QUARANTINE AND CONTAGION. (continued 2)

Dr King, who says:—

“The inhabitants in general are firmly persuaded that the fever was imported by the ‘Eclair’ and afterwards spread throughout the island by contagion from one person to another. I have taken considerable pains to trace out and discover the supposed morbid concatenation, but in vain. It becomes, therefore, a duty to express my opinion decidedly, that there is no satisfactory proof of the disease having been propagated by contagion, or from a specific poison which is said to emanate from the bodies of the sick, the dying, or the dead.”

The case of the “Eclair,” as has been already stated, 117is the one on which the greatest reliance is placed in proof of the importation of epidemic disease.

It is needful to advert to one instance more of alleged importation; namely, the introduction of the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1828 into the Garrison of Gibraltar by the ship “Dygden.” This case has been more rigorously examined than any other, and on that account it exhibits a better specimen than can usually be obtained of the manner in which the evidence for these cases is commonly got up.

The most positive assertions having been made that this epidemic was introduced into Gibraltar by a ship from the Havannah, the “Dygden,” the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir George Murray, appointed a Special Commission to inquire into the facts of the case; consisting of the Judge Advocate, the Colonial or Civil Secretary, the Captain of the Port, and head of the quarantine department, the Town Major, or head of the police, the Principal Medical Officer of the garrison, and a Staff Surgeon. It was the desire of Sir George Murray that the Governor should act as president, on the ground that “as the proposed investigation is merely to ascertain a fact, it may be more properly accomplished by the careful examination of impartial witnesses than by the application of scientific research;” but Sir George Don, “not finding himself equal to the task,” appointed, by desire of the Secretary of State, conveyed in a subsequent despatch, the British Superintendent of Quarantine, Sir William Pym, to preside in his place.

The facts alleged and attempted to be established before the Board with a view to prove that this epidemic was imported by the ship “Dygden” were, that this ship had arrived from the Havannah with Yellow Fever on board; that while in quarantine in the bay, she was visited from the garrison by a family of the name of Fenic, and 118that the first cases of the epidemic occurred in this family.

The first witness called to prove this alleged visit to the ship was a woman of the name of Villalunga, who stated that she lived in the yard of Fenic’s house; that Fenic was a cigar-maker, that she assisted him in making cigars, that she heard the boy (Fenic’s son) say that he, his sister, and his father had been on board the ship in the bay on Sunday, the day before the boy was taken ill, and that the boy told her that they had been on board “to eat, drink, and make merry,” and “that his father had sold tobacco on board the ship.”

The next witness brought forward was a child Caffiero, 11 years old, who stated that he was in the habit of playing with the two Fenics: that he lived very near them; that he played with them every day before their death, and that he saw them every day when they were sick in bed.

On these statements the Judge Advocate, Mr Howell, observes:—

“The only evidence which up to this period (April 10th) had been given to connect the illness in Fenic’s family with a visit on ship-board, is the hearsay tale told by Villalunga, nor did she give to Fenic and his two children any companion in their alleged Sunday excursion.” * *

“Eight days after his examination above mentioned, the boy Caffiero re-appears as a witness (viz., April 18th) with a story entirely new, and which, if credible, would be extremely material; because he affects to speak of facts which had before rested on the hearsay evidence of Villalunga, but of which facts Caffiero now, after the lapse of eight days, represents himself to have been an eye-witness. On this his re-appearance, however, he carefully abstains from giving any date, either day of the week, or month, or even season of the year. This cautious avoiding of dates may not unfairly be attributed to the variance between 119himself and Villalunga, in their respective journals of the illness of Fenic’s children. Caffiero now says, ‘I knew Salvo and Catalina Fenic, and went on board ship with them; I do not recollect the day. We went on board a three-masted ship. I do not recollect to what nation it belonged. We remained on deck and did not go below. We remained on board about one hour. Fenic, the father, took us on board; he rowed the boat himself; he ate and drank on board, and then brought a bundle of clothes on shore.’

“Until this time, neither he nor Villalunga said anything about a bundle of clothes.

“This boy’s second evidence thus proceeds:—‘I did not understand the language of the people on board the ship; they appeared to speak like Jews or Moors. I did not go on board more than once. When we landed on the wharf, the Maltese,’ i.e. Fenic, ‘gave me some money, a pistoreen, and told me not to say anything to anybody about our having been on board.’

