Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1841-1853, 1849-07-26
THE RcsfitNnCP.

All worldly matters have now given way in this
city, 10 the one absorbing dread of the cholera. This
terrible destroyer of lhe human race seems 10 increase
in violence in this city daily, until we can scarcely
look at its reyages withnut a shHdder Of terror. Al
ready IL has carried off over FIVE thousand Of our pop
ulation. and now its blows fall with more fearful and
fatal rapi6iiy than ever. To Md to our terror, medi-
cal specifies and medical skill, become each day more
inefficient and useless To- arrest the disease in It's pro-
gress 10 fatality. Indeed, most of our eminent medi-
cal men now declare the disease am outlaw, 10 which
no known rules of treatment can be applied with any
certainty of success. In evidence of this. we have
cut out of periodicals Of the day. and have now got
them sticking up at the end of our writing desk, four
teen different modes Of treating this disease, each
from eminent medical men of the United States. who
have no doubt, or at least had no doubt when they
published their respective specifics, that they would
do oil for the cure of the cholera ascribed TO them.
Alas, how wofully mistaken they were. Some of
these very doctors have fallen victims themselves TO
their mistakes. aud others have lost all confidence in
their own specifics. One of them, DR.. W., we rec
collect well, a few days ago came into our Office, and
told " TO say eGiturially. for him, that he had dis
covered a specific against choleru, upon the efficacy o!
which he would stake his existence. He would, for
o Just compensation, iInpart a knowledge of it TO the
public, and he desired US TO call the attention Of The
city authorities to The fact. We did so. but hardly
was it done, until in a few hours sickness DR.. w. was
himself numbered with the dcRd-a victim To cholera
and 10 his own specific for the disease.
Many other cases Of a like nature could be cited,
all going to slow that science thus far has been total
~ inefficient to arrest the ravages of this DESTROYER.
Not that we would decry the efforts or The skill of the
medical faculty Of our ciiy;-no; far from it; they are
tie only hope the victim has of escape. But expert
ence has shown, that in many cases even all their
skill will avail nothing. The disease is an outlaw.
that medical principles cannot be applied to with any
certainty of success. Contrary 10 our first suppose.
lions, it seems now to hav little or no regard to the
classes of society it attacks, as the rich fall with the
poor; the temperate and comfortable in life, along
with the dissolute, the abandoned, or the wreiched.
The past weeks bill Of mortality proves this; as in il
will be found numbers of what are called the better
class of society; a large number of these, females,
too, whom we are bound to believe were prudent and
temperate. On the other hand, three or four hundred
generally impoverished, dirty, and wretched foreign.
ers, quarantined below this city, remain comparative
ly healthy, in all their filth and discomforts. As re-
CARDS the city itself, we have heard it remarked otter
of late, that in the most filthy parts of it there is now
the least amount of sickness. What then can be The
laws that govern this disease? If care, cleanliness
and all the comforts of life, judiciously used, form n,
barrier, what will arrest it! We frankly confess VIC
do not possess the shadow of any knowledge on the
matter. All we can say, is. to do what we can tC
ward off this disease. and trust to Providence. Come
what may, be cheerful, be contcntcd, be resigned, nnC
we lessen lis terrors if we cannot avert it altogether
81. Louis Unton, July IL.