The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-07-05 00:00:00

THE DREADED CHOLERA.

The Times bag the following leader upon the much dreaded
Cholera, which iboold be regarded an • timely warning to
make us watchful against moo a foe—

The information which has lately reached as of
outbreaks of Cholera in one or more towns of Eastern
Europe has been quickly followed by telegrams an-
nouncing the illnese and death of an English lady,
Mrs. Brewster, at the Betel Donau, at Vienna. Km
Brewster, who was in good health aad in the prime of
life, WM attacked about two o'clock on the morning of
Thursday last, and died about five o'clock in the after-
noon—that is, in the course of fifteen hours. Her
malady wui called "Cholera's" by the doctors in at-
tendance, and the word suggests a reasonable bops
that they consider it to be something different
from epidemic or so-called Asiatic Cholera, and
that its rapid course and its fatal issue may have
been due to the constitution or condition of
the unfortunate lady herself. The brief te1e-
..... . . . .

grams by which alone the facts have been as yet
conveyed, and which come to us from the lady's
brother, are not incompatible with this supposition;
but neither are they incompatible with the idea that
the case may have been one of genuine Epidemic
Cholera, and that this disease, which has long been
lurking in Path, in mime places of Galicia and
Bohemia, and along the course of the Vistula, may
have followed, as it coiastantly does follow, the main
lines of human traffic and intercourse, and may thue
have reached Vienna. We have no intelligence of
Mrs. Brewster's own recent movements, and, there-
fore, cannot tell whether she herself may have con-
tracted her fatal illness at Pestb or 110 M• other pre-
vionsly infected place, and may have artily reached
Vienna in time for its development there. The events
of the next few days will clear up the doubts which
arise from imperfect information, and will show
whether there is any cans, for anxiety or alarm.
- -

-
In the meanwhile, whatever facts may be brought to
t, and whatever may be e signal or future state
light, th
things In Viollllll, the reports of the presence of
Cholera in the other localities we have mentioned are
inch as to demand the anxious consideratien of sanitary
authorities in England. In the counts of the last two
or three years we have several times had occasion to call
attention to the chief facts in the natural history of the
disease. Mr. Netten Radcliffe and other investigators
have shown na that Cholera does not travel, bat that it
Is carried; and the human locomotion, not air or water,
must be regarded as the means of its extension to any
distant place. Air and water, on the other hand, meem to
&rajah the means of its extension in the immediate
vicinity eta spot where it prevails. We lays thus two
chief agencies in its &ironical. By the agency of travel-
lers it passe. from Persia as roes the Black Sento Russia;
or from Mecca to Alexandria, the Mediterranean
ports, and Southampton; or from the Baltic to Hull
and Newcastle; or from Liverpool to New York. By
means of air or water, or by means of infected clothing
or other articles, it panes from house to house and
from 'street to street; and thus the single imported
case may become the starting point of a local
epideo ic, as well as the centre from which travellers
go forth to carry contagion elsewhere. The disease
may remain dormant for some days in the person
of any individual who has been infected by it; so that
it is hopeless to attempt to hinder its conveyance from
town to town, or from country to country. Such a
result might, indeed, be secured by a quarantine of
sufficient strictness and duration • but the enforcement
of this quarantine would be practically impossible, and
the impediments it would offer to locomotion and to
commerce would, in the present state of intercourse
between different parte of the world, entail even greater
loosen than would be occasioned by passive rapier
cence in the ravages of an ordinary epidemic. For
the restraint of Cholera, therefore, our chief re-
liance must be pissed upon the well understood
prsenutions which have been found to prevent its im-
mediate diffusion in the vicinity of the Int imported
case; and in order to enforce these precautions it is
necessary that medical men and sanitary authorities
should be prepared, so that they may act promptly
and effectually if occasion should arise. When Cholera
is in Eastern Europe, still more if it should be actually
in Vienna, any day may bring it to our shores. If
brought, its first appearance would n.tt necessarily be
at • seaport, because many travellers do not stay at
their place of balding, but at once proceed by rail to
inland localities. It is therefore desirable that every
medical practitioner and every medical Officer of
Health, more eepecially those who we in the
vicinity of seaports, should at MOO ask himself
whether he would recognize the early symptoms
of Cholera if he saw them, and whether he is fully
conversant with the means by which a case of the
disease could be rendered harmless so far an others
than the patient are concerned. This is not the ,aos
In which to enter into the details of isolation and die-

