The Express.
London, England, 1866-08-03 00:00:00

THE CIHOLERA.

The Ibiffildkarffissieras retain & the fateful Weepes of
the chokes and choleraic diarrhoea was made up to Satur-
day last. Siam then the number el deaths have been
almost, Ss& quite as numerous as in the mead* week.
Cholera has not attacked the poor only, but the w• 611117,
lifilOPTellOTlll:l°Weiuntlinoiftdammmoo:....:n.
ashthenlopi:keePerami:4l4ortilligi".lthe
dromenhed menial
advise, have talkie triennia. The medical feral* ihMoS
performing their duty have been greatly ovenullr
DUTSTS at the London Hospital will be
.6.92r4
Eteintilt ly remembered. In the East of London the
boards, and boards of guardians la* sseleasliand
ably act *work to abate the ravages cd thliv S
Committees sit daily al the various board- able
"disatielicgiiiMPre4tittslitimeradisexpeftB.tribhlutcdl4FallarTthAedulidi‘oomejamai.i, e eni
la
suti;
plies of chlon& of lime and other dialnresdanhi hav hem
provided. The gratings, gulley-beles, and Maps ev the
sewers, have beat &Infected with chloride cd •
every etey in the course of the last wetk......a.=
have been numerous eagagensents et able and
nurses at the London Hospital daily for List
fortnight ,which has drawn largely on the resources that
exeellsatestehliehment. Two of those real " of
moray" have died of cholera, but their places
Sired cap. The women who laid out the remains
rai.ve.,423guei, :giredarove=ratai,rninla
cholera, lea seven elffidren. The guardians of the
Poplar Union mined placards yesterday, requesting the
immediate ermines of dm* *arses, two at • celery et MIL
meth and ode at 301. per *aura. Mr. Freemen, lid nue
dial officer of the *wiry of lele-end Old Town,_esatain-
ing 80,000 inhabitants, has broken down under Ids work,
and Dr. Comm, of the Mikeend-road, • gentleman of
grad talent and experianos, has been appointed to act in
his abseils.. Five other medical gentlemen have been ap-
pointed to amid him while the epidemic mueslis.
Yesterday afternoons &mutates, oonaeling at the Bev.
Hugh Allen, D.D. rector of Southwark ; Ca Clerk,
of the Queen's Military Prison, Borough- ; Dr. Bate-
son, medial officer of the district ; the Bev. J. WA',
ig Hospital ; Mr. COMMITS. of the Board of War*,
snariakn everal members of. St. George's vestry, was introdimed
to the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, at the Privy
Council-office, by Mr. John Locke, M.P., on the subject of
• virulent miasma existing in the borough of Smth-
wark, believed to be the caws of epidemic in the district.
Mr. Iteadall, the local medical vase& explained that, is
Green-etreet,Friarstrest,Blaskfriars-road,fourboneboilers,
two atteiakers, and • horse slaughterer. caused in
their b carried en • locality peopled with 490
persons e square acre, a nuisance which rendered
the atmosphere absolutely foul, and sent • constant
cloud of putrid particles over the whole district. They
had done the best in theirpower to abate the indiense, but
their efforts were wholly inoperative. Increased rates of
I mortality prevailed in the dish ict, which In the lad visits-
I lion of cholera lost 10,000 dits inhabitants. The difileulty
was this, though the 7th and fish Vie., cup. 84, prohibited
the future establishment of works noxious to the ppublic
health near the streets, it allowed thosealready in esistenoe
to continue until 1874, thirty years from the passieg of the
act. They came before the council to learn if there existed
no means under the extraordinary powers given the council
to mitigate the nuisance. There had been three deaths the
previous nightfrom cholera and choleraic fever 1n49,
street, and another in 38, Wellington-street, both of which
were under the shadow of the street referred to. Tor Mag-
dalen Hospital was. *bout to be removed in eoesequenoe
of the mortality amongst the inmates, which had
increased 97 per cent. Complaints were made
by the householders, for the liquid refuse
into the drains, forced up defective traps, anrrli!
governor of the Queen's Military Prison had repeatedly
complained to the War-office of the stench getting tilde
the high walla of the prison. After • very lcag dissuasion
I his grace said the powers of the Privy Council extepded
only to ordering speedy interments, instituting limns, to
house visitation, eitabhahing dispensaries, and Oaking pre-
, cautions to guard against the spread of dimes & He
doubted whether the latter clause could be construed so
far as to suppress • nuisance so to speak licensed by act
of parliament ; but an inspector should visit the spot, and
