NECESSITY FOR CAUTION. . to yourself, as well as to them, that the application should be made under your personal superintendance. " If such an arrangement should be compatible with your convenience, I trust it is unnecessary to assure you of the most cordial co-operation and support of the officers connected with the establishment. "I have the honour to be, &c, &c, (Signed) "J. F. De Grave." Hon. Med. Sec. If I had refused to comply with the above request, it would then have been said that I had no confidence in my own treatment, and was afraid to trust to another experiment ; on the other hand, I was aware of Tweedie's connection with Barry, and, therefore, I determined not to risk any experiment in the City Hospital, until I could withdraw Mr. Crooke from the Coldbath-Fields Prison, which at that moment, in the then state of affairs in the Prison, could not be safely done, and, therefore, I found it necessary to request time. It was for this reason, that on the 18th of July I made a personal communication to the City Board, expressing my willingness to attend a certain number of cases in Abchurch Lane, as soon as I could get Mr. Crooke to remain in the City Hospital to attend the Cholera patients, when I might not be there to take care of them myself. At this time, Mr. Crooke was in constant attendance on some 415 ANOTHER LETTER FROM THE CITY BOARD. severe cases in the Prison at Coldbath-Fields, it was therefore this circumstance, with other causes, that prevented me from attending to the request of the City Board, so soon as I wished. In consequence of this delay, I received on the morning of the Ist of August the following communication from Mr. de Grave. " Guildhall, ' July 31st, 1832. " Sir, "I am instructed by the medical officers of the City of London Board of Health, to express their regret that they have not yet had the opportunity of witnessing the application of the saline treatment in Spasmodic Cholera, under the superintendance proposed by yourself, when they had the pleasure of meeting you at the Guildhall. According to the arrangement agreed upon, immediate information was sent to Mr. Crooke on the admission of the first three cases that occurred. Of this information no notice whatever has been taken.* The medical officers are still anxious, even at this late period of the epidemic, that the saline treatment should be tried, .and that in a manner most satisfactory to yourself. I am, therefore, desired once more to offer the uncontrolled management and treatment of the next twelve cases that may be brought into the establishment in Abchurch Lane. " I have the honour to be, &c, &c, (Signed) "J. F. De Grave. Hon. Med. Sec. * Mr. Crook declared that he had never received any such information from the City Board. 41 6 UNFAIR CONDUCT OF MR. TWEEDIE. As I had been successful in the conversion of Mr. Marsden and many others, to a firm belief in the value of the new practice, I did hope in my simplicity, by the force of facts, to be able to make a convert of Mr. A. Tweedie also ; and therefore in my reply to the City Board, accepting their offer, I expressed a wish that he might be permitted to attend the cases with Mr. Crooke On the 2nd of August, at the appointed hour, Mr. Crooke went to the City Hospital ; and at noon on the following day, the 3rd of August, a new case of Cholera was admitted into that establishment. The name of this patient was Margaret Hinchie, aged twenty-five. She had been suddenly taken ill, and was sent to the hospital as a Cholera patient, by Mr. Miles, a respectable Surgeon, of Broad Street. When first admitted, this woman had severe premonitory symptoms and cramps, but she was not yet in a state of collapse. According to the agreement, Mr. Crooke wished to take charge of this case ; but in this wish he was disappointed, for Mr. Tweedie told him, this was not the kind of case in which the saline treatment was to be tried ; for that he himself could easily cure this patient with opium stimulants, and the other valuable remedies recommended by the talented members of the Central Board of Health. He added, however, that as soon as a really bad case, that is, a patient E E 417 A VICTIM TO OPIUM dying from Cholera, came in, Mr. Crooke might then try his new treatment on such a case as soon as he pleased. Mr. Crooke said that the present was a well-marked case of Cholera ; that the agreement of the City Board with me was, that the saline treatment was to be tried on the first twelve cases of Cholera admitted after twelve o'clock on the preceding day. But this observation made no impression on the mind of a man who knew he was acting wrong. Mr. Crooke's first determination was instantly to quit the hospital; but on reflection, he determined to remain and watch the result of Mr. Tweedie's narcotic and stimulating treatment in this case. As already stated, this patient had been admitted on the 3rd of August, but the opium made short work of it; and the moment Mr. Crooke saw that the woman was in a hopeless condition, he intimated to Mr. Tweedie his candid opinion of the treatment that had so soon deprived the poor patient of all hope of recovery, and before leaving the hospital, Mr. Crooke expressed his firm determination never to enter again such a den of iniquity as he believed that Cholera Hospital to be. Soon after Mr. Crooke left, the above patient died, and on the following day I went to the City Board, related to the medical members what had occurred, and announced my intention of having 418 THE FICTION OF THE TWO TREATMENTS. nothing more to do with any experiment in their hospital, being satisfied that any benefit effected by the saline remedies during my presence, would be counteracted when I might not be there to protect my patients from the foul play of those, who were so evidently acting under the evil influence of the medical members of the so-called Central Board of Llealth. When I made the above communication to the City Board, one of the members (Dr. Roupel) proposed that Mr. Tweedie should be dismissed from the hospital at least for a time. But others who were evidently in the opposite interest refused to consent to this proposal. When I saw this, I put an end to the discussion by declaring, that as Mr. Crooke had determined never to enter their hospital again, I also must beg leave to decline having anything more to do with any establishment in which the Central Board had more influence than they had themselves. We have seen, that at the end of the year, Mr. De Grave sent in a Return from the City to the Central Board, which Return had probably been given to him by Mr. Tweedie. It was in this public document that the miserable fiction of the two saline treatments, the bad and the good, was first fabricated. The above fabrication made its first appearance in the " Lancet," long after I had left England, and from, the "Lancet" it soon found its way into the other publications of that day. E E 2 419 AN UNFAIR INVENTION. < And now let the reader look at the miserable means that were then used to mislead the world. In a pamphlet that he published on this subject, Mr. Tweedie states " that, having obtained from a Mr. Roberts a true copy of Dr. Stevens' prescription, which Mr. Roberts had obtained from Dr Stevens himself, he gave it a fair trial, and found Dr. S.s plan to be utterly worthless." Now there is something in this statement that appears on the face of it to be very suspicious. For, in the month of of June, this very Mr. Tweedie was a frequent visitor at Greville Street Hospital, and at that time he was evidently well acquainted, not only with my saline treatment, but gave a public report of its favourable result in about thirty-seven cases of Cholera, with but two deaths, and thirty-five recoveries. If this be true, and we have Mr. Tweedie's own word for its truth, then where was the necessity for applying either to Mr. Roberts, or to any one else, for information on a subject with which Mr. Tweedie himself was already so well acquainted. We do know, however, that the same Mr. Roberts did, on one occasion, visit the prison in Coldbath-Fields, and obtained evidently on purpose, not from me, but from Mr. Wakefield, a prescription of saline medicine which was in reality very different from the remedies that I was then using at the prison, or that I had ever used either there or anywhere else. It was not, there- 420 A TRAP FOR MR. MARSDEN. fore, my treatment, but the self-invented fancy saline treatment of Mr. Wakefield, that was said to have been such a miserable failure in the City Hospital at Abchurch Lane. And no one was better acquainted with this fact than Mr. Tweedie himself, consequently he was guilty of foul play some time afterwards, when on purpose to please his new masters of the Central Board, he made out a statement for Mr. De Grave, wherein he asserted that to be true which he well knew to be incorrect. The real truth in this affair is simply this, the letter Mr. Marsden had published in the " London Medical Journal," in June, 1832, had made a strong impression in favour of the saline treatment. As formerly stated in that letter, Mr. Marsden declares with truth that not even one patient, in a state of collapse, had recovered, except those that had been under the saline treatment as recommended by me. The Barry party well knew that Mr. Marsden's statement was strictly true, and therefore they did not venture to attack what he had published ; but by making mere tools of Messrs. Tweedie and De Grave, they succeeded in inducing these two individuals, or one of them at least, to invent the miserable fiction of two saline treatments, namely, that of Mr. Marsden, under which the mortality had been only about thirty per cent., whereas the practice introduced by myself had pro- 421 FALSE DECLARATION. duced a mortality at the rate of eighty per cent, in the City Hospital. We have seen Mr. Marsden's acknowledgment that he was entirely indebted to me for his knowledge of the new practice. But in the Return that he gave in at the end of the year to the Board, he took the whole credit of the success to himself, and O'Shaughnessy published both Marsden's and the City Return in the same page of the " Lancet," to show that I had no share in the successful saline treatment in the Greville Street Hospital. It was the republication of the above foul transaction in the " Medical Times," by Mr. Ross, in November, 1848, that led to the correspondence betwixt Dr. Turley and himself. That correspondence was soon followed by a public declaration from the then Board of Health, that the experience of Europe had declared that, for the collapse stage of Cholera, there is no cure. It was this false declaration from ignorant men, that are learned only in error, that has caused the existence of the present work, to prove that there is, in truth, a life-giving remedy even in the last stage of the new pestilence. For the Cholera is a fatal disease only when it is treated by those human beings who are, even to this hour, as ignorant of the real nature of the Cholera as they are of the real nature of mental knowledge. 