The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-26 00:00:00

PECICAUTIONS ummer CHOLER.

A memorandum has just been issued by the
medical officer of the Privy Council, on the precautions to
be taken against cholera, under the regulations reoently
issued by the lords of the council, and otherwise. The
document is of considerable length. It sets out by stating
that the Diseases Prevention Act is put in force, and that
medical relief regulations have been issued, se will have
been seen from our yesterday's impression It then urges
the necessity of the immediate removal of nuisances, and
states that there are two principal dangers against which
extreme and exceptional vigilance ought to be used. First,
there is the danger of drinking water which is in any (even
the slightest) degree tainted by house refuse
or other like kinds of filth ; and secondly, there
is the danger of breathing air which is made foul
with effluvia from the same sorts of impurity, the
best measures for guarding against which it points out.
With regard to the mode of propagation of cholera it has
a certain peculiar contagiousness of its own, which, where
sanitary circumstances are bad, can operate with terrible
force, and at considerable distance, from the tick. It
appears to be characteristic of cholera, not only of the
disease in its developed and alarming form, but equally of
the slightest diarrhoea which the epidemic influence can
produce, that all matters which the patient discharges
from his stomach and bowels are infective ; that the
patient's power of infecting other persons is repro-
sented almost or quite exclusively by those discharges ;
that they, however, are comparatively non-infective at
the moment when they are discharged, bat afterwards,
while undergoing decomposition, acquire their maximum
of infective power ; that, if they be cast away without pre-
vious disinfection, they impart their own infective quality
to the excremental matters with which they mingle, in
filth-sodden earth or in depositaries and conduits of filth,
and to the effluvia which those excremental matters evolve;
that, if the infective material, by leakage or soakage from
drains or emspoole, cc otherwise, gets access, even in the
smallest quantity, directly or through porous soil, to wells
or other sources of drinking-water, it can infect, in
the most dangerous manner, very large volumes of the
water ; that the infective influence of choleraic diaoharges
attaches to whatever bedding, clothing, towels, and like
things, have been imbued with them, and renders these
things, if not disinfected, capable (as the cholera patient
himself would be capable, under the same conditions) of
spreading the disease in places whither they are sent for
washing or other purposes; that, in the above described
ways, even a single case of disease, perhaps of the slightest
degree, and perhaps quite unsuspected in its neighbour-
hood, may, if local circumstances co-operate, exert a ter-
ribly infective power on considerable masses of population.
In this view of the case, it will be understood
that works of sewerage, home-drainage and water-supply,
properly executed and properly used, give to town-popula-
tions an almost absolute security that cholera, if intro-
duced among them, can have no means of spreading its
infection. And equally it will be understood that, in the
absence of those permanent safegtuirds, no approach to
such security can be got without incessant cleansings and
disinfection,, or without extreme vigilance against every
possible contamination of drinking water. The jurisdic-
tion in the removal of nuisances is next pointed out.
As to personal precautions, in a narrower sense of the
words, only one general rule can be laid down--a rule,
however, which is most important for persons who un-
fortunately find themselves ln the midst of local outbreaks
of cholera, and which each individual must apply accord-
ing to hie experience of his own bodily habits ; the rule of
living as strictly as possible on that system which com-
monly agrees best with the health • to guard, as
far es practicable, against all exhausting influences
of privation, fatigue, exposure, and the like ; and,
as regards diet, especially to avoid all acts of intemperance,
and all such eating and drinking as are likely to disturb
the stomach or bowels. But while faults of the latter kind
are peculiarly apt to be hurtful, it must not therefore be
supposed that the customary healthful habits need be
changed. For instance, there is no reason to suppose that
fruits and vegetables, of such kinds and in such states as
would be wholesome in ordinary seasons, are unwholesome
when cholera is present ; nor (subject to what will directly
be said about premonitory dierhoes) is there any reason to
believe that persons in good health ought in cholera
times, with a notion of fortifying themselves against the
disease, to take drugs or drams which they would
not take in ordinary times. Anything to be wisely done
in thin direction ought to be done under the advice of
skilled medical practitioners, and except with such advice,
people ought to be most chary both of drugging them-
selves, and of taking each pretended preservatives as are
extensively offered for sale. In places where cholera is
present or threatening, one particular bodily ailment re-
quires exceptional vigilance. That ailment is diarrheas.
For the most part in this country cholera begins somewhat
gradually ; so that for some hours or even days before the
symptoms become alarming, a so-celled " premoni-
tory diarrhoea" may be observed. Where cholera
is tending to be epidemic, there always exists,
aide by side with it in the district, s large
amount of epidemic diarrhoea, representing
degrees,
part the
earlier stages, in other part the slighter deg, of the
same insidious and infectious m y. This diarrhoea
(painless and apparently trivial though it be) may in any
case suddenly convert itself into cholera; and, apart from
the very serious significance of the symptom as regards
the patient himself, it must be remembered that every
creak diarrhcsal patient may be a well-spring of infection
to others. It also seems probable that accidental
diarrhoea, originally independent of the epidemic influence
is, of all known personal conditions, the one on which the
cholera-infection can most easily fix itself. And thus on
all accounts it is of the most essential importance that
no looseness of bowels should be neglected in places where
cholera exists. A very important part of their lordships'
medical relief regulations enjoins the making of local
arrangements by which this object shall be secured for all
the poorer inhabitants of infected districts ; and other
classes of the population are warned to be also vigilant for
themselves. In any infected district every looseness of
bowels, or sickness of stomach, ought, as quickly as pos-
sible, to be brought under skilled medical treatment ;
and if the s • ptonis begin at all sharply, or if they (how-
ever mild) • • not very promptly yield to treatment, the
patient ought invariably to remain in bed. Too much
importence cannot be attached to the duty of thoroughly
disinfecting without delay, with chloride of lime or
wise, all discharges from the stomach and bowels of
persons under the epidemic influences, as well
as all bedding, clothing, towels and the like
which such discharges may have imbued; and
keeping under systematic disinfection all privies and other
like placee to which such discharges may have socess,which
should be kept flooded with solution of sulphate of iron, or
solution of carbonic acid. The document concludes by
urging the necessity. for the perfect and full organisation
of medical relief in infected districts.

Up to the present time the public acts passed
number 52, and the locals 276. The private legislation et
the session will probably reach 350 acts, out of upwards of
600 lodged in the Private Bill-office.
FATAL OCCURRENCE AT THE SLOUGH DRAINAGE
Wonim—On Tuesday afternoon great excitement was
caused at Slough by the report that three men engaged in
the new drainage excavations had been buried alive in the
Londomroad. Unfortunately the report was too well
founded, for • slip of earth had taken place in the exca.
yeti«, near Sassex-place, about half peat 10 o'clock. John
Cannon and his fellow-labourers engaged upon the works
were beneath the soil. Two of the men, though partly
imbedded in the mesa of gravel, were rescued alive, but
Cannon, it was found, had been sagocats4. As isquedit ham
bean held on the body, and • verdiat of Accidental Death
returned.

CAYSTAL PALLas. —The great display of fire-
works, the illumination of fountains, and comets will take
place this evening, to commence at nine o'clock. The bend
et the Grenadier Guards will play dising the display.