Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-03-22
THE OHOLERA-WHAT is IT? YELLOW
FEVER AND OTHER INFECTIOUS DIS
EAsES-WHAT ARE THEY?
[From the Scalpel. ]

y
man ought to know all that is known by
physicians of it's origin, and how to prevent
its attacking him to pass it by as mat
ter he cannot comprehend, is to acknowl-
| edge ones self fool or suicide.
When the cholera first appeared, and ty-
phus fever was only an occasional vistant
to some filthy district of the city, there was
some apology but now that SOC. 900 OF our
population are, by their abodes and habits
of living, offered as food for the pestilence-
and are only awaiting the warmth Of an,
other season, we hope most earnestly that
| our people will shake of their apathy, and
try and realize their ignorance and their
danger If God ever designed that selfish
ness should bring its own punishment, sure
ly there is fear of terrible reckoning for
New York The owners of tenant-houses
may secure twenty per cent. thus season.
but the organic law is destined to prove a
hard master perhaps the landlord and ten
ant will go the same way.
Diseases are produced by laws unerring
i'll their action as those by which the body
| is formed or health restored just as GER
tainly as the merest mite that dances III
/ the sunbeam, the moss that covers the roof
or tree, the tiny humning-bird, lordly man,
! the ponderous elephant, the mighty whale,
and the inlusora of the ocean, all originate
from eggs and seeds, just as certainly are
infectious diseases produced in the same
way.
Yellow fever is the product of closely
confined warmth and moisture it origi-
mates directly from those two conditions :
united, they produce a vegetable fungus, OF
| ipbo oil Inv br-
man beings, and thus produces the disease.
! 1t is always brought to this city III the
! holds of vessels from warm climates onl y.
1t is never propagated from a single person
to another but it may be brought to any
place, where the necessary conditions OF
atmosphere exist, by clothing or cargoes III
| bulk aud thus other centres Of prop0ga-
tion for these fungi may be formed, precise
| ly as we form mushroom-beds from mush-
room spawn in a damp and dark cellar or
toadstools spring up in the same place, or
at the root of a tree i'll the forest. Frost at
once destroys Yellow Fever, therefore it is
of vegetable origin.
Cholera is not produced by a vegetable
fungus or moss it originates in human
| filth Wherever human beings congregate
in close quarters and in vast numbers, In a
confined atmosphere in this country, there
either typhus fever, malignant dysentery
or cholera nfantum Of our Summers are
produced Asatic cholera is produced by
an animal germ 1t came first to this coun
try in ship, in June, 1882. 1t first ap-
peared in Quebec, passed to Montreal by
! the l4th, and was i'll New York on the 25th
no doubt whatever it was conveyed in the
| - ,r f,- nnI hp
pagated in animal organisms. That it is
an animal germ we will now endeavor to
show. Ist 1t is not like the yellow fever,
destroyed by frost it has proved very IA
tai in Winter. The only animal, we have
reason to think, that dies from cholera, Is
the hog the hog cholera OF the West is
| very fatal the symptoms are similar to
those of man. I'd. We never had Asiatic
cholera here till 1882, although the same
| conditions essential to it's propagation
dense population, confined air and filth
always existed and always produced their
appropriate results, typhus fever, dysen-
| terry and cholera infantum-but never Ash
! attic cholera.
! Cholera is defective vitalization of the
| blood, or want of pure air, producing de-
! fective nutrition. This causes relaxation
! Of the contractile powers of all the blood
vessels of the body. The entire tract of IN
testines opens its myriad blood-vessels, and
all the albuminous or hesh-making material
passes off from the bowels 1t is rapid
cholera iufantum, only it preys upon adults
| chiefly. Not single case of cholera oc-
CURED on board the Atalanta in its spacious
cabins, during all the terrible death-scourg-
| ing among the poor steerage passengers.
! What can be more convincing! There was
| filth and confined air, animal poison III Its
highest degree, depressing the aeratlon or
life renovation Of the blood ; not producing
typhus fever, but cholera. The solids OF
The human body are relaxed, when the blood
loses its lfe-giving power, and animalcules
can act readily, perhaps enter the blood
vess' Is These animalcues unquestionably
could pass by the wind to the inhabitants
of the spacious cabins in the posterlor part
of the vessel but their blood-vessels and
nerves were in good order and kept the It's
sues tight enough to prevent the entrance
of the exciting germs.
| What the cattle disease may be, it Is at
present impossible to say. That 1t IS lniec'
tious to horned cattle only seems to be
proved. We have every reason to believe
that it originates from a specific animal
germ like cholera that germ is produced
| by The animal, and communicated to nearly
every one that approaches the sufferer, no
matter what the diet or general surround,
ing influences of weather, warmth, or the
herdman's care may be. 1t seems to be a
typhoid pneumonia, producing general re
suits similar to typhoid fever i'll man ; 1t Is
not communicable, however, to our race
though we believe deaths have occurred
with symptoms not dissimlar to those who
have eaten the flesh of animals killed whe1
they had the disease. Our laws wisely
prohibit the importation of all animals a
present from abroad who have the clef
hoof the horse and his kindred are no
subject to the disease.
Small pox like cholera and syphilis, II
of European origin, because neither wer'
known in America before the arrival of Eu
ropeans. 1t is probably animal also in IL
origin, because frost does not destroy II
1t spreads undoubtedly by the blood, be
cause it breaks out in pustules all over tn
body at once Like the filurin or worm Il
the eye and intermuscular worm, whc
: burrows in the deep-seated muscles {
: sheep and hogs, and from them is transfer
red to man when he eats the flesh of thoS
,H-,,.,I animals raw pr nartialIy cooke