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Lot 544
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Sir Andrew Halliday Defends His Recently Published Book on West Indies, 22 pp, 1837
Sir Andrew Halliday Defends His Recently Published Book on West Indies, 22 pp, 1837
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Description:

Andrew Halliday
Hampton Court, England, August 11, 1837
Sir Andrew Halliday Defends His Recently Published Book on West Indies, 22 pp, 1837
ALS
A lengthy handwritten letter by Scottish physician Sir Andrew Halliday. 22pp, measuring 7.25" x 9.5", Hampton Court, dated August 11, 1837. Signed by Halliday as "Andrew Halliday/Deputy Inspector General of Army Hospitals" and addressed to the Editor of the United States Journal. The letter was sent to the editor in "Vindication of his [Halliday] Theories, and on Topics connected with the Health of the Troops in the West Indies." He discusses the effects of time differences on the health of travelers, the cause of hurricanes, the Caribbean archipelago, his belief in more careful regulations for the benefit of soldiers, and more. Light toning and soiling throughout. The pages of the manuscript have been adhered to a larger sheet, making some of the pages stiff and the text slightly difficult to see. Boldly signed. A full transcript of the account can be provided upon request.

Highlights from the manuscript:
"…I must plead guilty to the charge of the Reviewer; but I deny that my narrative is a verbatim copy of his, as I gathered the particulars from more than fifty witnesses as well as from his pamphlet. I was not present during the hurricane, and therefore could only give the occurrences as they were related to me. With regard to the effects of a sudden change of longitude upon the health of the traveller, I have only to remark, that I consider the animal frame like a well-regulated chronometer, and whether we sail to the West or to the East, it will take some time before our functions and feelings can conform to any other hours than those which the clock points to, in the meridian of Britain; and that any very sudden deviation from these hours must and will be prejudicial to the health of the individual. When we arrive at Barbadoes, we find the garrison clock at St. Ann's striking twelve at noon; if, however, we examine the ship's chronometer, and consult our own feelings, we find both clearly indicate that it is only eight A.M. of the clock at Greenwich…

…As to my theory of the cause of the hurricanes, and my speculations respecting the formation of the islands in the Carribean Sea, they may be very silly and deserving of ridicule, but the Reviewer is not to consider that I am ignorant of any of the supposed properties of the atmosphere, or unacquainted with many of the facts that have been fully ascertained as connected with it…My theory is simply this. The undercurrent of the atmosphere in the latitude of Barbadoes is more heated and more expanded than the upper current. I have nothing to do with the relative weight or pressure of the air in these currents. I then suppose that, by some of those hidden influences which philosophy has not yet been able to explain, a vacuum more or less perfect (but of limited extent) is formed throughout the whole extent of the under current or stratum of heated air; and that the cold and more condensed air in the upper stratum falling into this pit or funnel rushes down to the surface of the earth, where rebounding and becoming expanded by the caloric it receives, we have all the horrors that constitute the hurricane…My theory may, indeed, be most absurd, but I had hoped it would excite inquiry rather than ridicule…

…I also firmly believe that it is the statements put forth in my book that have led to the late circulars from the Horse-Guards, and from the Army Medical Board Office, and which I have no doubt will lead to still further changes that will greatly benefit the poor soldier, and tend to improve his moral character on colonial service. Some regulation should be made with regard to the period a regiment should be allowed to remain in any of the islands; and, above all, something like common attention to the feelings of humanity and a regard for the lives of our fellow-creatures should be shown in the way and manner in which the troops are transferred from one colony to another. More disease has been engendered and more lives lost by crowding men upon the decks of the transports, exposed to alternate deluges of rain and the direct rays of a tropical sun, without covering of any kind, or without the possibility of finding rest for their wearied limbs for days and nights together. They are generally so closely packed that there is scarcely even standing room. Men, women, and children all huddled together, without any consideration for the decencies or delicacies of feeling which, even in the most degraded of our species, are attended to…Can anything be more disgusting or demoralizing than the men, women, and children of a regiment being compelled to use the same open privies? Is there any necessity for compelling the men to sleep upon palliasses stuffed with the crude husks of the Indian corn-stalk or the rotten leaves of the plantain-tree, when the best and the cheapest article that ever was used for mattress or palliass is to be had in abundance upon the spot? …"

Sir Andrew Halliday (1782-1839) was a Scottish physician, reformer, and writer who served as the royal physician to William IV and Queen Victoria.. He was appointed Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals in the West Indies in 1832 and held the position until 1837, when he returned to the UK due to ill health. Halliday was a large proponent for the care of people with mental illness and publicly decried the deplorable state of British and Irish insane asylums. In 1837 he published "The West Indies: the Nature and Physical History of the Windward and Leeward Colonies", which he defends in the letter offered.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 7.25" x 9.5"
  • Medium: ALS

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