The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-06 00:00:00

TriLAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT CHOLERA ?

The question may be asked with equal force of any
single phenomenon in nature. What do we know of
ourselves ? but that " we are fearfully and wonderfully
made." What do we know of this earth ? but that it
floats in space—a speck in the universe of worlds ;we
know there is an enveloping atmosphere, liquid oceans,
and a crust, solid at the surface, balanced by gravity.
What do we know of the moon ? the nearest planetary
body to us, but that she shines with "borrowed light,"
and that on the darkest night there is light enough in
space to illumine millions of moons, did they exist.
What do we know of the more distant primary and
secondary planets ? but that they, like the earth, revolve
round and with the sun, and have density corresponding
to their diameters. Of the stars we know nothing,
but that their distance and bulk are to us incalcu-
lable, and their numbers, as revealed by the
telescope, innumerable. We do know that our
earth, is, in its solids, composed of certain sub-
stances, at present reducible to metallic bases. That
Nvater is composed of two volumes, or measures, of hy-
drogen gas, and one of oxygen gas, that when pure, it
is colourless, transparent, tasteless, without smell ;
and if deprived of heat below 32° of Fahrenheit, it be-
comes ice. We know that air is composed by weight,
of 8 oxygen to 28 nitrogen ; that when untainted it is
invisible, inodorous, colourless, elastic, possessed of gra-
vity, easily moved, ratified, and condensed. Chemical
analyses have revealed these facts, and has further shown
that pure water is rapidly defiled, and that pure air is
easily tainted. Medical analyses have proved that water
and air, comparatively pure, are absolutely necessary to
health ; and sanitary science has shown that men seldom
Pay sufficient attention to these most important facts.
Political economy has recently been raised to the rank
of a science, and men are taught how best to buy, to
sell, and to get gain ; but they have yet to learn
that it is human life alone which is of inestimable
value. The Manchester School has learned, and has
taught the commercial lesson of free trade in things
necessary to the artificial comforts of life, but men .have
yet to learn the sanitary lesson necessary to bodily health,
and to a moral and religious enjoyment of life. The all-
important text, " What shall it pro& a man if he gain
the whole world and lose his own soul," may, para-
phrased, be taken for a sermon on the necessity of sani-
tary improvement. What shall it profit a man if he
accumulate immense wealth, and lose his own life ? Is
this considered, as it ought to be, in these latter days of
mammon worship ? Let the millionaire who toils 16 hours
out of each 24, to accumulate more wealth, answer ; let
those who consider the rights of the poor to consist in
unceasing toil amidst hopeless squalor and misery, and
their own duties to consist in extracting a full pound of
flesh, answer. But, to the question. What do we know
about cholera? We know that it is nearly 6,000 years since
bl4ll Was banished from the garden of Eden ; and, we
40123?. know, that he has yet to learn the simple A B C
itl I.lf--nainely, that pure air is absolutely necessary to
calthy existence. This is so simple a statement that man
Will nen, of it. Like the Assyrian General, he wishes
to witness the doing of some great thing.
-ro9icnae..,theerist will maintain that cholera is owing to
"lc agency - the solid crust of the world must be
e°rrvulsede_to satisfy his profound imaginings. The
choleraic
raueau
reeleements are generated in mysterious subter-
erackino
ereira, and, through the tremblings and
1,1114"th:67:: the earth, are vomited forth and dispersed
and that thelnding atmosphere. We know, however,
alaPPeared independent of the earthquake,
cholera. 4. earthquake takes place without producing
to definable second theorist states that cholera is partial
eoratuissinn
of
French
systems, and to certain strata. A
.kalso
thbeen y'aid,
Was rarel if physicians reported that cholera
no er set of ever'
found upon the granites. It has
of electricity. Cholera follows the course of rivers."
theorists will have it that "a diminution
tends
"a defic. to produce cholera," that there is
leo
doctrines
the f CY of ozone hi the atmosphere ;" then there is
'lingua t
and denonn
of
theory, and the animalculas theory, and the
r.,ntaginn, and of non-contagion, advocated
Who Place 34ilb!„ men of. European reputation—men
Lain and
enragin after their names. But, for the " cer-
her are i g curd' of cholera," receipts out of num-
Published
,pro 6
aiciane and
am ono publico, by eminent phy-
until the surgeons of twenty years' practice,
.. Publielna3rrefairly bewildered ; and, to mend the
Illauter, or
sent to 111-ewe
raetfher to disgrace the professors of medicine
in the eyes
all the norld, we have the medical men
Iteaith,
set astle-upon-Tyne by the General Board of
Plague hair ,uPen in the midst of their labours (the
• 8 Gam..-1
Win' Th, J"), and denounced by the local medical
het e/048, however, does not answer the question—
nlati sin we know about cholera ? Without dog-
La g, We
el
dog-
hats hi,....,_ nY say historically, that cholera
--that • "..o beneath
ili.v it Was the burning suns of India
eotii brought forth in a crowded, dirty,
sister Ni,.- 'vataps—the t
1111. rzlense"',3e,,,d town, surrounded by a thick jungle and by
Untie. ji fe.ver. ii, own of Jepore—that its elder
tiny. ille to it " e may also say that cholera con-
-3 'rpm cto 5 Parentage, and ever claims its first vic-
TOWN avi,,, WDED, DIRTY, ILL-VENTILATED PARTS Or
in their --g
cc
ci'MP, undrained subsoil. Theorists,
n i gs are necessa; to
,oen.ensinrviTeeZZtite°. a) have for the most part overlooked
, consequently Where ulelY, that the existence of human
that
the development of cholera, and
pcilally if here human life is most abundant,
th.ere is most sco
sam Po for the development of cholera, espe-
the
ace
of
its
birt: set of conditions also exist as at the
cholera ? s__po What are the facts in the history of
forneeds
purposes undrainede sites
vgarap;:ta2are built on the banks of rivers, on
ells not to
of traddeacria.ned the ; population is crowded
be
~ character of the people
b a,
YVO know that in such

