Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1885 — A Mind Infection. [ARTICLE]

A Mind Infection.

In the year 1855 I commanded ajship bound from Hong Kong to Melbourne, in Australia. We had on board 500 Chinese passengers (net coolies), and two cabin passengers, which, with myself and wife, officers and crew, made a total of 550 souls. A few days’ sail from Hong Kong one of the passengers was taken down with the regular smallpox. Here was a truly deplorable situation, for probably not one of the Chinese passengers had ever heard of the word vaccination. I immediately resolved to steer for the English colony of Singapore, where i there was - a hospital, and where I could land my sick passengers, after; which I would remain a few days in order to ascertain whether any more cases would break out. I placed my patient in a room as far removed from other patients as I could, and only the steward and myself were allowed to care for him. The carpenter of the ship seemed to have the most intense apprehensions about contagion, and dreaded the disease’ so much that he avoided in every way possible*the cabin “where the passenger lay sick. When we arrived at Singapore, I had the patient removed to the hospital, and when we lowered him over the gangway into the boat, the carpenter went to the extreme point of the bow so as to be as far from contagion as possible. After remaining as long as was considered sufficient for the safety of all concerned, I set sail for Melbourne, but a few days out the carpenter was taken down by an attack of a mild form of small-pox. I landed him at the quarantine in Melbourne, and not another person had the disease or any symptoms of it. Now, did not that man’s fears predispose him to infection, or perhaps actually produce the very disease of which he was so afraid ? It was certainly very remarkable that, of all the 550 persons on board that ship, he should have been the only one to suffer.— Letter in Boston Transcript.