422 CHOLERA IN ST. GILES'S HOSPITAL. CHAPTER XIII. ON THE RESULTS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT ON THE CHOLERA PATIENTS IN ST. GILES'S HOSPITAL, IN 1832. In 1832, the Cholera patients in St. Giles's Hospital were under the care of Dr. Moore, of Saville Row, and Dr. Pinckard, who, partly from the want of success under the other plans of practice, and partly from the reports they had heard in its favour, were induced to give a fair trial to the new treatment in the then new disease. For it appears from facts, that Drs. Pinckard and Moore did give it a fair trial, and there is' reason to believe that the new treatment was just as successful in their hands in St. Giles's Hospital as it was then in the House of Correction for the county of Middlesex, the "Free Hospital in Greville Street, St. Luke's Hospital, or in any of the other places where the new practice was not mixed up with opium, brandy, chalk mixtures and other means of an adverse nature to both the saline treatment and the new pestilence. 423 WORTHLESSNESS OF THE CENTRAL BOARD. In 1832, Dr. Pinckard kept a history of the cases, with the intention of giving it to the public at some future period. For at that time the then Irish writer on Cholera in the " Lancet " had openly declared war to the knife against any human being who would dare to publish one syllable in favour of the new views of the nature of Cholera, or of the new practice in the new disease. Years passed away and nothing was done relative to the successful result of the new practice at St. Giles's Hospital. For Dr. Pinckard, like many others at that time, did not wish to expose himself to be abused like a criminal in public journals, merely for stating what he knew to be true. The result was, that a short period before he died, believing if he left these records behind him he might be blamed for having so long concealed such important facts from the public, he made up his mind to destroy all the documents that he had written on the subject of the saline treatment in Cholera. When Dr. Pinckard had burned nearly the whole of his papers, his colleague, Dr. Moore, entered the room, and when he found what Dr. Pinckard was doing, he made an attempt to save from the fire the few remaining sheets ; but all the important matter had been entirely destroyed. Such facts as these afford a proof of the worthlessness of the so-called Boards of Health and such journals as the " Lancet," or rather of such individuals as its 424 DR. PINCKARD'S COMMUNICATIONS. then Irish writer on Cholera, whose future prospects in life depended on his success in deceiving the world. Dr. Pinckard destroyed the documents, but still some useful information may yet be obtained from Dr. Moore relative to the Cholera cases in St. Giles's Hospital not only in 1832 and 1833, but also in his own practice during the last irruption in 1848 and 1849. But there are other sources from which some knowledge of the success of the saline treatment in St. Giles's Hospital may still be obtained ; for in 1832, Dr. Pinckard made no secret of his success to his own friends, to whom he could tell truth without the dread of personal abuse or public insult, merely for stating what he knew to be an important truth. The following extract from a letter I received in Denmark, from Dr. Andrew Ure, about five months after I had left London, affords some proof of the truth of the above assertion : " March 7th, 1833. "A few weeks ago I met young Dr. Pinckard, who had originally slighted your saline practice in Cholera. He told me further experience had eventually convinced him of its efficacy, and he had better cases to adduce in its favour than any which you yourself had been able to bring forward ; and my son, Alexander, writes me from Paris that M. Andral spoke highly of your work to him, as well as several other eminent physicians. In case, therefore, of a return of this epidemic, you will be the sole practitioner at least by proxy." 425 * SUCCESS OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. We have now seen that, in 1832, the saline or the vital electric treatment had been in full operation in six of the largest establishments in London, in every one of which it had produced favourable results, in proportion to the state of purity in which it was used. It is also true that, during the first irruption, there were hundreds of private medical practitioners in London who were using the saline treatment in their own practice with the most gratifying success. Many of these practitioners were afraid to acknowledge the fact of this success to the public, because they knew that in doing so they would be torn to pieces, and called liars in the " Lancet," by an individual who was then well paid for deceiving the world, and depriving human sufferers of the benefit of a life-giving remedy. But notwithstanding all that could be said against it, and even in despite of the bribery and corruption of some kind or other, that was then used to put down the successful practice by the medical members of the Central Board. Still in London alone the saline treatment was the means of preventing, not only an immensity of human suffering, but of preserving thousands on thousands of human lives in this world, and also of saving an equal number of human bodies from a premature death and an early grave. The population of London in 1831 was 1,424,896. 426 CHOLERA IN LONDON AND PARIS. Between the 14th of September, 1830, and the 4th of October, 1831, before the commencement of Cholera, there were from other causes 17,745 deaths. . The Cholera commenced in the metropolis at Rotherhithe, about the 10th of February, 1832, and from the 13th of December, 1831, to the 2nd of October, 1832, there were 22,843 deaths, or 5098 more than there had been within the same dates in 1831. The population in 1832 was about 45,000 more than it had been in 1831 ; but even if we admit that every one of the 5098 extra deaths in 1832 were the result of Cholera, still this excess of deaths in about 1,470,000 inhabitants was but a small loss in comparison with the results in all the other large cities in Europe. In Paris alone, in 1832, there were, from the 24th of March to the Ist of December, 19,723 deaths from Cholera. This immense difference in the rate of mortality in these two large cities, from the same cause, at the same time, and both nearly in the same latitude, was owing partly to the better drainage in the British metropolis, and partly also to the thousands of lives that had* been saved by the new practice in 1832. For during the last irruption, in 1849, after the Board of Health, the " Lancet," and the other agents of death employed by the Board of 1832, had succeeded in making the world believe that the new practice in Cholera was a mere delusion, there were, 427 VALUE OF A FAIR INQUIRY. as the evil result of this bad conduct, no less than 18,036 deaths from Cholera, being an increase or excess in the mortality of 1849, over the epidemic of 1832, of 12,932 ! For in 1849, when the Central Board were unfortunately permitted to do things in their own way, so did death, for there were 18,036 deaths in London, in a population of about 2,260,000 souls, whereas, out of 1,681,641 inhabitants, in 1832, when the poison-to-poison practice, recommended by the Central Board, was strongly opposed by an infinitely more successful practice, that was then used in thousands of cases, there were only 5,098 fatal cases, or about 30 in every 10,000; but as we have said, in the unopposed poison-to-poison practice, in 1 849, there were about 18,000 deaths, or 79 in every 10,000 inhabitants. If this be true, then this one fact alone ought, for the sake of humanity, to lead to a public inquiry to ascertain what was the true cause of the great increase of mortality from the Cholera in 1849 over the same disease in 1832. In the present state of human affairs, any one private individual can do but little good of himself. But* still if it be true that there is a plan of treating Cholera, that is capable of reducing the deaths from fifty to five per cent., then it will be the solemn duty of every good government on the face of the earth to appoint a fair tribunal to investigate the facts, so 428 HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT ANIMALS. that if found to be true, they may in future be acted upon. We know the sterling value of truth, and we believe firmly in the truth of the facts we have stated ; we believe also that when a fair inquiry will be made into this important question, it will soon lead to a far more important result than even the discovery of a specific remedy for the cure of Cholera. For judging from the signs of the times, we believe that the night of human darkness is now far spent, and therefore it is time for human beings to cast off the works of darkness, and to put on the armour of light. If this be true, then when the storm comes against it, human philosophy, or the house that is built on a bed of sand, must soon fall, never to rise again in this world. When this house is a ruin, then the now erring minds of the human race, that are still at war with their God, will cease to be mere material cerebral secretions, or infinitely lower in the scale of creation than the less erring minds of the beasts of the field. For when human beings shall cease to be beasts, they will then become residenters in the house that is built on the rock of ages, that has not only withstood all the storms that its enemies, the human philosophers, have levelled against it, but it will stand for ever. There is, however, still on earth a broad and an easy way in which the more we advance the more we become involved in error and darkness ; this easy 429 WHAT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN DONE. way is the human so-called philosophy, and -certainly it is true that the erring philosophers, or the leaders of the medical profession in 1849 had not acquired any true knowledge from the experience of 1832. The drainage in 1849 was in a more perfect state in London than it had been in 1832 ; consequently, from this cause alone, the mortality from Cholera might naturally be expected to have been less in the last irruption than it had been in the first. But the very reverse was the fact, and if the Registrar- General had devoted one week of his time in tracing the excess of this mortality in 1849 to its true cause. This inquiry would have led to the discovery of the truth, namely, that there is a specific for the poison of Cholera, and the discovery of this truth would have done more good in one hour, than he has done during the whole of the time he has devoted to the far less important subjects contained in his lengthy but certainly not very spiritual volume. Or, if the leading medical members of the Central Board in 1 849, or the President of the College of Physicians had consented to the appointment of a fair commission to investigate the facts relative to the results of the new practice' in 1832, when an offer was made to put the whole of the proofs before them, they would have done more good to their fellow-men in one week than has hitherto been done by all the Boards of Health and all the