Source: Bell's Weekly Messenger, No.1838, Sunday, June 26, 1831
The Supplement to the Gazette of Tuesday night, contains a Royal Proclamation, enjoining all the inhabitants of this kingdom, and more especially those residing on the coasts, most scrupulously to observe all the laws of quarantine which now are, or may hereafter be in force, and all Orders in Council, and to avoid any communication with any other ship or vessel, or persons coming from the Baltic; or from any place to which, by Proclamation or Orders in Council, the laws of quarantine are or may hereafter be extended; or with any boat, or person therein, coming from, or having been in any such ship, until ship, crew, goods, &c. shall have performed quarantine, and been discharged. This Proclamation also announces the taking of measures for the establishment of a Board of Health, to prepare suitable regulations for the respective ports, and regulations for the means to be adopted for guarding against the introduction and spreading of infection. Magistrates and other persons in authority, medical persons, and others, are enjoined to give notice to the Home Secretary, or the Privy Council, of the appearance of any disease attended with new and uncommon symptoms, affording ground for apprehension that such disease is the cholera morbus.
The same Gazette contains an Order in Council, establishing the Board of Health. The said Board hold their meetings at the Royal College of Physicians, and is composed of the following persons: viz.
Sir Henry Halford, President of the Royal College of Physicians, President.
Dr. Holland, Dr. Maton, Dr. Turner, Dr. Warren, Dr. Macmichael, Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians.
Sir. T. Byam Martin, Comptroller of his Majesty's Navy.
Hon. Edward Stewart, Deputy Chairman of Board of Customs.
Sir James M'Grigor, Director-General of Army Hospitals.
Sir William Burnet, Commissioner of Victualling Office.
Sir William Pym, Superintendant-General of Quarantine.
Dr. Seymour, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, to be Secretary to the said Board.
On the eastern coast of Scotland considerable alarm prevails, on account of the deaths of some masters and mates of ships belonging to Dundee, Montrose, &c. from the cholera at Riga. We are sorry to perceive, from the Scotch papers, that there are no adequate means to ensure the observance of the quarantine regulations in the Cromarty Frith, to which some foul ships have been sent.
Some alarm is felt at Dublin on account of instances of cholera showing themselves there.
The Dutch papers describe the uneasiness which is felt in Holland at the spread of the dreaded malady, and the precautions which that Court are taking to prevent its introduction.
Intelligence was on Friday received from Lubeck announcing the continuance of the most perfect health in that city, and the absence of the slightest alarm or apprehension as to the introduction of the cholera there, in consequence of the strict quarantine regulations enforced by the authorities. The latest accounts from Riga and Dantzic were considered very favourable, and had excited expectations that the cholera was abating.
When the cholera raged in China, the city of Pekin is said to have owed its comparative exemption from it to the firmness of the Emperor, who, on one occasion, is reported to have said to those about him, "Do not suppose the disease is more powerful than yourselves; the pusillanimous alone die of it."