Weed= ; but it maybe observed that the precautions
adopted in Bristol in 1866 have not been surpassed to
r either of completen or of efficacy. We are
probably ess
fully warranted In believing that an hp-
cam of Cholera could be treated in any dwell-
Chd ouse with due regard to all the requirement& of
the patient, and with ecarcely a possibility of wee-
tion being conveyed elsewhere. In such a case MOONS
would depend entirely upon promptitude ;rod effi-
ciency of action, and the neglect of any necessary
, minimum, even for a few hours, might neutralise the
effect of all that was done too late.
' It is not only upon medical sanitary authoritiee
that a heavy responsibility is imposed by the possible
but also upon the heterogeneous non-
medicalil: bodies to which the care of the public health
Is intrusted in various places. The arrangements
which were made last year for guarding the North-
/Lantern ports against the introduction of Cholera
from the Baltic are not only me complete as the
present state of the law will allow, but are probably
sufficient, assuming due vigilance on the part of in-
spectors and other officials, to fulfil the purposes
they were intended to serve. It is greatly to be
feared, however that the vast extent of water-line
Included in the Port of London is far lea effectually
protected ; and it is certain that the crowded districts
which are thus exposed would 'resent extraordinary
facilities for the diffusion of Cholera, if it should
ever be introduced into them. The Corporation of
London iv, or is intended to be, the sanitary autho-
rity of the port; but a variety of circumstances
and of questions has intervened to prevent that
body from taking the steps necessary for the full
and effectual exercise of the powers which were to
be committed to it. Within the last few weeks we
have heard of a sailor suffering from am dipox who
was landed within the pert, and was conveyed in rail-
way trains and cabs to a succession of places in differ-
ent parts of the metropolis, before he found the shelter
and care that he required, and before the general I
wblic were delivered from the danger of infection.
We have no security that a person suffering from
Cholera might not be similarly landed to-morrow, and
driven about from overseer t^ relieving officer, and
from workhouse to hospital. For such an occurrence,
If it happened, there would be no shadow of josti-
-6011(1011 or of excuse. Forewarned, we ought to
be forearmed • and from the Government to the
humblest ct. lnspi or of Nuisances our eanitary au-
thorities -Jan have no more urgent duty than to take
care, if Cholera should by any chance be brought into
the country, that it is received and treated in such a
manner sa to disarm it of Its tenon for the healthy,
mid to destroy the means by whloliltsgrecds.

(From The Time, Tamils& July 1.)
" We have to report that melba a oar oountry•
women at Vienna hes succumbed to what appears to be
an attack of cholera. News received by telegraph
at a late hoar on Sunday night announces the death
cholera at Vienna on that day of Mrs. EL .
The fatal illness attacked Mrs. Cranford only 12 hours
previous to her death, in the house of her brother,
Colonel Goodenough, the Military Attach 4 to the
Embassy.

" Dr. J. Henry Bennett, of 60, Grorrenor-street,
writes to us :

'The lady whose midden death at Vienna you mention in
ono of your leaders to day (Monday). Mn. Brewster, of Ver-
sailles, le my slater. The telegrams which I received on
Friday last were from my nephew, her son, Mr. Henry
Breeder. He had been travelling In Eastern Europe, and
had arrived from Constantinople by the Danube e few days
before. My dater bad gone to Vienna to meet him, and
see the Exhibition. I pared the 18th, 19th, and 10th
of May with hex at her reddence at Versailles, and
found her perfectly well, without an ache or a pain.
She appeared fresh and in good health, and never
once mentioned the imbject of her health to me.
Without being a strong woman the Wall quite healthy, and
had never had a serious illness in her life. She left home in
June for Munich, on her way to Vienna, with a dangler,
and wrote to me from Munich in good health and sp ca.
She bed been several days in Vienna when taken lii, and had
written to other members of the family giving an socount of
what she had seen with her children, then, also, apparently
In good health and spirits. I had • telegram on Sunday
from my nephew, dated Saturday, 3 p.m., informing m• that
he had jut burled his mother.'

"The fpllowing telegram ham been received from the
Hon. H. U. Vivian, her Majesty'. Acting Agent and
Conmal.Greneral in Egypt :
'ALEXANDRIA, Jane 29
Quarantine probable here en arrivals from Venice, owing
to appearance of Cholera. Paanengers for India or Egypt
had better avoid Venice route."