towns there is overcrowding, want of ventilation,
filth, and vice in its most degrading forms, in excess.
Cholera, therefore, " tracks rivers," and "rages with
greatest violence in low situations." But large towns
are built on " particular formations," inland, for pur-
poses of trade. The coal measures of England have
given birth to Birmingham, to Wolverhampton, to Man-
chester, and many other secondary towns. Manchester
is from 100 to 150 feet above the sea. Wolverhampton
and the district around, Bilston, &c., are 500 feet above

the sea. Sunderland is situate upon the magnesian
limestone. Liverpool and Wolverhampton are upon
the new red sandstone. Easton and Newcastle-upon-
Tyne are upon the coal measures. Hull is upon the
oolites. London is upon the tertiaries. Dover is upon
the chalk. Plymouth is upon secondary limestones.
The towns in Cornwall and in the north of Scotland. are
upon granite. In all these places cholera has raged;
and the wretched, the dissipated, the foul livers, have
ever been the greatest sufferers. In Liverpool, cellars
were most crowded with human life, and in them least
attention was paid to the necessities of health. In the
Liverpool cellars occurred so fearful a mortality that

an act of Parliament was obtained to prohibit their use.
In Glasgow and in Copenhagen houses are let in flats,
cellars are used as stores, ground floors as places of
business, first floors as best-class residences, whilst the
upper floors take the place of the Liverpool cellar tene-
ment, being crowded with human life, caring nothing
for cleanliness nor ventilation. In the upper storeys of
these houses cholera raged most, showing that the
disease strikes its prepared victims where it finds them,
be it on the river's bank, in a morass, or on elevated

table land—in the damp and unwholesome cellar, or in
the overcrowded, unventilated, and equally unwhole-
some attic. It is said that cholera does not confine its
operations to the filthy and to the impure. Fire, once
allowed to obtain the mastery, will destroy things in-
flammable, and so will cholera. The commencement of
a fire and of cholera must be prevented, if there is to be
safety.

What do we know about cholera? This, we fear, must
for some time to come, through the blind neglect of
men, be a recurring question, and it may never be solved
in its entirety. We may, however, presume to say that
cholera is controllable, just as fire is controllable, if the
proper measures are promptly taken ; and we may also
say that, like this subtle element, once ignited it gathers
strength if neglected, and only ceases its action when
the food upon which it preys has been exhausted.
Whatever may be the germ of cholera, there is abun-
dance of evidence to show that it may exist in a state of
quiescence over vast areas, and that it is, in this condi-
tion, independent of the physical elements. Cholera
has been known to progress against stream and wind.
The most rigid quarantine is ineffective. Cholera leaps
all human barriers at a single bound, appearing simulta-

neously at places wide asunder, even though a hurricane
is raging adverse to its progress, and at the same
moment strikes the peasant in his cot, the pauper
in his dormitory, and the prisoner in his cell. Jf then
left to do its work unchecked, the active middle class
tradesman, and the idle rich man soon become the vic-

tims. The middle class house has its adjoining privy and
midden. The country seat and the nobleman's mansion
have, most probably, large drains of deposit, with huge
cesspools beneath them. But the foul sewer and the
secret cesspool have other victims than those claimed by
cholera, as many a bereaved family unconsciously bear
witness.

That fever may be diminished, and that cholera may
be controlled, there is abundant evidence ; as also that
sanitary works, properly executed, and sanitary regula-
tions efficiently carried out, will save life to an appreci-
able extent. The sanitary operations in Liverpool have
reduced the rate of mortality in that town by upwards
of three hundred deaths per annum, and as much re-
mains to be done in sewering, draining, water supply,
cleansing, and regulating, the value of life will still
further be added to.

The laws governing epidemic pestilences may be be-
yond the ken of man. Epidemics are not all of one
kind, as their history sufficiently proves, and there may
be pestilences against which no previous care shall be
a protection. Our system threads a mysterious way
through space ; and, as the slightest alteration in the
composition of the atmosphere will cause disease and
death, the whole race may suffer beyond human remedy.
The law governing cholera seems, in one respect, to be
simple—namely, that its first outbreak in any place is
amidst over-crowding, and defective ventilation, filth,
squalor, and vice. There has been no exception to this
rule in England. From such points the disease has
spread (radiated) as the raging of a fire ; or, as the
ripple on water after the plunging in of a stone. During

the epidemic in 1848-49, Dr. Sutherland noticed this
fact in the large towns be visited. The Registrar-Gene-
ral has published maps of the metropolis, and of the
country, showing that on a grand scale the disease
obeyed the same law. Cholera does not attack indis-
criminately, as influenza for instance, and may, there-
fore, be more readily warded off. That the virus
or cholera poison is• something positive—something
which must have a fitting soil to grow in,—or
fitting materials to act upon, seems pretty cer-
tain. The atmosphere must, at all times, have in-
numerable seeds of the mould fungus floating harm-
lessly in it, waiting the presence of decaying animal
or vegetable matter to develope them into active and
visible life. Where there is rigid cleanliness these seeds
remain harmlessly dormant, and so of cholera. This last
dread visitation in the north of Europe and at Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, has clearly proved that neglected filth in-
vites the disease. The fact has also been verified that,
where local boards of health have been established, and
have done their duty, there cholera, though imported,
could not spread.

R. R. 1 50