“The effect which this was designed to produce is obvious, viz., that the ship visited was in quarantine, and Fenic, the Maltese, was conscious that he had committed an offence against the quarantine laws which rendered it necessary for his own safety that he should bribe this boy to secrecy. This story is full of incongruities; it is not probable that a man should select for his Sunday excursion, to eat, drink, and make merry, a ship in quarantine; it is more improbable still that Fenic should gratuitously place himself in extreme peril, by taking with him (to be witnesses of his offence) children of the artless ages of 10, 11, and 13, on an expedition which, in his own judgment, as demonstrated by his own act, he is convinced exposes him to severe punishment.

“But with regard to the ship ‘Dygden,’ I find that she had already received pratique, and had been admitted to free 120intercourse with the shore, on the 6th of August, four days previously to the alleged visit of Fenic, the date of which, notwithstanding Caffiero’s loss of memory on his second examination, had already been ascertained by Villalunga to have been Sunday, August 10th, on which day Fenic, therefore, could commit no crime by going on board; and the story of the bribe and injunction to secrecy resolves itself into a clumsy and ill-disguised attempt at giving a colour of guilt to a fabulous occurrence which, even if it had been real, would have been guiltless.

“His second evidence concludes thus:—‘My mother was a washerwoman, and washed for a black woman who lived next her. Fenic’s wife refused to wash the bundle of clothes that he brought ashore; he offered them to my mother, who also refused them; he then gave them to an Englishwoman: I knew her: she is dead: I do not know her name, nor where she lived.’ I find by my notes that he added, ‘This occurred during last winter,’ although the words are not entered upon the minutes. He was then asked, ‘What season of the year was it that you were on board of ship?’ To which he cautiously replied, ‘It was either summer or winter, I believe.’

“Evidence such as this, and given as I saw it given, bears on its face every character of falsehood; and disbelieving as I do this boy’s whole story, and at the same time considering his extreme youth, the testimony given by him has upon my mind the further operation of tainting with more than suspicion all the other evidence proceeding from the same class of witnesses, which consisted chiefly of hearsay in conversation with persons who had since died; because it would seem that this child must have been an instrument in the hands of some one of maturer age.”

The suspicion attached to the second appearance of this child is confirmed by a similar re-appearance of Villalunga, 121who, after sixteen days’ absence from the Board, on the 24th of April, again presents herself as a witness. She now remembers that Mrs Fenic had asked her to wash some clothes; that she did not wash them, being herself indisposed; but that she was told by Mrs Fenic that she put these clothes out to be washed.

Mr Howell thus comments on this second appearance of Villalunga:—

“I have observed that Caffiero added to his original testimony so much as to give to it a new character altogether; I now observe that six days after Caffiero’s amended testimony, and sixteen days after her own original examination, the woman Villalunga comes back with a new story, of which, singularly enough, the principal point is made to coincide with the alterations and emendations in the evidence of Caffiero.”

On an examination of the surviving member of the Fenic family, the widow of Fenic himself, it appears that she gave a positive denial to this alleged visit of her husband and children to the ship.

“She was at my desire,” says Mr Howell, “particularly reminded that the duty which she owed to society required her to disclose everything that she knew; and from the ingenuous manner in which her evidence was given, I am led to believe that she spoke the truth.

“She declared that she did not know the cause of her children’s illness:—‘They were attended by Dr Lopez, who is dead, and who said they had a tabardillo and indigestion, caused by eating green figs. He did not say what was the cause of the tabardillo. My husband was a cigar-maker; but he did not go on board ship either to buy tobacco or to sell cigars. Neither my husband nor my children went into the bay at any time during last summer or autumn. I know this: because if they had gone, they would have told me, and they did not tell me.’ Nor, indeed, 122is it to be supposed that the children would not have told their mother, and that the husband would not have told his wife, that which all of them are declared to have communicated so freely to other people.”

