The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-15 00:00:00

THE AMERICANS AND THE CHOLERA.

Under this heading the Times on Thursday lasi
published Dr. Harris's terse and practical letter
We fully agree in the importance of his advice to
44 put out the sparks."
Harris, the registrar of vital statistics, Times y
shaass : —" pr.
addressed
to the New York Board of Health a public letter,
in which he says Since last fall the Asiatic
cholera has been making progress in various coun-
tries, and both in Europe and America its smoul-
dering infection has been rekindled in a few
places. Important progress has meanwhile been
made in the practical application of preventible
sanitary measures to restrain and extinguish the
epidemic. Waiting the completion of our full re-
port upon these facts, the following brief sum-
mary of recent information is submitted :
Several hundred scientific physicians in Europe
have prepared reports upon their special in-
vestigations, experimental, microscopical, and
chemical, in cholera. The grand conclusion of all
the researches and all comparisons and analyses of
experience relating to cholera may be summoned up
in these homely words—put out the sparks ; remove
the local causes that increase and spread the epi-
demic. The fact that cholera is propagated and
spread by an infective poison which requires the aid
of certain local factors is fully established. That it is
not contagious like typhus and smallpox, and that
the infective property of the excremental discharges
of the sick and of persons that have been recently ex-
posed in places infected by cholera may be completely
disinfected and destroyed by certain chemical
agents, is the important truth which all classes of
people should understand. Scientific chemists and
experimenters and all sanitary officers now agree that
saturated solutions of copperas and carbonic acid are
at once the best and cheapest disinfectants that
can be used against cholera. In every city that is
now prepared to extinguish or prevent the epidemic
there has been organised a system of medical relief
and house-to-house visitation, to be ready before-
hand for any event. St. Louis put its excellent sys-
tem in operation soon after the first arrival of a
cholera patient this spring from a down-river town.
The disease did not extend to half-a-dozen persons.
St. Louis now is, and is likely to remain, one of the
healthiest and safest commercial towns that one can
visit in America, thanks to the Board of Health.
Very early in the spring the epidemic was re-
kindled in certain towns on the Misissippi, south
of Cairo. It was conveyed many hundred miles up
the Arkansas River, and to certain points north-
west on the Mississippi. But recent information
warrants the hope that those outbreaks have been
totally extinguished. Early in April an outbreak
of cholera occurred in the city of Porto Alegre, in
South America, and in a few days 50 cases occurred.
This outbreak is supposed to be associated with
German and French commerce that is held with

that disturbed region. What intercourse has been
had with infected West Indian or Central Ame-
rican ports does not appear ; and they, like the
nearest European ports, are more than 3,000 miles
distant, Porto Alegre being 34 degrees south of the
Equator, and not far north from Montevideo.
About four weeks ago cholera appeared in London
and in Paris, but it is reported not to have spread
to any extent.. In the town of Elberfield, near
the Rhine, and about eighty miles south-east-
ward from Rotterdam, the epidemic appeared, and
has spread to some extent. That town is in a re-
gion that sends many emigrants to New York by
way of Rotterdam and Liverpool, These facts can
be understood by our people without awakening
' anxiety or fear, for to be 'forewarned is to be fore-
armed,' and although there may be numerous cases
of cholera imported from the South and elsewhere,
and though there may be repeated outbreaks in
lower regions of the Mississippi, the means of sani-
tary protection arc definite, ample, and easily ap-
plied. plied. But wherever, in places that arc ready for
the kindling of the epidemic, the true means °f
sanitary protection are not applied, the pestilence
.
may yet make deadly ravages. The watchword of
i
the Metropolitan Board of health--' Timely and
active preventive measures'—should be adopted by
every city and town to which the epidemic On
come.'"—ilizglo-American Times. the