Colleges 430 DARKNESS THROWN UPON LIGHT. of Physicians that have ever existed in this world, not for the good of the human race, but rather for the concealment of medical ignorance and the protection of the utterly untenable human inventions of the nature of man that stand in direct opposition to both the word and the works of God. We are told by a writer of the present day, "that the bad principles of our nature are not bounded by caste or climate, and men are still to be found, who, if not restrained by the wise and humane laws of their country, would try to stifle by personal violence and crush by brutal force any truth not hatched by their own conceit, and confined within the narrow fences of their own ignorance." There is but too much truth in this accusation, for it is a sad sort of knowledge that makes those minds that possess the greatest number of cerebral sensations or material ideas imprinted by images in: their material brains, not only the most ignorant men, but the greatest enemies of the human race. .' . We have now seen that the medical members of the Board of Health, and also that the leaders of the College of Physicians have been and still are sore evils under the sun. For in 1849 in place of accepting the offer of proofs of a truer knowledge and a more successful practice in Cholera, I found that I was only casting the pearl of true knowledge before human swine. For the said leaders saw clearly that if I was right they were wrong, consequently, they 431 PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL DARKNESS. knew that if a fair inquiry was made into this subject the whole world would soon see the present state of their own total darkness to the true light. The result was, after consulting with their colleagues, they came to the conclusion that it was infinitely better that the people, the nobles, and the clergy should all perish rather than that the world should acquire a knowledge of the present state of the fearful ignorance of the leaders of the medical world. But still, notwithstanding all their efforts to deceive, the things that are done by such rotten authorities do not prosper well. For the gods that they worship are false gods ; consequently the mere human inventions that they patronize are the foul offspring of human sin, and therefore the trash that they teach will soon be like unto the chaff that the winds of heaven drive to and fro. It must now be clear that if true knowledge be more precious than rubies, then the leaders of the medical profession ought not to be permitted to be teachers of knowledge until they endeavour to find out what true knowledge is. For this mighty secret has been and still is concealed from their cerebral perception even to this day, and time will tell what the end will be of the bitter fruits of the evil tree that they now sell at a high price, under the title of properties of matter, of animal and vegetable lives in human beings, and also of the material brain, or its material secretion, perceiving by cerebral perception, nervous sensations or material ideas 432 PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL DARKNESS. imprinted in an organ that even the seeing mind cannot see, at least so long as the material brain exists in the same cranial cavity with the mind itself that can see. But the belief that the material brain, or the carnal mind can perceive internal sensations or ideas by cerebral perception, is human philosophy, and human philosophy is the sinful trash that is, in truth, the true cause of the infliction of the withering curse of self-ignorance in every human mind that prefers its own erring human knowledge to the revealed unerring wisdom of God. For even to this day the said human sinners or serpents continue to be eaters of the life that the flesh or the muscular organs receive from the blood, or in other words, they put the life of the flesh, or the terrestrial electricity that the brain separates from the living blood, that can neither see nor hear, nor acquire knowledge in the place of the human mind, that can not only see and hear, and acquire knowledge, but that lives on knowledge as its own daily bread. For in spirit and in truth knowledge is the spiritual food of the human mind or the spiritual tree in the garden of God, that not only possesses but that lives on a knowledge of good and evil. F F 433 THE NEW PRACTICE AT WARRINGTON. CHAPTER XIV. ON THE RESULT OF THE NEW PRACTICE AT WARRINGTON, IN 1832. But it was not merely in London that the new practice was put to the test of experiment, during the first irruption of the jungle fiend in 1831, 1832, and 1833. The following is the communication from Warrington referred to at page 130, which appeared in the " Medical Gazette" for the Bth of September 1832: " REPORT OF CHOLERA AT WARRINGTON SUPERIORITY OF THE SALINE TREATMENT. "We have been favoured with the perusal of a manuscript containing a list of cases of Cholera, which have occurred in the neighbourhood of Bank Street, Warrington, which has been the principal seat of the disease in the town. We may add, that the manuscript has been drawn up by a gentleman of great respectability, and one of the oldest practitioners in that place. " There has been some suspicious cases in Warrington 434 THE NEW PRACTICE AT WARRINGTON. previous to the 18th of June, but the inhabitants in general continued healthy until that date. On the evening of that day, however, a woman named Elizabeth Mills, aged about thirty, was attacked in the market-place with evident symptoms of Cholera. This woman had walked that morning from Manchester, where her husband had been attacked with Cholera on the evening of the 16th, he died in the 17th at five p.m., and was buried early on the morning of the 18th. The widow was attacked about eight o'clock in the evening, and was taken to a house appointed for the purpose of lodging such persons as are conveyed by passport through the town. She recovered after a severe illness ; but her child, whom she had carried from Manchester, and who had been taken to the workhouse, was seized on the 20th, and died on the 23rd. " On the same day that this child died, Philip Inghram, a travelling vender of medicines, arrived from Manchester with his wife and family. They went to reside in Bank Street. The following morning one of the children was attacked with Cholera, and died on the 28th of consecutive fever. On the 26th, Inghram himself was attacked; at noon he fell suddenly into a state of collapse, and died at midnight. " The family of Inghram was lodged in a house belonging to a Mr. Lawless. This house was remarkable for its cleanliness ; but on the 24th Mr. Lawless was taken ill, and others of his family were subsequently attacked. From this house the disease spread to the neighbourhood, and from that time to the present the disease has continued its ravages, and still exists in several parts of the town. We think it the less necessary to follow -Up the subject of its introduction as we observe, by a small tract which Dr. Kendrick has published on Cholera, that Mr. Glazebrook, the Secretary to the Warrington Board, is about to draw up an account of the rise and progress of Cholera in that town. F F 2 435 THE NEW PRACTICE AT WARRINGTON. " The manuscript to which we have referred contains the history of one hundred and eight cases, in and in the neighbourhood of Bank Street. Various plans of treatment were tried, The following is an outline of the result up to the time that the statement is made out. Cases. Deaths. Recoveries. Where the patients obstinately refused to take any medicine whatever . . 4 4 0 Where the patients were either very old previous to the attack, or neglected, and seen by the physicians so late that, no. treatment was of any use . . . 30 30 0 Treated by Morison's purging pills . .330 Treated by bleeding, followed up chiefly by the anti-phlogestic treatment, as recommended by Broussais . . . . 13 13 0 Treated with opium and stimulants . . 28 28 0 Treated with bleeding and the saline treatment ....... 7 0 7 Treated by the saline treatment without bleeding 23 2 21 108 80 28 " In one of the very worst cases which was under the saline treatment, where collapse came on almost instantaneously, a piece of lint about four inches square was immersed in liquorammonia., this was applied to the skin. When the cuticle had separated it was taken off, and the oxymuriate of mercury was applied to the abraded surface. The saline powders were given regularly ; reaction came on. In ten hours the patient perceived the mercurial taste in the mouth, and recovered after having been several hours in a state of complete collapse." 436 OPINION OF THE MEDICAL PRESS. About the time that the above was published in the " Medical Gazette," I received a private letter from Dr. Kendrick, expressing, from his own experience of its results, his firm belief in the value of the new practice, and also of its ultimate success. In referring to the attacks that had been made against the saline treatment, he says : " I am w T ell acquainted with all the tricks which are played on these occasions. The press is frequently, on all subjects, in the hands of selfish, profligate and abandoned men, and it never was more so than at the present time" But so far were these attacks from making any unfavourable impression in the mind of an individual who had been an eye-witness of the favourable results of the new practice, I know, on good authority, at that very time that Dr. Kendrick was endeavouring, through the medium of Lord Hill, to obtain for me an admission from the Government of the value of the saline treatment in Cholera, and a public reward for the good that had been done by it in this country. I may add, that I have since received not only the acknowledgment of a Sovereign for the good that I have done, but a kinglyreward for the many lives that I had saved by the new practice. But this reward was not received from the Government of my own country, in which I had been the means of saving so many thousands of human lives in 1832, and for which I have 437 THE HOUSE THAT IS BUILT ON SAND. received in my own country nothing but abuse and sore persecution, because I have endeavoured to persuade medical philosophers that they are not worse than beasts, but spiritual beings that see external objects by looking at them, and receive true knowledge in return for sight, and also that true knowledge is in truth the spiritual food of the human mind. 438 THE NEW PRACTICE AT WOOLW T ICH. CHAPTER XV. ON THE RESULT OF THE NEW PRACTICE AT WOOLWICH IN 1832. The muscular fibres of the heart, and every one of the capillary arteries, receive their terrestrial electricity from the nerves that originate in the grey matter of the cerebro-spinal centres, and conduct the life of the flesh to the muscular organs of the vascular system, in every part where fibres exist in the material frame. The vital current receives its electric life from the vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood, and the material body derives its electric life, or the cause of bodily sensation, from the vital electricity that the body receives from