at length both in noise and velocity, until, having worked themselves into an ecstacy, they seized hold of the instruments, the body kept in a sort of swinging motion, some plunged the skewer instruments, one through each cheek, another through the tongue, a third through the throat, and then commenced stabbing themselves with swords and daggers, and all sorts of nasty instruments. Others cut off their tongue, and having roasted it in the fire put it in their mouth again, when it immediately united; they eat the arsenic and the blistering milk-plant, whilst others munched the glass bangles as though they were the greatest delicacies. This was all done within half a yard of my knees, for they came up close to me with many lamps, in order that I might see there was no deception; and I do assure you it made me feel sick, and produced anything but an agreeable sensation on my mind, for to this moment I know not what to think of it. I am not superstitious, and, although the Colonel and numerous most respectable natives had declared to me that they did actually do these things, and that, if a sense were to be in any manner trusted, they had seen it all done, I would, nevertheless, not believe it. I was told beforehand that it required faith and purity on the part of the performer, and that then not a drop of blood would follow, but that otherwise a few drops of blood would sometimes follow the instruments, and the performer would receive some slight injury.

On taking my departure from the tent, I happened to say that I should at all events think more honourably of their prowess if I saw them exhibited in the open face of day, and divested of noise, motion, paraphernalia, &c. On the following day, whilst reclining on my couch at about two o'clock, reading an English newspaper, without a servant or a soul near me, in rushed their Kazee (priest or judge), his hand full of instruments, which throwing upon the ground, he seized one, plunged it through his cheeks on the left side, another on the right, a third through his tongue upwards, so that it stuck into his nose, another through his throat; he then stabbed himself with a bright and sharp creese, which entered his body about three inches; not a drop of blood fell; he was going to cut off his tongue, when I begged of him to desist. I was, in truth, perfectly nauseated at the sight. The man was in a state of frenzy, and really looked frightful, his face stuck full of instruments, and stabbing and cutting himself with all his might. I sang out for some people, and turned him out.

I have now told you what I have seen, and yet I will not ask you to believe it, for I know not myself what to think. There are many persons of very strong minds in other respects who firmly believe, and who do not hesitate to declare their belief, that, although driven out of Christendom, demonology, witchcraft, necromancy, and the entire list of black and forbidden arts and powers, are abroad and in full existence in India. And I must declare that I will never again trust my senses if I did not see all that I have told you. I examined the instruments-I saw them drawn out of the flesh, and no scar, or blood, or mark left; I also saw a man eat and swallow three ounces of arsenic, and crunch and swallow glass bangles innumerable; and yet, although "seeing is believing," I can scarcely say that I believe what before a court of justice I would swear I had seen.

J.

ON THE SUPPOSED CONTAGIOUS PROPERTY OF YELLOW-FEVER.

BY DR. W. FERGUSSON, INSPEctor-General oF ARMY HOSPITALS.

Mr. EDITOR, Several months ago I stated to you that it was my intention to send to the United Service Journal a communication upon the supposed contagious property of yellow-fever in a form that would be adapted to the military reader, and consequently not unsuited to your pages; but, on reconsideration, I began to think that to ask room for a subject so entirely professional would be an abuse of your indulgence, and therefore I gave up the intention. I now resume it because I have seen, in one of your late numbers, that a detachment of the 1st West India Regiment, on arriving at Barbadoes from Trinidad, had been detained in quarantine for more than thirty days on board a very small ship, for fear of introducing the contagion of yellow-fever into that island; and, as I consider such a measure, on the part of the quarantine authorities,* to be one of the most audacious and unwarrantable that has ever been attempted even at Gibraltar, it being well known to all in the least degree acquainted either with black troops or the West Indies, that the negro is incapable of being affected with yellow-fever, consequently of introducing it, I here enter my health-protest against making our troops, whether black or white, the subjects of so wanton an experiment, which, through over-crowding, might generate other diseases. I consider that the best form of protest I can adopt will be here transcribing a note that was appended to a paper of mine on Malaria or the Marsh Poison, and read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in the year 1819. It was not then published, but Dr. James Johnson afterwards made it known to the medical world in an appendix to his valuable work on the diseases of hot climates. It is not likely, however, that it could have met the eye of the military reader, and therefore I now quote it entire :

"The yellow-fever cannot be a contagious disease, because during its utmost rage it is confined almost exclusively to a particular and very limited class of the inhabitants of the West Indies, viz. the newly-arrived, and never affects the coloured people, unless it finds them under the same circumstances, of being newly arrived from a cold climate, although that last class is the most numerous by at least ten to one of the inhabitants, and is besides as liable as the rest of mankind to fall under the influence of every acknowledged contagion, such as typhus fever, plague, small-pox, measles, and scarlatina.

