East Saginaw courier., 1865-09-20
THE CHOLERA.

said in regard to the approach OF this
dreaded pestilence (which walketh in
darkness and wasteth at noon day"
the recollection Of whose former
disastrous visitations is still fresh in
the minds Of thousands, there seems
10 be a reasonable and hopeful doubt
as to the probability Of its following
former seemingly established routes,or
spreading to anything like the extent
indicated in the earlier accounts and
prognistications concerning its pro-
gress.
Originally, we learn from the New
American Encyclopedia, an endemic
scourge Of the country hundred miles
north of Calcutta, it started upon a
tour of devastation in 1917; entered
Calcutta in September, and held the
city in its fatal power for over a year
Then returning northward to its old
home, it spread over Nepaul, and took
its way south again to the great cities
Of Southern India and from them
spread in 1920 over the eastern coast
of Africa, the East Indies and even
China. In the following year Persia,
Arabia, and Asia Minor were visited,
and then for time there seemed "a
lull in the storm but in 1898 1t re-
sumed the terrible work in Central
Asia, and in 1889 we find it entering
Europe. Unlike the present course
Of the disease, it made its way through
central Europe, reaching Sunderland
in Durham in October 1881, and Lon
don the following February. Its his
tory in this country, beginning June
8, 1882, at Quebec, is familiar to our
readers. The cholera has been known
in India for many centuries, and has
devastated the country several times
since it became known to the English;
it is said to have destroyed 80, 600 lives
in 1868, in upper Hindostan.
Some of the incidents connected
with the appearance of the cholera in
Michigan in 1882, particularly the
carnival Of death on board the Sheldon
Thompson, and the terrible suffering Of
the troops landed by her at Fort
Gratiot, are Of character calculated
to incite the utmost dread and horror,
and among the old inhabitants of the
eastern shore the gloom of that diIe
experience has given color to all sub
sequent imagination or realization in
regard to the dread disease. In 1884,
1910, 1851 ,and 1854 the cholera reap
peared, the last being the year of its
fearful severity, and the, consequent
Since then, though isolated cases of a
disease bearing all its distinctive char
acteristics have been reported at vari-
Gus points throughout this country, it
has nowhere made its appearance as
an epidemic,
OF tho disease that now prevails in
the East, the London Times in recent
leader says:
1t is, as we defined it, an outbreak
of the epidemic in the basin of the
Mediterranean. As yet it appears as
if tho air Of this inland sea was nec-
essary to tho atmospheric poison
Within these limits, too, the disease
has been rather retiring towards the
East than advancing towards the West.
Some time ago it swept northward
from Alexandria to Constantinople,
and westward even to Valencia and
Gibraltar. But the epidemic wave is
now receding. The pestilenco he's an
peared on the Syrian coast ut Bcyrout
and Jaifa, both passed over in the
previous ascent Of the disease from
the Nile to the Bosphorus, and has
broken out also in the Isle of Gambia.
1t has, too, as we anticipated it might,
crept into the Black Sea, and is spread
ing round its coast as round the shores
OF the Mediterranean. 1t is reported
from Varna, Kustendje and Trebiz-
onde, and we hear Of it as far east as
Bagdad. AS far as any track can be
laid down from these movements, the
epidemic seems retiring towards the
regions from which it is said to have
arrived--the coast Of Arabia.
At the same time, however, its char
acteristic caprices have been signally
shown in the exemptions enjoyed
Sicily, though in the focus of conta-
gion, and visited with dreadful sevori-
ty in 1854, has hitherto escaped.
Even the ports of Barbary, exposed
as they may be thought to such afIlic-
tions, are as yet healthy. Naples has
not suffered, nor the towns Of Greece,
though the disease is reported from
Salonica, at tho head OF the Archipol-
igo. Again, the virulence Of the at
tacks at some points is singularly con-
traste with the lightness of the afflic-
ton at others. We will say nothing
about the terrible sufferings at Con-
stantinople, which may bo explained,
perhaps, by the condition of the city
and its population but there is prob
ably no great difference in that res
pect between Anoona and Valencia,
and yet the former town was devasta-
ted, while the latter escaped with little
hurt. In point of fact the epidemic
has hitherto failed to establish itself
at any point west of Ancona. 1t took
no hold of Narcotics, and scarcely
niala itsalf folt ot Raronlnno St1i