then if given • memorialby the vestry he would laythstease
before the legs! advisers of the crown. With regard to a
ease reported in yesterday's papers, there impaired * be
no sumnilmotplower to punish persons who refused to
destroy clothing, and the parochial authorities would have
to a ant an cer for the purpose, the neglect of whose
would be punishable as • misdemeanour. The
deputation then withdrew.
Ate meeting of the vestry of St. James, Westminster,
yesterday, Mr. Burt in the chair, Dr. Lankerter re-
ported that two decided cases of Asiatic cholera had
occurred. One case, which was fataloras that of • 'oiling
coachman, who lived in Brewer-street, in a back foam
abutting upon Smith'reourt. The yard, dust bin, °Wei
cellars, and kitchen were filthy in the OILiTIODIN The
drainage TM bad, and the water closet defective. The
other man who was recovering, was a tailor and a
teetotaller,, living in the first floor back, in Broad-street.
The house was overcrowded, the cistern filthy, the dust
bin full, and the drainage bad. These two cases sh wed
that where sanitary anangemenhewere most negleattd the
disease was most likely to occur.. It was asked whether
Lan-
corrit notid be frightened
*Bee it. Dejm
" That the aid :hole of the powers which this vestry peaces
to carry out the direction and regulations of the Privy
Council for the prevention of cholera, kc., be delegated to
the Sanitary Committee, and that the Finance Committee
be authorised to sign cheques for any expenaee the Seminary
Committee may incur in the discharge of their duties.
The motion was adopted.
The Committee appointed by the City Oemmiedeners
of Sewers held another meeting yesterday
the
Guitaell, under the presidency of the chairman,
Mr. De Jersey. The chairman stated that he shad
written to the &arnica of each of the boards of guar-
dians of the City unions informing them that the com-
mittee would be glad to co-operate with them in any mea-
sures which from time to time might be found desirable
for the prevention of nuisances and diseases, end he had
also requested their attendance before the committee to
confer upon the subject of 'implying chloride of litre to
the poor gratis, and upon other matters. Mr. George
Cuthbert, chairman of the East London Union, had
attended in consequence, and be stated that the penal
committee of his union were about to appoint four medical
officas to aasist Dr. Simpeon, the chief medical adviser of
the board. Accommodation bad been provided for the
casual poor at the workhouse at Homerton, and the tumm-
ies' poor wards in New-street, Bishopagater would be fitted
up as a temporary hospital for the exclusive acoommods-
' tion of cholera patients. The medical officers of the
union had been invested with power to we any dish:fee-
, tants, stimulants, and warm clothing, and everything
necessary for tureens afflicted with the prevailing epidemio.
I Chloride of lime was provided, and might be had gra-
tuitously by any poor persons applying. (Hear, hear.)
The he B. Henry Kelleck, M.A., rector of St.
Clement Danes. Strand, has issued notices to the poeer
parishioners of Si. Clement Danes, reminding them that a
great deal may be done to prevent cholera by cleanliness,
sobriety, and care in food. If attacked serious cones
queue* might generally be avoided by immediately taking
suitable medicine. With • view to *Hording every pos-
sible facility for obtaining immediate relief the clergy,
Scripture :laden!, Bible women, district visitors, and
matrons of the mission-house. would be provided with
tickets which world enablethe poor parishioners stoups to
receive four doses of diarrhea medicine for relievintthe
ampeelimsumarypply ire toms. King's College Hospital would
I Upon inquiry at the Liverpool Workhouse yesterday our
correspondent was informed that two more deaths from
cholera had occurredf in the wards and four in the
town. At the meeting of the Liverpool health committee
yestreday Dr. French, the medical officer of health, stated
that the present visitation of cholera was more severe than
that of 1854, but the mortality from the epidemic was not
nearly so great as in 1849. In one week in July of the
latter year the deaths from cholera were 333, w.hili
ereotalmfweeth6l:6wlefreFten+l°duaTha*Hyean,being
last
the amount 00-cW
Twifiniktnabottite;ediawwtheeeerethikaGnscudburwiat
.87uverpoof;
eitlhiae
6,re.e:racwholase
urs,
being 0.34 of an inch. The mean reading of the barometer
during the week was 30.052. The temperature *lied from
71.2 on the 22nd to 54.1 on the 23rd, the mean average at
the week being 62.4.