the blood, and the blood from the oxygen of the air, that we breathe into our own blood as the breath of our lives. The narcotic poison that is the remote cause of Cholera, possesses a deadly enmity to the electric life that exists in both the blood and the body of human beings. The poison of opium pro- 439 . FATAL EFFECTS OF THE USE OF OPIUM. duces a similar deadly effect on the life of the blood and the body, consequently, the experience derived from thousands of fatal cases, proves that the inhuman invention of adding the poison of opium to the poison of Cholera is, when used by itself, or with brandy, or chalk mixture, the certain means of causing death in every severe case of the new disease. For even in the less severe cases, where the patients do not become collapsed, the primary calm produced by the deadening effect of the opium is followed by a reaction in the vascular organs, in the form of a symptomatic fever, that is nearly as fatal as the collapse stage of the true Cholera. For death is the almost certain result, when the preservative power, or the true life, has two or three deadly poisons to contend with instead of one, and, therefore, when opium or other astringent poisons are added they retain the poison of Cholera in the system, consequently in the severe cases when the poison of opium is added to the cholera poison, the patients seldom or never recover. It is, however, equally true, that in the milder cases of Cholera, when a sufficient supply of saline matter is added to give new life to the blood, the poisons of opium and brandy will not then produce the same deadly effects as when used by themselves. For when freely used, the vital electricity contained in the vital electric salts acts as an antidote against not 440 MR. BOSSE_'s LETTER. only the poison of Cholera, but the poisons of opium and alcohol. It is for this reason that many of the less severe cases recover, who are treated with salines and narcotics ; but the same plan does not succeed in the more severe cases of the new pestilence, for then the opium and brandy treatment is just as certain to cause death as any of the other deadly poisons. That opium, when used by itself, causes death in Cholera, is now well known to the intelligent part of the medical world, but that moderate doses of opium or brandy may be given with impunity in the milder cases, when the saline treatment is actively used at the same time, was proved by Mr. Bossey, an intelligent medical practitioner, who was Surgeon to the convict establishment at Woolwich in 1832, as will be seen by the following communication to the "Medical Gazette," Vol. x, page 729. " TO THE EDITOR OF THE ' LONDON MEDICAL GAZETTE.' ' Convict Hospital Ship, Woolwich, "August 27th, 1832. " Sir, " The profession is deeply indebted to you for having opened the pages of your valuable journal for the discussion of the merits of the saline mode of treatment in Cholera. " In prosecuting an inquiry of such importance to the welfare of the community, and of such deep interest to the profession, it cannot be too generally lamented that decisive and final opinions have been hastily promulgated, by some extolling 441 MR. BOSSEY'S LETTER. the practice as in almost every case infallible, and by others declaring it totally inert and injurious. " Considering that its employment has been hitherto by far too limited to warrant its general assumption or rejection, the object of this paper is to add a few facts to those already published, and thereby promote the laudable purpose you have attempted. " Cholera appeared in this establishment about the middle of March, but occurred in isolated cases until the sth and 6th of May, when its irruption became general, and its cases numerous. " Of about 800 individuals, of whom this establishment was then composed, a very great majority were affected with premonitory symptoms. Many facilities being offered, the utmost vigilance was employed to secure their early detection. All the men were medically inspected three times daily ; if any individual had three evacuations while at labour, he was placed under observation, and his dejections examined. By this means [it was found that] the cases of sudden, profuse and serious diarrhoea amounted for some time to at least thirty daily. Some of these had vomiting, faintness, and cramps. Most of them were attacked in the morning, and were treated by a single dose of five or six grains of calomel combined with one, two or three [grains] of opium, followed by two ounces of the saline mixture every hour ; and if the purging continued, a starch enema, with two drachms of the carbonate of soda, four of common salt, and one, two or three of the tincture of opium with gruel for diet. Under this regimen, with subsequent small doses of rhubarb and castor-oil, most of these persons recovered, and were never admitted or reported as Cholera. " Satisfied that as much was effected as the most unremitting and assiduous nursing, and the steady employment of remedies could accomplish, the following table and remarks 442 MR. BOSSEY'S LETTER. are offered, as affording the results carefully and impartially collected. Treatment. Cases. Deaths. Recoveries. By bleeding and stimulants . . 13 5 8 By stimulants only 4 1 3 By bleeding and salines ... 56 11 45 By salines only 65 9 56 Hospital patients ..... 10 10 0 Total .... 148 36 112 "The treatment described as 'bleeding and stimulants' consisted of venesection to the amount of six or eight ounces, the administration of salt and mustard emetics, of hot salt water enemata, hot air-bath, bottles of hot water and mustard cataplasms externally, and of brandy, ammonia, and cayennepepper, in liberal and oft-repeated doses internally. No opium was given, as these were the earliest cases, and we were desirous to observe the disease unobscured by its effects. Thirteen were subjected to this treatment, five of whom were lost in periods of five, nine, ten, eleven and twenty-four hours from admission ; and of the eight who recovered, three were moderately and five severely collapsed. Only one of these had the insensible purging, said to be a very fatal symptom ; and he appeared to derive most benefit from the mustard poultices, which were extensively applied for several hours. " The cases treated by ' stimulants only' were seen early. Two had severe premonitory symptoms ; one was moderately collapsed, and one died in seventy-two hours of muco-enteritis. " Until reading the letter of Mr. Wakefield, published in the ' Medical Gazette,' on the efficacy of the saline mode of practice, the principal dependence had been placed, in col- 443 MR. BOSSEY's LETTER. lapsed cases, upon cautious blood-letting, salt and mustard emetics, and mustard poultices. The hot bath, although always at command, had been found in many cases impracticable, and the hot air-bath decidedly injurious. Having prepared a mixture, every two ounces of which contained one of the powders used at Coldbath-Fields, with a small quantity of brandy,* all future cases were treated (after the above preliminary measures had been practised) to the effect of this dose, repeated every half-hour until reaction was accomplished, when small doses of calomel and opium were given every two hours, till the gums were slightly sore, and healthy secretions established, after which the sulphate of quinine and mild aperients usually completed the cure. Fifty-six were thus treated, of whom eleven died, at the following periods after the commencement of the treatment. In six hours . . 1 (a relapse.)f „ twelve ditto . .5 (one a relapse.) „ fifteen ditto . . 1 ? eighteen ditto . . 2 „ twenty- six ditto . i ? four days . . . 1(a relapse.) 11 "Of the [forty-five] recoveries, seven had severe premonitory symptoms, fourteen were moderately, twenty-five severely collapsed ; fifteen had insensible serous purging, and in several * Although in Dr. Stevens' practice stimulants were entirely prohibited, a small proportion of brandy was added to the mixture because most of the patients had previously led irregular lives, and been long accustomed to smoking and dram-drinking. f These relapses were all previously recovered from every appearan«e but are [not] included as recoveries. 444 MR. BOSSEY'S LETTER. the pulse at the wrist, and the secretion of urine were absent for two or three days. A few had smart inflammatory affections of the abdominal viscera, and one or two had partial dropsy during their recovery. " Under the treatment described as ' salines only' are included all those cases in which, during collapse, the following constituted the whole treatment. A salt-water emetic, followed by a dose of the saline mixture every quarter and halfhour, by an effervescing draught with an excess of soda every hour, by the hourly administration of an enema, composed of starch, carbonate of soda and common salt, and occasionally the Tr. opii, by saline beverage, consisting of barley-water, given ad libitum, to every pint of which two drachms of carbonate of soda had been added, and by mustard poultices. " Of sixty-five cases so treated nine were fatal, the period of decease being respectively : In nine hours from admission ... 4 ? twelve hours ditto . . . .2 ? twenty-four hours 1 „ thirty- six hours .... 2 9 "In the case fatal in twenty-four hours, there was partial reaction and relapse ; and the patient who died in thirty- six hours was admitted early, and treated by saline injection into the veins. " Of the fifty-six recoveries sixteen had premonitory symptoms, ten were moderately, and thirty severely collapsed; seventeen had insensible purging. " Under every variety of treatment, the vomiting and hiccup continued occasionally obstinate during recovery, and a few had partial dropsy, but it was only requisite to employ leeches 445 PRIVATE LETTER FROM MR. BOSSEY. in four cases, venesection in one (a month after for anasarca), and of the whole number of cases, one hundred and fortyeight, only two were fatal after reaction ; one of these was an hospital patient, upwards of seventy years of age, who was treated by salines only, lived a week, and died of apoplexy ; and the other, the case of enteretic inflammation already mentioned. " The hospital cases were such as would have been fatal under any acute disease, being patients far advanced in phthisis, fever, and in one or two the arteries were ossified from extreme old age, and death arose from congestion during reaction. "Leaving these facts without comment for the present, I beg to subscribe myself, Sir, " Your most obedient servant, "P. Bossey, M.R.C.S." In a private letter to a friend in London, dated July the 9th, 1832, Mr. Bossey, after giving a list of the results, states, that of those treated by the salines only, ten were hospital patients, already suffering from various diseases and infirmities, in whom blood-letting was quite inadmissible, and whose decease had been confidently predicted before the accession of Cholera. To form a fair estimate of the treatment, these [ten] cases should be left out, and it would then stand " treated by salines only :" Cases . . . . .137 Deaths . . > . .25 Recoveries . . . .112 446 