The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-07-28 00:00:00

THE PREVENTION OF CHOLERA.

In London, on Monday, at the Parkes Museum of
Hygiene, Dr. Ernest Hart lectured to a meeting, con-
vened by the National Health Society, upon the pre-
vention of cholera and dlarrl;cea. There was a crowded
attendance.

Sir Joseph Fayrer presided, and, in introducing the
lecturer, said it Wag an undoubted fact that cholera was
prevailing in the delta of the Nile, and it therefore be-
hoved English people to be prepared for a possible exten-
sion of the disease to this country. Happily, there was, as
far as he knew, no direct indication of such extension, but
to be forewarned was to be forearmed. Within the last
50 years there had been several epiiemics of cholera in
this country, some of them severe and protracted.
The Government and the sanitary authorities had been
alive to the importance of the matter; its nature had
been carefully studied, and much information of a
practical character had been obtained. It was true
there might be some differences—and,, in point of fact,
there were some differences—as to the nature and
causation of the disease, but so much had been learnt
of the laws which regulated the propagation and
diffusion of the disease that English people shouli be
prepared to treat it as of comparatively little import.
ance, and should be able to wait its possible arrival on
these shores with comparative indifference. It was
satisfactory to see the calm and dignified way in
which the nation was now treating the matter.

Dr. Ernest Hart said that materials for such a
lecture abounded in every direction. With an in-
creased knowledge of the laws of disease, we had been
enabled to make each successive epidemic less severe.
Cholera first invaded Europe after the introduction of
steamboats, and in 1831.2 there was a very widespread
epidemic which reached this country. In India our
experience of it dated from 1808. The epidemic of
1831-2 first appeared in Russia, and, despite quaran-
tines and cordons, it gradually assailed every country
in Europe. In 1848 there was a second great
epidemic, and for the first time we rationally in.
vestigated—according to modern methods of investiga-
tion—the nature and causation of cholera. We then
saw the clear connexion between cholera and un-
healthy conditions of life. It raged in different parts
in proportion to the impurity of the water supply.
This connexion of water supply with cholera, Dr.
Hart dealt with at great length. Pure water, he said,
was a condition of primary importance in the preven-
tion of epidemics, and we had a right to expect
thoroughly pure water from the monopolist companies.
It was an anomaly that there were no penalties which
could be enforced for the distribution of impure water.
Others were not allowed to disseminate unhealthy
things. (Cheers.) A very small pollution of a vast
body of water was capable of conveying to the whole
of that body qualities which would produce an epidemic
of cholera. To prevent the spread of the disease,
neither quarantine nor cordons were to be relied
upon. Both had been proved by the experience of
the whole of Europe in its calmer moments, and by
the unanimous expressions of opinion of our Indian
officers, to be cruel, selfish, morally wicked, and
medically useless. Quarantine was an ancient and
harbarous expedient which had been condemned by
every authority which had examined into it. Common
sense and cleanliness were two far better things to
fight cholera with than quarantine and cordons.
At the Vienna Conference quarantine had been
pronounced to be "impracticable and useless ; "
while a system of medical inspection was recom-
mended to be adopted. Still more useless than
quarantine was a system of cordons. There were
four great things to be looked to—the air, the
water, the soil, aLd personal precautions. As regarded
iefected air, it was known that cholera spread in pre-
eisely the same way as typhoid and enteric fever and
diphtheria. Care must be taken, after the ordinary
means of ventilation, that houses were perfectly and
properly drained, and that no sewer-gas could enter.
Cholera was not a mysterious disease, passing from
hand to hand, from individual to individual, and from
distance to distance, by any unexplained means.
English and European experience went to show that
if pure air and pure water were obtained, and the poi-
lution of the soil were prevented, cholera wouH be en-
tirely escaped. Dust-bins, dirty linen, unhealthy food,
and personal uncleanliness would all encourage and, in
fact, lead to cholera. It was of vital importance to
know that cholera was not a disease infective from
person to person in a direct sense, as smallpox and
some other diseases were, and this knowledge made
the disease lose many of its terrors. The prevention
of the cholera depended upn the public authorities
acting with spirit and incurring the necessary expendi-
ture upon making and keeping clear our soil and our
water supply, and upon individuals exercising proper
supervision over the households they could control, and
the pocr whom they could help. These things would rob
cholera of all its teirors. It was no rash thing to say that
if cholera did reach the metropolis or any town in this
country, the authorities, the medical men, and the
people generally were armed with so much knowledge
and had made such progress in the methods of de-
fending themselves against it, that no such epidemic
of cholera in the future as there had been in the past
need be feared. (Cheers.)
Sir J. irayrer, in moving a vote of thanks to Dr.
Hart, remarked that he did not think cholera was
so free from mystery as Dr. Hart had stated. He,
however, heartily endorsed all that had been said as to
what should be done to prevent, mitigate, or render
cholera almost innocuous.

The Times, in a leader on the increase of cholera in
Egypt, says :
The march of cholera in former epidemics has been
uniformly westward, and it is very much to be feared
that if it once makes its appearance in Europe at all
there still exist throughout the Continent insanitary
conditions sufficiently frequent and sufficiently
serious to facilitate its extensive spread. The ex-
perience, moreover, of the disastrous epidemics
which attacked England in 1832, in 1849. iu 1854,
and less widely, though still seriously so late as 1865,
warns us that even in England we have no certainty
of escape. It is probable, indeed, that sanitary
science is better understood and its precepts more
generally enforced in England than in any other part
of Europe, but it is impossible to flitter ourselves
either that our sanitary condition at all approaches t 3
practical or attainable perfection, or that it is suffi-
ciently good to secure us immunity from the cholera
if once it begins to spread over the Continent. At any
rate, we shall be wise to be prepared, and to make
ourselves ready to meet the danger with all our re-
sources if it should threaten to approach us.