Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-03-14
CHOLERA.
The Disease not COnfRgiOus-ItH True
Characte EPidemie-HOw to Fight Ii.

A professional writer in the New York
Tribune, in reviewing the subject of chol-
era, presents the most practical and con-
vincing argument against the theory that
it is contagious that we have yet seen, and
adds some exceedingly valuable hints in
regard to its true character, and The best
methods 0 fpreparing for it. We extract (:
l. The great numbers attacked stimuli
~taneously, and who had previously had no
Intercourse with the sick-a fact which all
writers on Cholera admit-csnnot be ac-
counted for without supposing the disease
to be simply epidemic.
II. The general exemption from the dis
ease of medical and other attendants on
Cholera cases:
/. DR.. Jameson says that of between
$50 and 200 physicians engaged in Chol-
ora practice in Bengal, only three took the
disease.
2. AT Bombay none of the hospital at
tendants were attacked, though they were
assisting the patients day and night.
3. The Madras report shows that, in the
hospital of the Royals only one olt OF IOl
attendants was attacked, and at the receiv-
ing hospitals for Cholera patients at Trim
chinopoly, st. Thomas du Mount, and
Madras, the attendants were numerous
and sometimes shared the same bed with
patients yet not one took the disease.
4. AT Berhampore none of the native
attendants on the Cholera hospitals were
affected.
5. A letter addressed to the Medical
Council at Moscow by eight chief physi-
clans to the hospitals at A~strakhan, says ::
W have all, without any precaution
touched and rubbed the sick; and we have
daily visited the hospitals crowded with
Cholera patients, whore we have respired
their breath yet we have neither Q
tracted the disease nor conveyed it to our
families. TIE attendants who nursed and
applied f%rictions to the patients-who put
them into baths, changed their liren, and
performed other offices for the sick-re-
manned free from Cholera. In the mill
tary as well as in the civil hospitals, the
linen and clothes of Cholera patients were
transferred to other patients without be-
ing previously fumigated or ventilated =.
and, nevertheless, those who wore those
garments did not become affected with
Cholera. Several nurses and mothers,
having Cholera, sucked their children
both during and after the disease, yet the
latter were not attacked.
6. DR.. LefeVre, physician to the Brit
ish Embassy at st. Petersburg, reports as
follows:
"In private practice, among those in
easy circumstances, I have known the wife
attend the husband, the husband attend
the wife, parents their children, children
/ H.. zu - -, 60 -. -
from long attendance and anxiety of minds
We might expect the influence of predis-
position TO operate IN ~ instance have l
found the disease communicated to the at
tendants.'
7. During the prevalence of the cpl
demic at Moscow, 5S7 persons affected
with Cholera were admitted into a hospi-
tai where there were already $50 patients
laboring under other diseases. Not q sin
gle one of the latter took the Cholera.
DR.. Zudkoff, of Moscow, who had form
erly been Il Contagionist, declared that he
saw to saw, to his astOnishment, that all
the attendants and all the soldiers
handled the sick, and supported their
heads while they vomited, without using
the least ~precaution, and without contract
ing the disease.
,. Mr.. Searle, whoattended a very large
number of patients in Warsaw, where be
had charge of Il hospital for the poor,
writes that not one of the attendants, not
one of the nurses, not one of those who
handled the dead, fell a victim TO the
seourSe.
.. In Berlin, 4O9 houses were visited by
the epidemic, and in 273 of these only one
individual in each house was affected,
while in the remaining 1856 four or FIVE
suffered in each. Such Is the density Of
the population in the quarters of Berlin so
attacked, that the census assigns 4,2O0
families, with an average of four persons
TO each family, to those 400 houses, being
an aggregate of l6, 500 residents who lived
in immediate contact with cholera. OF
this mass only 500 were stricken with the
disease, or about one in eighteen persons.
10. In the Marine Hospital of st. Peters
burg, of forty-three attendants on Cholera
patients, not a single zone was affected and
in the temporary hospitals in that city,
of forty-one attendants only one was at
tackled, and he after drinking klgass while
very warm.
Il. Those engaged in post mortem e1-
aminatiOns of Cholera cases have not
been attacked by the disease. Such ex-
aminations have everywhere been made
without any precautions, and with per-
feet impunity.
y. DR.. Foy at Warsaw, and ten others, |
inoc1Iated themselves with the blood of
Cholera patients, tasted their OBJECTIONS,
and inhaled their breath, without receiv-
ing the disease.
Els. As to the eapability of merchandise
to convey, and afterward to communicate.
the infectious germ Of Colera, the Central
Board of Health, in a communication to
the Privy Council, remark
"There Is, perhaps, no question in the
whole range of sanitary police on which
SO many and such irrefragible facts can be
brought to bear as on this-derived, too.
from the most authentic sources.
"Seven hundred and thirty ships, laden
with hemp and fax, from infected ports of
the Baltic, arrived at the different q~uaran-
tine stations in this country between the LIST
and 3lst of December, 1881. MANY
vessels also arrived laden with wool and
hides; yet not a single case of cholera oe
Cured among any of these ships outside
the Cattegat sea, nor among the people
employed in opening and airing their
-hTSOts III the thEdEels. AT the nemp and
fax wharf of St. Petersburg, where sew
eral thousand tuns of these articles arrived
Turing the Spring and Summer from
places in the interior where cholera ex-
sted at the time of their shipment for the
,apital, the persons employed in cracking
'r sorting, and who generally passed the
among the bales, did not suffer g
IN the season, nor so severely, SIS
'ther classes Of the general population.
The same observation holds good with re- J
peet to all the ropewalFs of St. Peters
)urg and the Imperial mandatory Of
inen cloth at Alexandroiskv, where all
he yarn IS spun from fax bracked and !
on the spot
Down to the 29th of February. 1882. NJ. :
Aspinwall, American Consul at London.
eported to this government that only one :
medical practitioner had died of Cholera :
n England, although at a moderate COM !
'utation l,06o or more had been in con- !
attendance on Cholera patients. :
And, according to The Medieiaie Chirur0- !
cal Reriel1, for April, 1882, not a single :
medical man was affected by the cholera !
n Sunderland, Newcastle, or Gateshead. !
When the Cholera prevailed in its most !
form among the armed vessels !
transports of the Fest India Compa- 4
Us fleet in the waters of Tennasserine :
nd Pegu, in 1852, not on~eoceurred among :.
he medical officers or hospital attendants. :
1t that time the writer. having medical