On being cited before a Public Notary at Gibraltar (November 14th, 1829), this witness still more particularly deposed—

“That it was utterly untrue that her husband went on board any ship in the bay at any time last summer; that on account of his age and infirmity, he had not been in a boat for ten years past; that she is equally certain that her two children never went on board any boat or ship; that, with respect to the boy Caffiero, neither she nor any of her family knew anything about him; and that his story of having gone on board the ship with her husband and her two children, ‘is a made-up falsehood.’”

Mr Howell sums up the result of his examination of the evidence adduced before the Board respecting the Fenic family in the following words:—

“Having thus examined in detail the evidence adduced to connect the illness of Salvador Fenic (the alleged first case of the epidemic) with the ‘Dygden,’—and no other vessel has been pointed at,—I find not only that it completely fails to make out even a primâ facie case, but also, from the whole complexion of the evidence, I am convinced that the story of Fenic’s visit to that vessel on the 10th of August is, from beginning to end, a fabrication.”

Apparently in anticipation of a failure to connect the illness in Fenic’s family with a foreign source, much testimony was given before the Board derived, as is stated by Mr Howell, “through channels most impure,” about instances in which foul clothes are supposed to have been brought ashore by sailors arriving from the Havannah, in the early part of the epidemic, and which foul clothes infected the washerwomen.

123After showing at some length the discrepancies and contradictions which proved the whole testimony adduced on this point to be utterly worthless, Mr Howell says:—

“Here I leave the journals of washerwomen, and the tattle of their gossips, remarking this fatal objection to each washing-tub anecdote, however circumstantial, that not one of them goes back so far as to precede, and therefore to account for, the alleged first case of the epidemic, namely, that of Salvador Fenic, who, as we are told, fell ill on the 11th of August, and upon whose single case, therefore, the proof of importation rests. And if the attempt to connect the illness of Salvador Fenic with a foreign source be, as I hold it to be, a complete failure, how is the illness of the boy Caffiero to be accounted for? And to what is to be ascribed the illness of Mr Martin’s child on August 16th, a case quite as early as that of Caffiero, and which has not been attempted to be traced to importation? not one of the washing-tub cases being anterior either to that of Mr Martin’s child or to that of Caffiero, both of which are unquestioned cases of the epidemic.”

It was essential to the proof of the connection of the “Dygden” with the outbreak of the epidemic, to establish the fact of the existence of Yellow Fever on board the ship. No proof of this appears to have been adduced. On the contrary, the captain of the ship declares that no such disease existed on board; the head of the Quarantine Department, after an official examination into the fact, affirms that there is no evidence whatever to disprove the truth of the captain’s statement, and the Quarantine Medical Officer, after “a minute inspection of the captain and crew,” states that he “found them all in perfect health.”

“I have minutely inspected the captain and crew,” he says, “whom I found in perfect health. The reason for putting this ship in quarantine for 40 days was, that two 124men died on the passage. It is now 66 clear days since the first man died, and 61 since the death of the last, and nothing like disease has since appeared, nor have I the most distant reason to apprehend danger to the public health from any circumstances connected with the ‘Dygden.’”

Mr Howell calls special attention to this report of the medical officer:—

“This report,” he says, “was written, as it strikes me, under circumstances which entitle it to much consideration. This ship had been officially pointed out to him (as the Medical Officer of Quarantine) as being strongly suspected. The responsibility of his office was thus brought fully before his eyes, and he had then no motive for making a false report of his inspection of the ‘Dygden’s’ master and crew, because the epidemic had not at that period commenced. If he had observed any reasonable grounds for suspicion, he had only to fall in with the rumour, and recommend that none of the persons or susceptible articles on board should be permitted to land. The conduct and declarations, therefore, of Dr Hennen, as a responsible public officer, under such circumstances, when, if he erred at all, it would probably be on the side of over caution, I hold to be most material.”

Such is a fair specimen of the evidence adduced on this occasion to establish a positive case of importation. It breaks down at every point. There is complete failure in the proof that Yellow Fever existed on board the ship; there is complete failure in the proof that there was the slightest connection between the ship and any persons on shore; and there is even failure in the proof that the individuals who are alleged to have introduced the disease were really affected with a malady of the same nature as the epidemic that subsequently prevailed.