MR. BOSSEY's EXPERIENCE. It is to be observed, the above were all cases of [true] Cholera, [not, mere diarrhoea], but characterized by the presence of vomiting, purging, cramps, and more or less collapse. The result of Mr. Bossey's experience to the 9th of July, namely, one hundred and thirty-seven cases, twenty-five deaths and one hundred and twelve recoveries, proves that the vital electricity contained in the saline matter of the blood is to a certain extent a match for both the poison of Cholera and the poison of brandy, even when both are acting at the same time. But it is better to have only one enemy to contend with than two, for we have seen that in the House of Correction at Coldbath-Fields, where brandy was never used with my consent, until the poison of Cholera was removed from the body, the new practice was more successful than it was at Woolwich, where brandy and the lancet were used at the same time with the saline treatment. But still Mr. Bossey's one hundred and twelve recoveries in one hundred and thirty-seven cases of true Cholera, was a great gain in comparison with the from fifty to seventy per cent., which was then, as it has been since, the average loss from Cholera under the poison to poison practice recommended by the medical members of the Board of Health, who pretend to save life without any knowledge of what either the true life or true knowledge is. 447 THE CHOLERA AT ETON AND WINDSOR. CHAPTER XVI. ON THE RESULTS OF THE NEW PRACTICE AT ETON AND WINDSOR. On the 23rd of August, 1832, Mr. Moss, of Eton, sent a letter to the Central Board with an account of thirty cases of Cholera that had been treated on the new plan without even one death. In that communication, after referring to the worthlessness of the methods of practice in general use, Mr. Moss made the following observation : " Of all the remedies that have been proposed for the cure of Cholera, none will bear comparison with the saline." Mr. Moss had requested that his communication to the Central Board should be sent to be published in the " Medical Gazette." But Dr. Barry about this time was sorely annoyed at so many reports in favour of the new practice that he had officially condemned, and, therefore, he prevailed on Dr. McLeod to refuse to publish Mr. Moss's com- 448 MR. MOSS'S LETTER. munication to the Central Board, under the pretence that it contained no evidence upon the point in question ; or in other words, it did not contain any evidence to justify the correctness of the decision that Dr. Barry and his two self-chosen Commissioners had given in June and July. Mr. Moss consented to the withdrawal of some of the parts that Barry did not consider necessary, and then the following was published in the " Medical Gazette" for September, 1832, " TO THE EDITOR OF THE ' LONDON MEDICAL GAZETTE.' " Eton, "August 28th, 1832. " Sir, "In a communication which I received from the Central Board of Health last week, respecting a paper of mine sent by them to your journal, on the nature and treatment of Cholera, it was stated that you declined inserting it, on the ground that it did not contain sufficient evidence on the point which it went to advocate, viz. : the saline treatment. I regret that I did not send it direct to you, because I have the highest opinion of that treatment, and, from what I have seen, am most anxious for its general adoption, from the belief that it will be a great benefit to mankind. " I have now divested my paper of all theory on the nature of the disease, confining myself to a few remarks on its treatment, with a plain statement of facts in confirmation thereof, (for I am aware, it is these alone you require amid the multiplicity of opinions on the subject), in the hope that you will give it room in your next number. G G 449 MR. MOSS'S LETTER. " I have had twenty-nine cases of the prevailing epidemic within the last seven weeks. The first that occurred to me was in the Eton Poor-house, which is under my care. The patient had been intemperate in his habits, and was seized with severe vomiting, purging, and abdominal spasms. He was treated on the old system of calomel and opium, which subdued the violence of the symptoms, at the expense of the little remaining strength of the constitution, and he sank from fever and exhaustion within three days from the attack. All the other cases were treated with saline remedies, and all speedily recovered under its almost magical effects. Two of these were in the poor-house, and the others principally in low, close parts of the town. Three of these were children, one in a state of collapse for some hours, and apparently dying. Nine of the worst cases were bled with apparent advantage. Six, in whom the head was particularly affected, had one small dose of calomel and rhubarb, and the whole were promptly attended at the outset of the attack, and recovered for the most part within forty- eight hours. The carbonates of soda and potash (preferring the latter as less nauseous) in solution with camphor julep, and a little syrup, were the only remedies used, except those mentioned. In every case (except the children) from ten to fifteen grains of the salt were given every one, two, or three hours, according to the irritability of the stomach, and the vomiting was stopped in a surprising manner, where laudanum would have been instantly rejected. Three-fourths of these cases occurred in one week, at the period when several malignant ones (nine) proved fatal in the neighbourhood. There were five cases in Windsor, and only one of them was cured ; this patient was the Master of the Windsor Workhouse. He had all the most characteristic symptoms of the disease, and was blue enough to convince the most sceptical 450 MR. MOSS'S LETTER. of its identity. He was treated by Mr. Fowler (an Indian practitioner) upon Dr. Stevens' plan ; the attack was not followed by secondary fever, and he is now so well, that were Sir David Barry to see him, he would probably deny he ever had the complaint. None of the fatal cases were treated on the saline plan, or I doubt not that almost all of them, had they been seen sufficiently early, would have recovered ; for such is my faith in the efficacy of this treatment, that I would undertake to cure with the carbonates alone, almost every case that occurred, if seen in the first stage of the disease ; but in the last stage I should certainly adhere to Dr. Stevens' plan. In fact, we have had so many sudden deaths under the old treatment, and so many recoveries under the saline practice, that my belief is, these salts possess a specific influence in neutralizing or destroying the poison of Cholera, when diffused in the human system ; and I am far from solitary in deeming the discovery of this remedy as one of the most important and beneficial of the age; and its author not only a real benefactor to mankind in general, but one of the greatest contributors to medical science. " I am, Sir, yours, &c. (Signed) "William Moss." " P.S. A fatal case of malignant Cholera occurred in Windsor on Sunday last ; it did not become serious till the evening, and terminated the following morning at six o'clock. The treatment pursued was that of opium and calomel. G G 2 451 ON THE CHOLERA IN NORWAY. CHAPTER XVII. ON THE CHOLERA IN NORWAY, IN 1833 AND 1834. During the first irruption of Cholera in Europe, there was a medical journal published in Norway called the " Eyr," Dr. F. Hoist, the Editor of which, was then one of the medical members of the Board of Health. In 1833, Dr. A. Vetter, of Christiania, published in the " Eyr" an account of the Cholera in Norway, and also of the results of the different plans of treatment that had been used in that country. It appears that the published numbers of the "Eyr" for 1833, had fallen into the hands of Dr. Barry; but he did not make any use of them until two years afterwards, and then, when he knew that I was in the West Indies, my old antagonist garbled Dr. Vetter's communication in the " Eyr" in his own way, and sent not the ori- 452 DR BARRY'S TRANSLATIONS. ginal, nor a true translation, but his own fabrication, to be published in the "Lancet" of June 6, 1835. At page 325, Dr. Barry tells the world, on the authority of Dr. Vetter, that : "On the recommendation of the Board of Health, some experiments were made with the treatment recommended by Dr. Stevens, which consists, as our readers are aware, in the employment of refreshing and laxative salts, of rhubarb, &c. ; but no satisfactory result was obtained. In several cases the patient was attacked, either during the typhoid stage, or during his convalescence, with a peculiar exanthema, which sometimes appeared only on certain points, such as the face and extremities, but generally was spread over the whole body ; it was of a deep red colour, and elevated a little above the skin, though without any heat or itching. Sometimes it resembled urticaria, sometimes scarlatina ; and after remaining a few days disappeared, without any desquamation. Patients attacked in this way generally recovered. A symptom which frequently supervened when Dr. Stevens' method was employed was a bloody diarrhoea, which was constantly mortal. Of sixty-three patients treated by Dr. Stevens' method, in the Hospital of Dr. Egeberg, forty-five died and eighteen recovered. However, we should remark that the saline method was only employed in the most severe cases." It appears from the above paper, as translated by Dr. Barry, or some of his friends, that many of the patients under the saline treatment died from a bloody diarrhoea. But the translator does not state that these deaths were the result of the 453 CONVERSION OF TRUTH INTO ERROR. previous plans of treatment; for not one patient died from this cause either in Norway, or anywhere else, where the new practice was used by itself. It is stated, also, in Dr. Vetter's communication to the " Eyr," that in Dr. Egeberg's Hospital the saline treatment ivas used only in the most severe cases, that is, in the worst cases, when the other plans had failed, and the cold collapsed patients were literally dying, either from Cholera, or from the poison of opium, brandy, or other causes. But even with such fearful chances against it, still the saline treatment saved eighteen in sixty-three of the most severe cases. These are the facts, as stated by Dr. Vetter in the " Eyr ;" and if the medical experience of Europe has proved that there is no cure for the collapsed stage of Cholera, except the saline, in some form or other, it was then rather a daring attempt on the part of Dr. Barry to mutilate Dr. Vetter's report in favour of the new 7 practice, and then to send his own misrepresentations to be published in the " Lancet," as a death-blow to a practice that had saved more lives from the poison of Cholera, in Dr. Egebert's Hospital, in one month, than have been saved by all the English Boards of Health, or Colleges of Physicians, that have ever existed in this world. We say, that the above report was mutilated by Dr. Barry, for we believe that no other man then living 454 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. could have condensed so many errors, gross