"It cannot be a contagious disease, because even amongst white people it has been proved, from official returns, that the attendants on the sick are less liable to be attacked with fever than those who have never approached the sick bed, and because it has also been proved, in a multiplicity of instances, that the disease is not communicable to the wounded,

* At the very time this was going on at Barbadoes the inhabitants of Demerara were busy interdicting its shipping and commerce-vide Medical Gazette, No. 13, January 20th, alleging that they (the Barbadians) had introduced yellow-fever into that colony of mud and swamp! What a spectacle-what a treat to the cynic to behold the circle of West India communities all generating yellow-fever during certain unhealthy seasons, yet unable, or unwilling, to perceive that the malarious poison springs from beneath their feet, at the bidding of the quarantine master, denouncing one another as the importers, vexing their mutual commerce, and arraying man against his fellow man with all the hostility of excommunication, all the terrors of insane and selfish panic.

the surgical sick, the convalescent, or the healthy, though occupying the most contiguous beds in the same hospital.

"It cannot be contagious, because it has also been frequently seen that, when a regiment has been divided into separate detachments, the different divisions have been affected with distinct types of fever, according to the circumstances of temperature and locality of their respective quarters; and, when one of them happened to be stationed in the locality of yellowfever (which is almost always at or near the level of the sea), that form of fever was incapable of being conveyed to the other detachments in the higher ranges of country, however frequent and indispensable may have been the necessary communications between them.

"It cannot be contagious, nor anything but a seasoning remittent fever of violent and malignant form, peculiar in a great degree to the newlyarrived, because all who have been debilitated by long residence in hot climates, and would, therefore, be the first to fall under the influence of a new plague, are in a great degree exempt from this form of the disease. And, lastly, it cannot be contagious, nor anything but the product of unwholesome locality and uncommon drought of season, because, in the warmer countries of Europe and North America, where all the inhabitants are under the same circumstances as the newly-arrived in the West Indies from the effect of the preceding winter, it has never been seen, except in some particularly low situations, where the heat has been steadily, for a considerable time previously, of the West India temperature; nor retained in them after that degree of heat has been changed by the change of season, nor transported from them even during its utmost rage to other localities in the closest vicinities, if of higher elevation, of better ventilation, and cooler atmosphere.

"The foregoing are not vague assertions, but matters of fact that have been verified and recorded by the official returns of our armies in the West Indies for the last twenty-five years.

66

As in every epidemic where multitudes are in the course of being affected, every supposable degree of communication must of necessity be constantly taking place amongst the inhabitants of a crowded camp or city; all or any of the believers in contagion may have their creed confirmed in any manner they please, from the dead or the living, by the passing events of every day; and it is only by reference to such facts as the above that the delusion can be cured, and that the observer can be brought to distinguish clearly between the agency of epidemic and contagious influence. Those, however, who have only read the reports of panic from the theatre of the epidemic will seldom be cured of the delusion; no more will those who have seen the disease, but have fled in affright from its supposed contagion; but all who are compelled to remain within its epidemic current, and witness the progress of its successive invasions through the recurrence of sickly seasons, must infallibly have their eyes opened to its real nature, if they be at all capable of distinguishing truth

from error.

"In opposition to the fact that has been so often verified in every colony of the West Indies, that the sailors of merchant-ships landed with yellow-fever never infected the crowded, unwholesome suburb lodginghouses to which alone they had access, it has been said, with much feasibility, to have been imported in ships; but this is another delusion arising from the well-known fact that newly-arrived strangers are generally the immediate and most striking victims of every epidemic; and hence our most thoughtless intemperate sailors, when at these dangerous times they are thrown into the unwholesome anchorages of the West Indies, are not only the first to suffer from the epidemic in its course, or about to begin, but they are denounced as the importers by the prejudiced vulgar; and the accusation is loudly re-echoed, even among the better informed, by all

who wish to make themselves believe that pestilence cannot be a native product of their own habitations. The incomprehensible punctuality of ships regularly arriving at some particular seaports of Spain and North America fraught with the pestilence of yellow-fever, at the precise stage and period, and at no other, of those hot and dry seasons that assimilate them to the unwholesomest of the West India towns, can therefore be no more than a fiction of prejudice-a delusion of panic terror."

I should hope the above will be deemed conclusive in regard to the contagion of yellow-fever, and by demonstrating the true nature of the disease rescue many a gallant spirit from the terrors of an unreal phantom, which would otherwise haunt him under the form of the sick soldier in hospital -the companion of his mess-table-or the members of his domestic household when taken with illness. The real terrors that accompany the march of such a destroyer are sufficiently formidable in themselves without this cruel aggravation-the most anti-social and unchristian, to judge from its effects, that could be inflicted upon him; but once bring him to understand the true nature of his position in regard to the disease, and there can be little reason to doubt that he would meet it with the firmness becoming his national character, in the assured confidence that the danger would pass away in the course of the seasons, or that he would soon become so well seasoned and habituated to the climate as to be independent of its influence.