The Judge Advocate thus states the conclusion at which 125he arrived after a careful examination of the proceedings of the Commission:—

“I am of opinion that the evidence brought forward has totally failed to prove that the late epidemic disease was introduced from any foreign source, either by the Swedish ship ‘Dygden’ or by any other means; and I am further of opinion that the late epidemic had its origin in Gibraltar.”

Medical observers on the spot, not members of the Board, but who carefully watched its proceedings, it is believed, without any exception, arrived at the same conclusion. Thus Dr T. Smith sums up the result of his examination of the subject in the following words:—

“That it was not imported I think every candid man will admit who has deliberately weighed the evidence given on the subject before the Board of Commissioners, and the facts I have stated. Every endeavour to establish the importation doctrine has failed, and both the Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray, and Sir James McGrigor, Director-General of the Army Medical Department, I have heard, are convinced there is not the slightest ground for such a belief; but, on the contrary, that there is every reason to suppose the disease owed its origin to causes within the walls of the garrison.”

Several comments were made by those who paid attention to the subject at the time, on the manner in which this investigation was conducted, which appear to deserve notice.

Complaints were made that the result of the inquiry was prejudged. In proof of this it was found that the President of the Board, a few days before it held its first meeting, addressed to the military secretary of the garrison an official letter in which, among other observations directly tending to a prejudgment of the case, he affirms, that “the fever in question has often been traced to importation, 126and against this source only must we look for its prevention.”

It appears further that before the meeting of the Board an official intimation of the views and wishes of the local authorities was promulgated in the Government Gazette, into which nothing is admitted but by authority, in the following words:—

“The scourge from which we have been by Divine Providence just delivered must be an exotic of some kind. It is in its origin independent of everything inherent in the soil which we inhabit, incapable of existing among us during the winter months, and totally distinct from and unconnected with the Remitting and Intermitting Fever, which may be said to be unknown in this garrison.”

“Two causes,” observes Mr Howell, “concurred to operate injuriously upon the proceedings of the Board: First, the conviction universally prevalent among the civil population of Gibraltar, that the prosperity of that community would be undermined if it should be proved that the epidemic had been generated on the spot, because of the prohibitions and restrictions which it was anticipated would in that case be inflicted upon its commercial intercourse with other places. Hence the notion that not only the last epidemic, but that all its predecessors had been imported from some foreign country was not only anxiously supported by the unanimous voice of the civil community, but it was with equal unanimity believed that a different doctrine would be fatal to the commercial prosperity of the place. From this feeling of self-interest it is to be admitted that the military were exempt, a distinction between the two classes which ought to be taken into account in estimating the value of the evidence taken by the Board, and more especially the evidence of the medical practitioners.

“The second cause operating injuriously upon this 127inquiry was the publication, in the official government newspaper (into which nothing is admitted except by official authority), on January 12, 1829, of an article authoritatively announcing that the late epidemic had been imported into Gibraltar, and denouncing as void of common sense any person who should hold a different opinion. This official notification of the feelings of the local Government (preceding as it did by only 12 days the appointment of the Board of Inquiry) could hardly fail to encourage evidence on one side, and discourage evidence on the other.”

Complaints were also made that there was a partial selection of witnesses.

“It always appeared most extraordinary and ‘unjustifiable,’” says Dr Gillkrest, “that on this kind of inquiry, which was intended by the Secretary of State to be so beneficial to the interests of humanity, the Superintendent of Quarantine, as president, should have assumed the right in several instances of selecting the witnesses, which obviously prejudiced the question, and by which much of the truth was intercepted.

“Several medical officers of the garrison who had much experience respecting the progress of the epidemic, were either not examined at all, or only in a very imperfect manner. I was among the latter, being surgeon to the 43rd Regiment, and present during the whole epidemic. After a very limited examination, I officially informed the President, by letter, that I had much to state; but, like others, I was not called afterwards.

“From what I felt due to the service of which I had been a member for so many years, as well as the cause of truth, I was induced to protest against such proceedings, which protest will, I presume, be found with the documents connected with the inquiry forwarded from Gibraltar to the Colonial Office in London.”

128Complaints were further made of the mode of collecting the evidence adopted on this occasion, which was such as to excite the suspicion of some of the members of the Commission, and to lead eventually to their condemnation of it, and their repudiation of the Report which was founded upon it.^[38]

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