blunders and untruths, into so small a space as was done in that paper. For the writer in the " Lancet" puts Norwegia in the place of Norway, and the "Eye" in place of the " Eyr ;" he also puts Christiana in the place of Christiania, and makes Christiana in Norway to be a town in Sweden. The same translator puts laxative salts, of rhubarb, &c, in the place of the saline treatment ; and after many other blunders, he brings forward a strong fact in favour of the new practice, as the means of giving a deathblow to an improvement in medicine that did more good, even in Norway, in one day, than had ever been done by Dr. Barry during the whole course of his worthless existence in this world. As the readers of the "Lancet" have seen Dr. Barry's side of the picture relative to the result of the new practice in Norway, we will now show them the other and the truer side. On the 15th of October, 1832, I left London for Denmark, and arrived at Copenhagen at the end of that month. I found that the new poison had been very fatal in Hamburg, Liibeck, Holstein and Jutland; a few cases had also occurred at Drammen, in Norway ; but not one case had appeared in Denmark Proper, or Sweden. I remained in Copenhagen until the spring of 1833, and, from a belief that the new pestilence might visit the north of 455 A CLEAR PROOF OF CONTAGION. Europe, in the following summer, I had printed in Copenhagen, about a thousand copies of a small work, in Danish, containing a brief outline of my opinion of the nature of Cholera; but particularly of the treatment that ought to be used, if the new disease should again make its appearance in the north of Europe. In May, 1833, I left Denmark to visit Russia; but the copies of the little work on Cholera were left in good hands, to be forwarded to any place, or places, where the Cholera might make its appearance, in any country where the Danish language is understood. About the 15th of September, 1833, the Cholera again broke out in Dram men, in Norway. On the 29th of that month, a man arrived at Christiania from Drammen, who was said to be in a state of intoxication ; but two days afterwards, viz. : on the Ist of October, this man became very ill from Cholera, and died on the 3rd. His wife was attacked on the day that he died, with similar symptoms ; on the sth, she was conveyed to her daughter's house, at some distance in the country, and died on the 6th. Her attendant was taken ill in the country on the evening of that day, and died early on the 9 th. These facts prove clearly that the true Cholera is the result of a contagious poison ; for there never had been one case of Cholera in Christiania until the arrival of the first 456 TRUE LIFE CAN LIVE IN A DEAD BODY. patient, who brought the poison in his clothes, or more probably in his blood, from the infected town. There were other arrivals from Drammen about that time, and soon after the death of the first patient, the Cholera commenced in the town of Christiania, and continued its destructive effects until it had caused about one thousand deaths, in a town of about twenty-seven thousand inhabitants. The above facts are strong proofs that a contagious poison is the cause of the true Cholera ; and the following case clearly shows that the poison produces its destructive effects, not by any impression on the brain made by means of nerves that neither originate nor terminate in either of the two cerebral hemispheres. For the material brain can no more feel sensations than a material brick, and the facts prove that the poison of Cholera produces its effects by its action on the life of the living blood, and when the deadly poison kills the blood, the poisoned blood soon destroys the material life of the material frame. The body receives its life from the oxygen of the blood, but the muscular fibres receive their electric life from the cerebrospinal centres, and the following case proves that in Cholera the muscular organs retain their electric life long after the blood and the other parts of the material body are completely dead, even before real death. 457 CHOLERA POISON KILLS THE BLOOD. When the Cholera was raging in Christiania, a woman, twenty-eight years of age, in the ninth month of her pregnancy, was brought into the hospital in a state of collapse, labour had commenced, and the os uteri had begun to open. She was bled to eight ounces. Two hours after, the congestion towards the head seemed diminished, with moderate cramps in the lower limbs, diarrhoea, and vomiting . the pulse now became a little fuller, and the os uteri more open. Some pain was soon experienced in the lower part of the abdomen, the labour pains became constant, and a child, in an apparent state of asphyxia, was born at three o'clock. The placenta was immediately expelled, and the several symptoms of Cholera gradually disappeared in the mother ; but the infant began to scream almost immediately after its birth ; it was seized with vomiting, purging, and cramps, especially the, peculiar contraction of the fingers, and died on the following day, with unequivocal symptoms of Asiatic Cholera, Now if it be true that not one of the ten classes of mental nerves originate or terminate in either of the two cerebral hemispheres, then the doctrine of morbid poisons producing their effects through the medium of nerves that never enter the brain must be the offspring of human error. The human mind lives on knowledge ; but the mind of a child does not begin to acquire knowledge until after its birth. 458 EVIL EFFECTS OF DR. BARRY's CONDUCT. The poison of Cholera is not mental knowledge ; but still the body of the above child was poisoned before its birth; consequently the cause of Cholera in the above case could only have been communicated, as the result of the poisoned blood of the mother passing into the body of the unborn child, in which it produced its deadly effects before any nervous impressions could have been made even in the mind of the infant, before it was born into this world. When it was known in Copenhagen, in October, 1833, that the Cholera had reappeared in Norway, the then Norwegian Consul-General in Denmark obtained about thirty-five copies of the- little work on Cholera, printed in Danish, which were sent to the Government of Norway in November. Some of these copies were sent to the Board of Health, with a request from the Regent that the saline treatment should be put to the test of a fair experiment. But the human mind is the spiritual tree of knowledge of good and evil in every part of this world ; consequently, those members of the medical profession in Norway who did venture to face the new enemy, would not try any plan recommended by any other practitioner, until they had first used some new methods or inventions of their own. It was, therefore, only when these had failed, and the patients were all but dead, that the Norwegian practitioners had recourse to the saline, or any treatment that had been recommended 459 CURSE OF SELF-IGNORANCE. by others. But besides this, the leaders of the medical profession in Norway knew, through the medium of the ' Lancet,' that the saline treatment had already been inquired into in London, and condemned as utterly worthless by a commission appointed by the British Government. This was another reason why the new practice in Cholera, in their first experiments, was used only in the last stage, and even then in the worst cases of the new disease. But when their own plans had failed, and when it was at last found that the English treatment was capable of saving life, even in the worst cases of Cholera, this discovery led to its more general use ; and there are facts to prove that its more general use was the means of saving many patients in the last stage, even in Norway, where, according to my then antagonist, Dr. Barry, the saline treatment had been tried and condemned, as having been as utterly worthless in Norway, in 1 833, as it had been by himself, in London, in 1832 ; and that, too, at a time when he knew that the saline treatment had been the means of saving thousands of lives from the fearful effects of the then new pestilence, that is most fatal where it has nothing to act against it but the human ignorance that is the offspring of the errors that emanate from cerebral secretions, or the animal lives in human beings who are for a sad sin so cursed with self-ignorance that, even to this hour, 460 REPORT OF THE NORWEGIAN BOARD. they do not know whence cometh true knowledge or what or where is the place of the human mind. On the 23rd of May, 1834, the Board of Health in Christiania sent an official report to the Government of Norway, relative to the saline treatment in Cholera. The medical members of that Board knew that the new practice had been condemned, as utterly worthless, by the Board of Health in London; but still the medical members of the Norwegian Board had been induced to give it a trial, particularly in many of the worst cases, when the patients were dying either from Cholera, or in consequence of the failure of their own plans of treatment. We have seen that in one hospital the saline treatment had saved eighteen in sixty-three cases, not one of which would have been saved by any other practice, there are also facts to prove that in other places it was still more successful. It was in consequence of this success in the worst cases, that the medical members of the Board of Health, in Norway, did not condemn the new practice as utterly worthless, as the Central Board in London had done. For the Norwegian Board, in their official report to the Government, stated that, " although they did not believe the saline practice to be the unlimited or certain specific for Cholera that my w r arm recommendation had led them to hope, still, after considerable experience, they had found — it could not be denied — 461 LETTER FROM THE NORWEGIAN CONSUL. that the saline treatment is one of the best plans of treating Cholera that is yet known" " Uagtet saaceder de bor samlede Erfaringer ci beretege til at tillogge den salinske Behandling in Cholera det Samme όbetingede verd som Dr. Stevens varme aubefaling gay anledning til at haabe, syncs det dog ikke at kunne negtis, at den bor ansees for en af de bedre hidentil bekjendte. "N. A. Sem, Thalstrup, F. Holst, Constant Rash, Joh. T. Kefty." When the above official report was received, the Norwegian Government sent a copy of it to the Consul- General of Norway, in Denmark, accompanied with a request that it should be forwarded immediately to me, wherever I might be. I received the above communication early in 1835, soon after my arrival in the West Indies, together with the following letter from the Norwegian Consul- General in Denmark : (copy.) " Copenhagen, " le 7 Octobre, 1834. ' Monsieur, "La Regence de Norvege, ayant recu au mois de Novembre dernier, par l'organe de la Mission de Suede et de Norvege dans cette capitale, un certain nombre d'exemplaires de votre ecrit " Sur la methode de traiter le Cholera asiatique," dont vous avez bien voulu disposer pour cet effet, ma invite a vous exprimer, Monsieur, tant de sa propre part que de celle dcs 462 THE FALSE AND THE TRUE STATEMENTS. medecins de Christiania, toute la reconnaissance qua excitee votre intention bienveillante, et en meme temps a vous transmettre la copie ci-jointe dune lettre dv Comite Central de Sante, a. Christiania, contenant quelques observations au sujet de votre methode. " Ayant l'honneur de remplir cette tache, je vous prie, Monsieur, d'agreer l'assurance de ma consideration tres distinguee. (Signed) " F. Ant. Ewerlof." Consul-General et par interim Charge d'affaires de Suede et de Norvege. " Monsieur W. Stevens, " Docteur en Medecine, &c, &c." I received the above communication, containing the official admission of the Norwegian Board of Health in favour of the saline treatment in Cholera, early in 1835. That is about the time that Dr. Barry was garbling Dr. Vetter's communication to the " Eyr," to give a death-blow to the new practice by proving that the saline treatment had been tried in " Norwegia," and condemned as utterly worthless, even after the Central Board of Christiania had admitted to the Government that the new practice, as recommended by myself, had been found from experience in Norway to be one of the best plans of treating the new pestilence that is yet known. 