Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-11-23
The ChOIera-Nature of the Disease
How il IS PrOpagaied and How il can


be Prevented.
To tie Editor Of the Ne,o York Times:
Your polite request that l should give
you MY views respecting the probabilities
of the prevalence of cholera in this city
during the present season, 1 willingly
comply with. Correct views respecting
the danger to be feared, no matter how
great that danger may be, will be far more
conducive to the welfare of the public
mind than the feverish unrest produced
and stimulated by the vague and sensa-
tional rumors which from small beginnings
of slight foundations, attain to colossal
growth by the additions gained at each
repitition.
Cholera can no more reproduce itself
and spread through the com immunity, of it.
self, without adventitious circumstances,
than grain of corn can sprout and bios
som and ear. The seeds of cholera may
have been brought hither in the Atalanta
These seeds must die unless they are
planted in appropriate soil.
If there is any fact settled in medicine,
it is that cholera is not contagious dis
ease, that it is not communicated from
one person to another by the touch or the
breath, by clothing and the like. Cholera
seed planted in Il locality-as confined
ship a-close crowded house, dirty, lily
ventilated part of the city, or an entire
town-contaminates the air of the local
ity. We have then an epidemic influence
in that place, be it large or small. In
these places disease of some nature is
always present. malaria, typhus, or gen.
rsr'tf -rurheyia. and the place is always
ready to receive any new disease, measles
of great virulence, small pox, diptheria,
cholera or yellow fever These places
evince the disease of the season as marked
ly as Broadway shows the waterfalls, little
crowns or tan-colors of the prevailing
fashion. .er.
One thing, therefore, is plainly the duty
of those who have charge of the health of
the people-to prevent these plague-spots.
This is not the matter of day or sea-
son. A week can clean the cutters empty
the cesspools and the garbage barrels,
but the omitted and disregarded duties of
last year and previous years cannot be
done now. The over crowded tenement
houses have been allowed by unprincipled
Legislators to be built, the evil consequences
are now to be seen in the decimation of
the unfortunate occupants, and the spread
Now it is that the defeated Health Bill is
seen TO be public misfortune. But the
cholera is not yet rife amOngsl us; there
is yet time for our Legislature to do some-
thing for our help. Let any one who fears
the cholera in his family, who fears its eff
fects in his business, not stop to wiring his
hands, but let him try by his vote and by
his inference on friends and on the COM
munity, to effect the passage Of suitable
health bill during the coming winter.
>. y general prevalence of cholera re
quires still another element, allowing that
the cholera has had its seeds brought hith-
er by the Atalanta, these seeds planted in
some fitting locality distinguished by its
dirt and absence of general hygenic care,
temperature Is another requisite for gem
eral prevalence. Our coming season, with
its icy fctters, will keep down any strides
of this malady. 1t may creep slowly from
one room of Il poorly ventilated tenement
house TO another, but its epidemic charac-
ter will freeze in crossing the street. Look
at one of these rooms, 2 feet square, filled
with a family of children, cat and dog,
where the red-hot cooking stove, burns out
the little life remaining in the air already
filled with the fumes of the soup and cab
bage-pot, the wash-kettle, and the emana-
tions of so many animal bodies Why,
the feather beds of a single building un-
changed since their first use will nurse
contagiOn enough to impregnate a city.
A visitor from one of these rooms to an
other idenUICaI Win TINS, ana aUJoln1ng 10
it, will thus spTeld the disease even in
dead winter; and in such localities chol-
era may be even more potent than in sum-
mer, where there is general ventilation
from the open doors and windows. The
disease will thus be seen to be in winter
local one producing great ravages, but in
confined localities only.
The final element of the propagation of
cholera depends upon the individual.
Disease Is fashionable, like everything
else. If any of US are able TO get new
hat this fall, we get one of the prevalent
modes. So if any one of us are going to
he sick, we get the illness that is current
in the community.
| In certain seasons Of the year, if. we ex-
nose ourselves to the air aud take cold, it
attacks the lungs; at another, the bowels;
at another, gives us rheumatism, &c.
| If we over-eat, or over-drink, it always
does us some injury; if we are harrassed
by business or family cares we are made
sick. In what way we manifest the sick
ness or in what shape it puts itself, de-
pends upon the season and the epidemic
| influence of the season. Should the chol-
err become epidemic, carouse which
generally would be followed by simple
headache or Il bilious attack, will mani
fest itself by an attack of cholera.
Such attacks Of disease are manifestly
within the reach Of every individual.
Avoiding then the cases of general disease,
late hours, late suppers, over-drinking :
excitation of all sorts, joy, fear, fatigues,
and all exhausting employment of body or
mind-in short, by keeping the mems sanO
in eorpore samoa healthy mindin healthy
body, and the prevalence of cholera need
be of no little personal Importance to the
community generally. The "rummies,
whether on the Five Points or Fifth ave
nue., are those who have to fear this or any
epidemic They live in straw houses, anC
the spark from any disease may be fata
! to them.
, In a future communication / will toucl