So much for the West Indies, where the contagion of fever can scarcely be made to exist under any form, and where, if it could be made to exist, the quarantine authorities, by cooping up men in quarantine in the manner they are represented to have done, would be the most likely to produce it; but in our own climates we have contagions both essential and factitious, which at times will devastate our military quarters, and of which it may be well that every military officer, upon whom a command may devolve, should possess a competent knowledge. The essential contagions -such as small-pox, scarlet-fever, &c., which can be carried to any part of the world-are those that on the reception of a particle into the body contaminate the whole frame, just as surely as the poison-drop from the fang of the viper will produce its specific effects: against these it is impossible that any purity of atmosphere, or precautions of discipline, can avail-for, as long as approach to the diseased is permitted, there can be no safety but in segregation. The other contagions, of which all febrile diseases may be made susceptible, are those of accumulation and quantity. Thus, for example, crowd a number of sick into an ill-aired apartment, and it is probable that a highly-contagious atmosphere will speedily be generated most dangerous to all who enter it; but select any one-the very worst of the sick-and place him, after being cleansed and purified, in a well-ventilated room, it is equally probable that the closest approach will fail to communicate the infection; yet a single patient, in a narrow low-roofed cell, will as effectually vitiate the air and generate a contagious atmosphere as a crowd in the largest hospital.

It is, then, that the atmosphere of the crowd is contagious and not the person of any individual, but this, nevertheless, is the contagion which so certainly adheres to all European armies, during winter campaigns more especially, and commits the most terrible devastations. The patient, while purified as above, ceases to be personally contagious, but, unless that purification be continued throughout the whole illness, his clothes, even after recovery, will be filled with it, and he will have impregnated every absorbing substance, whether body-coverings, bedding, or furniture, with the accumulated poison. It was in this way that the army of France, on returning from the campaign of Moscow, diffused the infection of typhus-fever throughout the whole kingdom. It was in this way that the native armies of Spain-sometimes, too, of Portugal-in the earlier part of the Peninsular

war, became moving clouds of the disease; and it is in this way, even now amongst ourselves, that the wandering mendicants of Ireland, with unchanged clothes, after recovery, leave infection behind them amongst the families where they may have obtained shelter; and this would be a terrible state of things if we had not at command means of disinfection so simple, easy, practicable, and efficacious, that without our knowledge we are often saved by them even in spite of ourselves, and the mystifications that have been played off upon the fears and ignorance of the people under the form of fumigations, which, because they smelled strong and made the bystanders cough, have been supposed to possess great powers of disinfection. The muriatic acid, disengaged under a gaseous form, is the basis of all these last; but, as we know nothing of the nature of those vapours that communicate contagious diseases, whether they be acid, alkaline, or anything else, it is an equal chance that by using another strong acid we may be actually adding to, instead of diminishing, their virulence. This at least I know, that it was the business of my office for a long course of years to cause their use to be enforced in barracks, ships, and hospitals, and I can declare that I never saw the smallest benefit derived from them, nor the course of disease arrested; while the disinfectants to which I have alluded promptly and immediately served the purpose. These are fire, water, light, and air-with one alteration the old elements of our forefathers, and they are ever at hand, ever applicable.

The first of these-fire, or rather its product caloric (heat), -is immediately all-sufficient for every purpose of disinfection. Dr. Henry, of Manchester, demonstrated by positive experiment that the matter of smallpox, cow-pox, and scarlet-fever, was utterly deprived of all infecting quality on being exposed for a few hours to a heat of 140° of Farenheit; and these, as I have said before, are amongst the essential concentrated contagions. With the gaseous factitious ones, such as typhus-fever, there is every reason to believe that a much inferior degree of heat-one not greater than the ordinary temperature of the tropics-would suffice, for that disease has never yet, amongst all the infected transports that left our shores, been made to cross the tropic of Cancer, nor has the plague of the Levant ever been carried into the equatorial regions.* The process, then, is one of the simplest, for a portable iron stove filled with ignited charcoal, and left to burn for any length of time that will raise the necessary heat in the sick apartment, must infallibly disinfect it. Through such a process as this the Russian peasant, possibly the nastiest, personally, in Europe, never has typhus-fever, for he heats the stove of his cabin to an inconceivable degree, and uniformly takes a vapour-bath of the hottest kind once a-week or oftener. He, in fact, lives under a course of disinfection. Light is another disinfectant equally sure, but it is not adapted

*The infection of the plague itself is known to cease in Egypt (vide Assalini) on the advent of the Midsummer heats; and to proclaim that the yellow fever is a contagious disease, while it is the product of the disinfecting principle itself-of that degree of atmospheric heat with which infection is incompatible and the contagion of fever cannot exist-is, therefore, as unphilosophic an assumption as ever was imposed upon the fears and credulity of the people. The most crowded ship that ever sailed from the land of rapine and crime has never yet succeeded in generating infectious fever amongst the suffocating cargo; and the special law of retribution, through which, if such a disease could arise amidst the naked victims, their white oppressors would so surely be destroyed, seems here to be superseded by a mightier general law of Divine wisdom, which, by ever furnishing the disinfecting agent, has affixed its veto to the extension of contagious fever in the regions of the torrid zone. Charcoal is preferred merely because it is free from the nuisance of smoke, which, under the shape of any kind of fumigation, is ever superfluous and unneces sary, unless to correct bad smells.