463 CHARACTER OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH. Such are the real facts relative to the results of the saline treatment in Norway. Consequently, the reader will now know what to think of Dr. Barry's account of the condemnation of the new practice in that country, in consequence of its producing in the then new disease " a bloody diarrhoea, which was constantly mortal." It was not, however, the saline treatment, nor the bloody diarrhoea, but the cold-blooded Barry himself, and the other medical members of the so-called Board of Health in this country, that were then, as they have been since, the human serpents that are as much the mortal enemies of the sufferers from Cholera as they are of the progressive improvement of the human race. In the present state of human darkness, even the best minds are liable to err, but the miserable sin of selfishness that leads the animal-life philosophers to prefer the concealment of their own ignorance to the general good of their fellow-beings, is one of the worst branches of the tree of evil, which we trust is soon to be hewn down, and cast into the fire to perish for ever. 464 ON THE CHOLERA IN SWEDEN. CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE CHOLERA IN SWEDEN IN 1834. When it was known in Denmark, in 1833, that the Cholera had again broken out at Drammen, in Norway, the then Swedish minister in Copenhagen, fearing that the new pestilence might soon find its way into Sweden, obtained about fifty copies of the little work in Danish already referred to. These copies were sent to the leaders of the medical profession in Sweden, and a copy was also sent to the King, with an intimation that copies had been sent to Norway. . In consequence of the reports at Stockholm in favour of the new practice, in the beginning of 1834, I received the following communication, which was sent to me at the request of Bernadotte, the then King of Sweden and Norway. " Stockholm, "le 20 Decembre, 1833. " Monsieur, " Le Roi et le Prince Royal ay ant recu votre ouvrage sur le Cholera Morbus, je m'empresse, Monsieur, de vous en temoigner la reconnissance de Sa Majeste et de Son H H 465 NOBLE CONDUCT OF SWEDISH BOARD. Altesse Royale, ainsi que dv soin que vous avez eu de faire repandre en Norwege dcs exemplaires de cet ouvrage. En vous exprimant, Monsieur, combien j'apprecie personnellement vos efforts g^nereux pour reprimer les progres de cette terrible epidemic, j'ai l'honneur d'etre avec une consideration distingu... " Monsieur, " Votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur, "Le Comte de Metterstted. " Monsieur le Docteur en Medecine Stevens, &c, " Londres." The narcotic poison that is the cause of Cholera, found its way into Sweden in 1834. But, in consequence of the intelligence that the leaders of the medical profession there had received of the success of the new practice in Norway, the Swedish practitioners were better prepared to encounter the new enemy than the practitioners in other countries, who had been led to believe that the new practice was a mere delusion. There are many practitioners in all countries who prefer the legitimate practice ; for, however fatal it may be, they will still be supported by the Central Boards, and the Colleges of Physicians : for these, as a general rule, are the true patrons of medical ignorance, and human ignorance is the immediate parent of human error. Still there are some central boards, the medical members of 466 ' NOBLE CONDUCT OF SWEDISH BOARD. which prefer truth, and the welfare of the human race, to the concealment of medical error even at the expence of thousands on thousands of human lives. This was the case with the Board of Health at Upsula, in Sweden, 1834; for, when they found, not only by the intelligence from Norway, but also from their own experience, that the saline method of treating Cholera was not merely one of the best methods yet known, but far more successful than any of the others that they had tried. The Board of Health in Upsula, made out a document, containing instructions to the public for the treatment of Cholera in Sweden, that I firmly believe did more good in the North of Europe in one month, than has been done in England by all the Central so-called Boards of Health that have ever existed in this country, from their first commencement to the present day. The document that was drawn up by the Board of Health in Upsula, was published in almost every one of the newspapers in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The following copy of their circular was translated from the " Aftensblad," published in Copenhagen on the evening of the 10th of September, 1834, under the title of: H h 2 467 SWEDISH TREATMENT OF CHOLERA. "general directions for the treatment of cholera, founded on the experience of later times. "When an indisposition that gives warning of the new disease shows itself by weakness, giddiness, heaviness of the head, sleeplessness, disquiet, loss of appetite, swelling or distension in the abdomen, pain in the stomach, nausea and frequent diarrhoea, the patient ought, without delay, to place himself in a warm and soft bed, and cover himself well. " He ought then immediately to take from two to at the most four drops of the spirit of camphor, diffused in a teaspoonful of sugared water, or on a bit of sngar, every five minutes. If, after several doses, the patient falls into a perspiration, and if in this way the symptoms become milder, the doses are to be taken at longer intervals ; as for example, every quarter, every half, or finally, every third or sixth hour. If the symptoms, on the contrary, from the beginning get worse, and the drops be rejected as soon as taken, there must then be given, without delay, the same number of drops, but more frequently, so that the dose is taken every third minute. " The thirst which often distresses the patient can be quenched best if a bit of ice, of the size of a nut, is slowly allowed to melt in the mouth, or with a tea-spoonful of icecold water, and this as often as the patient desires to have it. The thirst can also be alleviated by small portions of weak bouillon, or in want thereof, oatmeal, or other gruel may be used ; but without the least addition of any other matter. If the patient so wishes, the bouillon may be lukewarm : but, undeviatingly, it must afterwards be continued at the same temperature with which he had commenced, until all danger be passed. " By the above-mentioned simple treatment, used without 468 SWEDISH TREATMENT OF CHOLERA. delay in the beginning of the disease, it is often observed that the pains are alleviated after a few doses. If, under this simple practice, the patient gets into a perspiration, and the disease is thereby removed, it will then only be necessary that precautions be taken to guard against relapse. " But, on the other hand, w 7 hen the above-mentioned treatment does not, within two hours, produce an obvious relief in the disorder, and if the stomach begins to suffer more and more from nausea, pain and distension ; if violent evacuations, also cramp or contractions in the limbs occur ; and, moreover, if all the known symptoms of the existence of the real Cholera be present, it will then, after using the preceding treatment, or even whether it has been used or not, be necessary to have recourse to the following means. " Melt three good table- spoonsful of common salt in a quart of warm water, and the half of this is to be taken immediately. If this does not produce sufficient vomiting in fifteen minutes, then the other must be taken also ; and during this period plenty of lukewarm water, or tea made of camomile, must be freely used. " After the stomach has been sufficiently emptied, and if an inclination to more useless vomiting continues, then, as soon as possible, a large warm mustard or horse-radish poultice ought to be applied over the region of the stomach. This should be kept there until there arises a strong perspiration, and then a moderate tea-spoonful of the carbonate of soda, in a good table-spoonful of equal parts vinegar and water, is to be given in the state of effervescence every twenty minutes. " After three or four doses of the above effervescing medicine, and whether the tendency to vomit be diminished or not, there must then be given regularly each half hour a Stevens'' saline powder, in two or three table-spoonsful of bouillon or oatmeal gruel. One of these powders is to be given every half hour, 469 SWEDISH TREATMENT OF CHOLERA. until the Cholera symptoms have wholly and entirely disappeared ; but even then the saline powders are to be gradually discontinued with more and more ircreased intervals. If the cramps are very severe a warm, and particularly a warm saline bath, is of great benefit. To fifty cans of water it will be necessary to add seven to eight marks of salt, and if a bath cannot be had, then the painful parts must be rubbed unceasingly, and by several persons at once, with warm woollen cloths. "The patient may be allowed to drink small portions of cold water as often as he wishes ; but, must be cautioned in the most earnest manner not to change from warm to cold drinks, nor from cold to warm ; for he must continue with the choice he has once made. All evacuations ought, with speed, to be removed into some deep hole, and every time they must immediately be covered with earth or straw-chaff. During the cold season the heat of the room ought to be maintained by a good fire ; but the air must, notwithstanding the cold, be kept pure by means of a proper opening of some windows, so that the patient be not exposed to a current of cold air. " During the convalescence the patient must, for at least a week, very cautiously satisfy the uncommonly strong feeling of hunger and thirst. He must then take small portions of weak bouillon, with a crust softened in water, or a toasted biscuit, or oatmeal gruel, with a little wine (seasoned) water and wine, or