The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1871-10-04
CHOLERA PREVENTION.
An Important Paper.

The New York Independent of Sep
TENDER %, contains an interesting
article upon the best means of prevent
ing cholera. 1t is from the pen of
Professor STEPHEN SMIru NJ
Ir,arn Commissioner Of the city OF
New York, and is based upon circu-
lar issued by the Privy Council OF Eng
land, enjoining certain sanitary measures
upon the English people. We make
the following extract:
The circular first assures the people
of England that former experience JUS
titles the belief that the presence OF i'm
ported cases Of the disease will not be
capable OF causing much injury to the
population if the places receiving the
infection have had the advantages OF
proper sanitary administration. 1t then
proceeds to give the present state OF
knowledge concerning the mode in
which epidemics of cholera are pro,
duced. Its most important statements
under this head may be reduced to the
following propositions:
l. Cholera is so little contagious in
the sense in which smallpox and scar
latina are contagious that, if reasona-
BILE care be taken where it is present,
there is scarcely any risk that the dis
ease will spread to persons who nurse
and attend upon the sick.
.. 1t is characterize Of cholera, not
only of the disease in its developed and
alarming form, but equally of the
slightest diarrhea which the epidemic
influence can cause, that all matters
which the patient discharges from his
stomach and bowels, are infectious
and that, if they be left without disin-
lection after they are discharged, their
Effectiveness during some days gradu-
ally grows stronger and stronger.
8. Probably, under ordinary circum-
stances, the patient has no power of In
fecting other persons except by means
of these discharges; nor any power OF
injecting even by them, except in so far
as particles of them are enabled to tain,
the food, water, or air which people
consume.
4. When a case OF cholera is i'm.
ported into any place, the disease is
likely to spread in proportion to the
facilities for this indirect infection.
5. This indirect infection may be
effected in the following manner: Cal
Any choleraic discharge cast, without
previous thorough disinfection, into any
cesspool or drain, or other depository OF
conduit of filth, infects the excremental
matters with which it there mingles
and, probably, to some extent, the etfiu
via which those matters evolve. u,
The infective powers Of choleraic dis
charges attaches to whatever bedding
clothing, towels, and like things have
been imbued with them, and renders
these things, if not thoroughly disin
fected, as capable OF spreading the dis
ease in places to which they are sen
(for washing or other purposes) as, il
| like circumstances, the cholera patien
himself would be. (c) If, by leakage
or soakage from cesspools or drains, o.
through reckless casting out Of slop:
and washwater, any faint (howeyel
small) OF the infective material get
access to wells or other sources o
drinking water, it imparts to enormous
volumes of water the power Of propa
eating the disease. ...-.
Based upon these now sclentltficall.
established laws governing the spreac
of cholera, the circular points out tn
following special dangers which hav'
to be guarded against:
|. First, and above all, there is the dan
4 ger of water supplies which are in an.
even the slightest degree tainted b.
house refuse or other like kinds of filth
as where there is outflow, leakage, o
filtration from sewers, house-drains