It has been noticed that in towns where cholera
is prevalent, meat gets putrid, and fruit decays much
more rapidly than in towns where cholera doss not exist.
M.B. EDMOND Bursa AND ?ME ANEMIA/WM
CLCB.—tinder the head " Another Hoax," the following
letter appears in the Times :—" Sir,—Among the many
ismer, anonymous or otherwise, scurrilous or good.
humoured, with which I have been regaled during the
Ise few days is the notice in the Times of to-day of a
letter alleged to have been addresoed by me to the com-
mittee of the Atheneum. The notice appears to have
been serionaly inserted, sad as I was actually asked in
court this morning whether I had really sent such a letter,
it may, perhaps, be as well for me to anticipate similar
credulity in others by eating that no such letter was
ever written by me. I should have imagined that the
letter itself would raidelently show the forrggeery, it not being
quite so clever a performance as the ULdatoee forgery. I
may as well also take this opportunity of remarking that
the allusion made to me in the paragraph in the Tames of
today relating to revising banisters is one upon the good
taste of which it is unnecessary fur me to make any
rem-
went.—l am, sir, your obedient servant, EDMOND BIWA&
i August 2."

gfte eV/Pre/SO*

TO 00B.LBSPONDINTS.
orferthemeate intended foe "The Ixpr•sa," Leedom livening
=DMA be at the 001oe, 10, loavedeetrest, by Two
ic on the day of publication.

tillteEtall

Ivoini& THE nictulicyr .6APTAIII. Maim Vining,
and G. Now ; Vises Nellsos, Augusts Thorson, and Mn.
Ildrlbm,—Lod Qvlxr LODGING&

BRITANNLL
Tea Emma THE JOLLY DOOR OF LONDON; OR, TWO
ROADS OF urr—lfiss ljdia Wiener. Hear Saamalusilrumn,
and Master I Sandera—And TEI DUSTMAN'S
OE, WEGG AND THE BMW&

HIGH WATER AT LONDON =MGR
TRW DAY —llloentng, lb. Tin Attasom, ea. elm.
TO4l.ol3oW—Morniag, 7b. Um Aftersoos, 7b. Om

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 3.

IN the seven days which ended on Saturday,
July 28, 1,253 persons of all ages died in London
of choleraic disease. Three-fourths of this morta-
lity, the Registrar-General tells us, took place in
what is essentially the port of London, the part
which is inhabited by its maritime population.
The area of this mortality extends all along the
north side of the Thames, from the River Lea and
the Isle of Dogs to the Tower of London. Lime-
house-basin and the Regent's-canal form the cen-
tral line of the region of attack, which stretches as
far north as Victoria Park. The district thus
included embraces about one-fourteenth part of
the area of the metropolis, and, owing to the
excessive crowding which prevails, one-seventh
part of its population. The cholera field draws
its supply of water from the East London Water-
works.

We have indicated here the essential facts con-
nected with this outbreak—a crowded district,
with a neceasarily poor population ; a water sup-
ply, intermittent as are all water supplies in Lon-
don, and derived from the open river Lea. The
connexion of sudden and severe outbreaks of
cholera with a poisoned water supply has been
placed by scientific investigation beyond the region
of conjecture. The association is an established
fact. The Registrar-General, in his significant
allusion to the subject, has drawn down upon him-
self an indignant reply from the Engineer of the
East London Waterworks Company, who, while'.
endeavouring to disprove the possibility of river
pollution, makes this statement, " That although
" taken from the Lea at Lea-bridge the
" waters of that river have been . . . protected
" from impurity by intercepting drains and other-
" wise, as high as Enfield, which is several miles
" above Lea-bridge ; and the water, although
" locally taken by the company from the river
" some two or three miles above Lea-bridge, has,
" in fact, the purity of Enfield, where the river
"is running in a purely rural district." We have
no doubt whatever of the bond fide character of
this statement ; but at the same time it is an
expression of opinion, not of fact, and we do not
concur in it. We do not believe that it is pos-
sible by any scheme of " intercepting drains
" and otherwise " to protect an open river
from the danger of pollution. As regards the
water at Lea-bridge possessing the purity of
Enfield, that may or may not be an advantage.
Enfield lies some seven or eight miles above Lea-
bridge, but the river Lea rises many miles above
Enfield, and is constantly bringing down to it any
accidental impurity that may have found its way
into the stream. Lea-bridge looks to Enfield for
its safety. Quin eustodiet ipso. cusfodes J The
strength of a rope is the strength of its weakest
part, and who will guarantee the purity of the
Lea above Enfield