boiled milk. In proportion as the strength returns, gradually and cautiously increase the diet in strength and quantity, and, finally, a Cholera convalescent ought to keep himself warmly clothed, and wear flannel or woollen next his body, or at least a woollen girdle, for a considerable time after recovery from the attack. "It remains to be mentioned, that the above-named saline remedies ought to be had in readiness in every house ; they are to be given in full doses to adults, and to those under age in the following doses : from ten to fifteen years, three-quarter 470 ' CONTRAST BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. doses ; from five to ten, half-doses ; between one and five, one-third doses ; and a quarter to children under one year. "P. V. Afzelius, H. W. Romansson, " L. Hwasser, G. C. Shultz, "C. H. Berostrand, P. I. Liedbeck." The above is the plan of treating Cholera, recommended to the public in the North of Europe by the Board of Health at Upsula, in Sweden. Camphor has long been a favourite medicine in the far North, and when used in the commencement of Cholera, it is far superior to the poison-to-poison practice recommended by the Central Board in this country. But still the camphor, like the cold water treatment, was only successful in the mildest cases, and therefore if the patient did not rally within two hours, the camphor was immediately abandoned, and the saline treatment, in its most active form, was put in its place. Such was the practice recommended by the leaders of the medical profession in Sweden ; and if our own Board of Health had recommended a similar plan in 1848, w T e firmly believe that the mortality would not have been one thousand, in place of the 18,036 patients that lost their lives in London from Cholera in 1849. But had this trial been permitted, the success of the saline practice Would have proved 471 HUMAN RELIGION, SO-CALLED. the worthlessness of the present medical theories — that is, of intelligent effects without the necessity of an intelligent cause for the production of effects that are so clearly the result of intelligence. The above was the dark spot, consequently, during the last outbreak of Cholera, when good advice was offered to two of the medical members of the Central Board, the leader of the den began to talk all sorts of sinful trash about the properties of matter, of animal lives, and vegetable lives, in human beings, as the only legitimate philosophy of life ; it was therefore clear that the new practice in Cholera must be bad, for it is founded on views that were not in accord with Dr. Smith's preconceived notions of animal and vegetable lives in human beings and nervous sensations, or material ideas imprinted in the brain, in the place of true mental knowledge, in the mind itself. The result was, that though they were willing to make experiments privately with the saline treatment, still they were determined not to recommend the appointment of any commission to inquire into a subject that might soon lead to a general knowledge of their own total ignorance of the true nature of things in the human franle. As formerly stated, I would not trust the fate of the new practice to their experiments, and therefore they determined to con- 472 DR. BARRY ACTING LIKE HIMSELF. tinue to treat Cholera in their own way, and so did Death. For I firmly believe that not even one severe case of Cholera has ever been saved by their practice in any part of this world. It is more than probable that the history of the successful result of the saline treatment in Sweden was as well known to Dr. Barry, in 1834, as its history in Norway. But as the proofs of the success of the new practice in Sweden could not so easily be falsified by direct forgeries as its career in Norway, not one syllable relative to its success in Sweden was sent by Barry to be published in the " Lancet," to prove that the saline treatment had been as complete a failure in Sweden as it had been in " Norwegia ;" and that, too, a year after the medical members of the Board of Health in Christiana had admitted the saline treatment to be one of the best of all the plans of treating Cholera that had been tried by them. Dr. Barry could scarcely have been ignorant of this fact, but still we have seen that the official acknowledgement of its being one of the best, was converted by him into one of the worst plans of treatment that had ever been used ! But the leader of the then Central Board was not a first-rate authority ; for, according to his cerebral ideas, the germs of Cholera produce their effects through the medium of what he called the spinal 473 UNFAIR CONDUCT OF PRIVY COUNCIL. marrow, which he maintained to be the source of all vitality and function in the human frame. It is also well known, that when Dr. Barry returned from Russia — " no wiser than he went" — his favourite remedy for the cure of Cholera was a red-hot poker, applied six or eight times to the skin over the spot in the spinal cord that he believed to be the seat and the source of all vitality and function in human beings, and the true seat of the new disease. Ignorance was the parent of Barry's false knowledge — its offspring was death. But Dr. Barry was not only an ignorant, for he had been publicly proved, even in the " Lancet," to be a radically bad man, consequently the higher members of the Privy Council in 1832 committed a sad error when they refused to make an inquiry into the conduct of such a man, when he was denounced to them as the author of great evil to the human race. But the serpent of the prophet had been appointed by themselves, and the condemnation of the sinner of their own choice would have done little credit to their judgment ; and, therefore, when applied to, the said members of the Privy Council did not see any necessity for any farther inquiry, particularly as the justice of Dr. Barry's judgment had been confirmed by the official returns of the Surgeon of the prison at Cold- 474 UNFAIR CONDUCT OF PRIVY COUNCIL. bath-Fields. But the reader who has seen those foul returns, must now know what to think of the decision of the then Privy Council, and also of its sad results to the human race. \ 475 \ INDEX. A. Alldon's, G., case, 296. Allen's case, 242. B. Barry, Dr., 70, 104, 141, 473. on the saline treatment, 141. examination of his evidence, 163, 251. his report on the state of the prison, 126. ¦ his means employed, 226. untruth of the statements of, 238. ¦ his supposed chain of reasoning, 251. false statement of, 268. 1 character of, 348. his translation from the " Eyr," 452. Blood, views of the, 26. Turner on the, 30. ¦ ¦ Brande on the, 29. Quarterly Review on the, 33. Dr. W. B. O'Shaughnessy on the, 33. Board of Health, bias of, 5 (note). treatment of the, 41 . — inspection of Coldbath-Fields Prison by the, 1 03. errors of the, 354. Bossey, Mr., 441. Bowie, Dr., 7. Brain, action of the, vii. not the seat of the mind, ix. Brain, function of the, 478. Brande, Mr., 29. Bridewell, cholera in, 390. Brown's case, 246. C. Cambridge, Dr., 401. communication in Medical Ga- zette by, 406. Carbonate of soda, 39. Chesterton, Mr., 45, 73. his letter, 131. Cholera, deaths from, 3. Dr. Stevens' theory of, 17. Board of Health, theory of, 22. ¦ Dr. Parkes' theory of, 24. in Coldbath-Fields Prison, 44. Dr. Barry on, 105. • in Greville Street Hospital, 369. true antidote for, 380. in Bridewell, 390. in St. Luke's Hospital, 401. in the City Hospital, Abchurch Lane, 411. - in St. Giles's Hospital, 423. in Loudon and Paris, 427. at Warrington, 434. at Woolwich, 439. ¦ at Eton, 448. in Norway, 452. Christian VIII. of Denmark, 11. Christiania, 458. City Hospital, Abchurch Lane, 410. Claines, Mr., 377. Cold affusion, 85. water treatment, 324. I I 478 498 INDEX Coldbath-Fields Prison, saline treatment in, 29, 14, 37, 47, 73. cholera in, 44. summary of cases in, 57. ¦ enumeration of cases in, 64, 91. ¦ return of cholera to, 71. K. Kendrick, Dr., 437. his letter, 129. Knowledge, false, a curse, xvii. true, a blessing, xviii. a spiritual gift, xxii. inspection of, 103. Dr. Barry's documents on, 105. ¦ magistrates' account of cholera in, 121. — — Mr. Wakefield's return of cases L. " Lancet," leader in, 227. Laurie, Sir P., 122, 390. Lawrence, Mr. Wm., 392. in, 175. — — list of sixty-four patients in, 181. Life, origin and seat of the true, xxx. London Medical and Surgical Journal, Mr. Whitmore's communica- — — state of, in June, 1832, 185. on the day of the Government inspection, 201. list of patients in, 28th June, tion to, 370. 1832,210. surgeon of, his treachery, 225. cases of cholera in, 241, 321. false return of cases in, 250. number of patients in, from M. M'Cann, Dr., 103, 273. Maclean, Mr. W., his letter to Boards of Health in Dublin and Cork, June 30 to July 12, 265. Cox, Mr., 395. 219. Marsden, Mr., 9, 15. Materialists, wickedness of, vi. Materiality, 366. Marsden, Mr., 378. D. Delgrave's letter, 414, 416. Dormer's, W., case, 289. his communication to the London Medical and Surgical Journal, 385. Medical Gazette, 49, 82, 155. E. ¦ Whitmore's communication to the, 373. Enema, 40. Eton, cholera at, 448. Ewerloff's letter, 462. " Eyr," the, 452. Medical theories, worthlessness of, 328. Middlesex magistrates, conduct of, 60. Mind, origin and seat of the human, xxi. P. Fevers, West India, 18, 486 seat of the, xxv, 263. Moore, Dr., 423. G. Moss, Mr., 448. Murphy's case, 241. Gannon, 304. Glazebrook, Mr. T. X., 130. N. Greville Street Free Hospital, 369. first experiment in, 378. Guy, Mr. W. A., 3. Nerves, action of the mental, xiii. — — optic, xxiv. Norway, cholera in, 452. H. O. Harris's case, 245. Human frame, central line in the, xxxii. Opium and brandy practice, 310. Organs of the head, xxvi. 479 INDEX. 499 Saline treatment at Warrington, 434. at Woolwich, 439. O'Shaughnessy, Dr. W. 8., 143, 190. on the blood, 33. his leader in the " Lancet," at Eton, 448. in Norway, 460. Scott, John, his case, 52. Sullivan's case, 298. 227. his threat, 231. Ousby, Mr. John, 156. Oxford University, 10. Sweden, 465. Symptoms, 280. P. T. Parkes, Dr., 24. Palmer's, J., case, 288. Pinckard, Dr., 423. Privy Council, petition to, 335. ; reply to, 340. false returns to, 345. Tunbridge's case, 54. Turley, Dr., 41. Turner, Dr. E., 30. . Tweedie, Mr. A., 411, 420. U. Q. Upsula Board of Health, 467. Ure, Dr. A., 425. Quarterly Review, on the blood, 33. R. V. Ranee, Mr., 401. Rotch, Mr., 126. Vetter, Dr., 452. W. s. Saline treatment, 35. Wakefield, Mr., 9, 49, 84, 150, 221, 284. in yellow fever, 2, 36. ¦ rejected by the Board of Health, return of cases at Coldbath- Fields, by, 175. 3. in Coldbath-Fields Prison, 9, 14, 37, 47, 73. ¦ disuse of, in, 304. reports by, 357. Warrington, cholera at, 439. Watmore's case, 300. Whitmore, Mr., 369. in Greville Street Hospital, 369. in Bridewell, 390. ¦ in St. Luke's Hospital, 401. in the City Hospital, Abchurch — — communication to London Medical and Surgical Journal by, 370. communication in Medical Ga- zette by, 373. Wood, the late Mr. John, 393. Woolwich, cholera at, 439. Lane, 411. in St. Giles's Hospital, 423. THE END. LONDON: Printed hy Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.