Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-02-08
ChoIera-Its Loealizing Causes.

The New York Tiribune of Saturday,
has a valuable article upon the history of
cholera. 1t is of such value at this time,
to the whole community, and especially
cities and villages, that we quote largely
"Dr. Snow, the Superintendent OF health
Of the city of Providence-than whom a
more careful and efficient health otdceris
not to be found-in q recent report to
the Providence Board of Health, declares
that he can point out the precise 10
c~alities in the city where the Cholera
will prevail if it visits us again; can o
the house in which it will do its worst
work; can name the families and almost
The individuals which will cause the dis
ease; and can show that those causes
might be renewed, and the disease pre-
vented by the proper action of the author
tiles. or the owners of the houses, and of
the individuals. The General Board of
Health of Great Britain declared that as
was anticipated, in l849, the Cholera re-
turned to the same countries, and the same
cities and towns, and even the same streets,
and houses and rooms, which it ravaged
in 1882 > and furthermore, 1t Is stated that
but very few indeed who suffered then
have escaped now, except those instances
in which sanitary measures have IN the
mean time been effected The city Of
Worcester, on the Severn, which hadtwice
been scourged, having performed a thor
ough cleansing, escaped the following cpl
demio which swept the nelgh6orlng cities,
The Cholera of l849, with Insignificant
exceptions, prevailed, out OF five hundred
towns noted, in those previously known
for their local impurities, in sixty-eight
towns where it ragged severely, the
Committee of the Royal College of
Surgeons, found the lecalizing
causes of pestilence prevailing;
and in ffty-one out of ffty-three quarters
where it first appeared, in as many dis
trints the well-known and preventable
causes were found. Thus the medical
officers report that Fin the town OF Jewks-
bury the cholera was first announced in an
alley containing a slaughter-house, pig
styes, and a bone deposit and for more
than a month it fingered there, spreading
thence over the town. In the city OF Hull,
it was first limited to the ill-drained local
tiles. In St. Giles's Parish, London, it
commenced in Church street, where the
drainage and ventilation were bad, clean
ing defective, and population dense. In
Chatham. the disease was chiefly confined
to the narrow lanes and alleys which are
crowded, deficient in cleanliness, and
where fever is more or less prevalent In
Liverpool, the disease was confined for the
most part to the worst ventilated, low
and poorly drained courts. Lodging
houses of this character, were sometimes
alone attacked That class of lodging
houses in England that has been brought
under sanitary regulations, with an aggre-
gate population of s0,0 O0 was almost to-
tally except from cholera during the last
epidemics. The report of the General
Board IF Health for l849 states that in the
great tenant house called the Metropolitan
Buildings, in which health regulations
were complete, with a population of 500,
not q case occurred, although the cpl
demic was very fatal in that district. And
the report of the same Beard in 1851
states, that sin the Metropolis, every eff
oient sanitary improvement has been
followed as directly as cause and effect by
a corresponding decrease of sickness and
mortality. These is no exception to this
rule. 1t applies to the courts, alleys, aud
houses occupied by the industrious classes; |
it applies to public institutions Of every
kind to prisons, to hospitals, to lunatic
asylums, and, above all, to establishments
specially erected to test the value of SAN
itary principles-to the model lodging
of the Metropolis. In our report
epidemic cholera it is shown that only
out of 1875 persons, inmates of these
model buildings, had been attacked by the
whereas among the population OF
London generally one person in seventy
Ave WAS attacked. raI