What cholera may be in other climates is not
much to our purpose. In England, at least,
sudden and malignant outbreaks, affecting simul-
taneously whole families and entire streets, have
been traced most surely to polluted water supply.
The disease once acquired can be propagated
in various methods, but there seems the strongest
reason to believe that the poison, however con-
veyed, is always swallowed. People who go
amongst dying cholera patients, breathing the same
air day after day, but being careful to receive
upon themselves no accidental impurity from the
sick, do not take cholera. Small-pox, scarlatina,
measles, rinderpest, there is equally strong reason
to suppose, may pervade the air about a patient,
and, by being inhaled, may convey, through the
medium of the lungs, the infection to a healthy
person. There is literally no evidence to support
such a mode of propagation in cholera. There is
very considerable evidence to show that cholera
discharges, soaking into a drinking well or polluting I
any water supply, will, under circumstances the ;
exact bearingof which is not equally determined, pro- I
duce the disease in a person who swallows the water.
And there is also strong evidence to show that the
poison contained in such discharges, by soiling the
hands of those engaged about patients, may be
accidentally swallowed with the food, which,
under these circumstances, is hurriedly swallowed,
and but too often without care in using the
necessary precautions of excessive cleanliness.
In September last year we described an out-
break of cholera at Theydon-Bois, near Epping.
Within a fortnight, with no cholera previously in
the neighbourhood, eleven persons became in rapid
succession attacked by the disorder. We ventured
at the time, before any investigation was made, to
predict with confidence that a communication
would befound between the drainageof the houseand
the well whence water was obtained. In the eighth
Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council
quite recently published the details of the investi-
gation of that outbreak are described. Mr. J. N.
Rancurre was deputed by Mr. &sow to inquire
into the circumstances, and this was the result of

his inquiry. A gentleman who spent a /reek in
Weymouth early in Await, awl visited loth
Portland and Dorchester, contracted during that
week a diarrhea, which on his return home de-
veloped into cholera. The disease, therefore, must
have existed in August at one or other of those
places. Mr. G. and his wife, inhabitants of
Theydon-Bois, lodged at Weymouth for seventeen
days from the Bth September, visited Portland on
the 22nd, and Dorchester on the 23rd, returning
home on the 25th. On the evening of the 23rd
Mr. G. was seized with choleraic diarrhoea. His
wife, during the journey, suffered from similar
symptoms, increasing to cholera, of which she even-
tually died at home on October 11. In succession,
beginning on September 30, a daughter died of
cholera, a page in the house had a narrow escape,
the doctor died after ten hours' illness, another

daughter was attacked, and recovered. On
October 5, a maid-servant was attacked, and even-
tually died, and a labourer who worked on the
premises fell a victim also. On the 6th, Mr.
G., who had rallied from his first attack, was
again seized with symptoms, and died in fifteen
hours. On the same day his son was attacked,
but recovered, and the grandmother died of the
disease. On the 10th, a woman who lived near,
and had laid out the body of the labourer, was
I attacked, and soon died. In this short but event-
ful history circumstances surely pointed to the
_ .

rich master of the household and his wife as the

)us originators of the destruction.

examination was made i t was found that " all the
" drinking water of the house came from a well
" beneath the floor of the scullery ; and isgo that
" well there was habitual soakage from the water-
" closet." In such a case as this lies the key, if
it be only calmly considered, not only to the cause
of outbreaks of cholera, but to their prevention.
The pollution of the well, be it remarked, had
long gone on. It was only when the specific cho-
lera poison was introduced into it by the invalid
master and mistress on their return from an in-
fected district that the disease became rife. Then
those who drank of the water became affected ;
and others, like the doctor and the woman who
laid out the corpse, swallowed, in all human pro-
bability, impurities which they had acquired in the
pursuit of their duties.
It is customary to view the approach of cholera
with more than ordinary rpprehension, and to
imagine that more than ordinary mystery attends
the phenomena of its invasion. In reality, we be-
lieve that, passing over the difficulty of explaining
why its attacks upon a country should be periodical
instead of persistent, the remaining circumstances
are clearer than those belonging to most other,
diseases. A poison, invisible and organic, is intro-
duced into the country. Thanks to the crowd-
ing, destitution, miserable water supply, and
ignorance of a population which is always seek-
ing to remedy rather than prevent disease,
the remainder is all easy to explain. We beleve
most confidently that by acting rpon a knowledge
of these well-ascertained facts, and with a careful-
ness on the part of nurses such as would be em-
ployed if they were meddling with a known poison
like strychnine, for example, the risk of acquiring
cholera may be reduced to something exceedingly
small. Let no one drink water which has not
been boiled and filtered, and let those employed

in the care of the sick remember that cleanlines
is to them another term for life.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)