The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-09-10 00:00:00

THE OSCURA: ITV PROBABLE CAUSE.

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As !ermined at the commencement of this article
in our last week's imprestion, cholas, has reached
our OOrp ObOrill, it being announced in the medical
journals that several cases and a few deaths have
occurred in the Lonclom Hospital. Our subject,
therefore, becomes increasingly interesting.
We &mooned to place befo e our readers a sketch
of Professor Hallier's observations, together with.
few others made by some fellow labourers in th•
sine 6eld of seism, and not yet alluded to. Dr.
Salisbury, an American physician, two or three
years since investigated the circumstances under
which some troops became affected with an eruptive
disease, and came to he 000clusion that the straw
served out to tbio men in lieu of bedding, and which
was effected with rust (mildew) wee the reel source
of their disorder. Pursuing his inquiries into the
Sista of fungi in producing different
diseases he performed some experiments to discover
their influence in suasion of apse. &toe bog
earth containing microscopic fungi, imported from
an aguish district into a plate where ague was
hitherto unknown, was placed On the windowisill of
a sleeping apartment steepled by two young men.
the window being kept open, causing the influx of air
throughout the night, and in two days both them
young saes were seised with ague. In 1666 Dr.
llisesy, of Jaffa, arrived at the ears results, adding
an important link to the cltein of deductive evidence,
viz., his diet:every of minute fungi in the fluids of
the bodied of persona so suffering from the aguish
disorders.
Well, we now pass to the report of Professor
Hillier. He has found the mils and filauseete of a
fungus in the fluids of cholera patients. He ham
succeeded in propagating from thia• terrier, of Isegi
of the genus oidium, as Professor astialow, of Cam-
bridge, bog ago demonstrated to be practicable with
the fungi generally by plasawg the seeds in various
kinds of matter. One kind resembling Uromptitie,
mold only be procured by supplying dee seed
.plot
with the Raid matter.of cholera patients. this
Urocystitie fungus is peculiar to cereal or grain
plants, and is the nut which affects the rice Oise.
nmi professor gives remiss for believing that this
fungus is imported into Germany from the Bast—
that it cannot exist in our climate outside the human
body, except in favourable conditions as to tempera-
ture, Ac., of the atmosphere—and that the fungus
travels to us in the bodies of persons infected with
cholera poison, which, lithe bye, will be ems; as we
proceed, to be an ounsemary condition. He ham,
moreover, cultivated rioe, and subjected the growing
plants to the same application as was made in grow.
log the plants of the fungi, and the rice plants
exhibited the growth of the earlier stages of Os
Unsysitis but not its complete development. Th. interest, and, indeed, the deeply practice/
importune, of these observations will be the more apparent when placed by the side of others, made
many lessens's by Dr. Tytler. He showed that in
persons affected with rice diesels (by which name
cholera was first known in India), the use of diseased
rice could be invariably
Proved. And he found
mob diseased or spurred Hoe soling in the shops in
L. rides. Dr. Teller further referred several out.
husks of bowel disease to the domestic °outlaw'
tiro of such bad rico, not only abroad in India, LA

America, in Frame, but also notably in Loudon,
where in one case especially, that of the Logsdon
Orphan Asylum, by the disoontlniumos of the no.
diet the prevalence of diarrhea was checked.
It is a well-known feet that cholera was unknown
in England, indeed, in Europe, until about 40 years
ago. Audit isreaustkable, even ifs mere coincidence,
that it is only within some such period, that bad
wimple, of rice have been procurable in this part of
the world; for, so long as the Fed India Company,
before their Charter was renewed and altered,
monopolised the importation of rice, mono but the
best found its way into our markets. Since 1818
free ships, freighted with damaged rico, have carried
rice and rios-diasase into many or most European
'ports, first getting to Cadiz, where Ferdinand'e army
• was soon decimated by disease.
We most not omit to point out, that, although
rammer heat is requisite for the existence of the
cholera fungus, the Urocystitis, as demonstrated by
liallier, during its prevalence, can and does exist
in all matters provided with • suitable pabulum, and
supplied with the infected matters containing
the fungus germs. Hence the importance in •
sanitary point of view of the adoption, and
the persevering application of every sanitary
measure enjoined by the legislation and which
the public are entitled to claim at the bands
of those who have accepted the responsihifity
of seeing the laws enforced. And the question
must in all serionsases be put, have them regulations
been thoroughly and in every case enforced in
Dorchester' We would have our Board of Health
rigidly and honestly enquire into this matter,
end face the result without fear or favour : for, in
the oatepokenilangeme of Mr. Simon's, (the London
Health officer's) report on them investigations,
"excrement-sodden earth, excrement-reeking air,
excrement-tainted water, are for us the MOON of
of cholera," because they,form • nidua for the cholera
contagion.
The field of experiment now -.opened, after
having been years ago indicated by scientific
&Auction in the works already referred to, is in
truth a vast and promising one, including, as it does,
all our contagions and 'ideation' diseases in man
and in cattle; and, it is to be hoped, that some
combined efforts of • thoroughly scientific character
will now be instituted; for wontedly if the dis-
covery of the truth should crown the efforts so
directed, we know of no discovery that could, in •
temporal point of view, confer snob immense benefits
upon the human mos. We are glad to be able to
announce, therefore, that, without lose ot time, our
first creptogamiiit, the Rev. M. .1. Berkeley, has sent
out to India and China enquiries into this subject.
Audit is further to be hop, that should an epidemic
outburst of cholera be impending for this autumn or
the ensuing summer, the health officers throughout
the kingdom, together with the medical practitioners
in charge of cholera distrists, and the Boards of
Health everywhere, will avail themselves of the
teaching to be derived from them scientific explorers
in the adoption of enlightened method, of dealing
with this dire destroyer.