New-York tribune., 1872-11-08
THE SPREAD or CHOLERA.

Hungary, in East Prussia, and in Ireland lend
a SD cial interest to the evident earneStness
with which the English public have begun
to press projects for more direct commu-
nication with India. A Parliamentary Com
mittee lately sat to investigate the various
plans proposed for running rails from the
shores of Syria TO the head of the Persian
Gulf, and a report favoring two out OF the many
projected routes is the twin offspring OF Its
labors As it il not possible for both the plans
recommended to develop into healthy maturity,
DR. Darwin will be gratiGed with another in
stance to illustrate his theory that only the
Gttest are destined to survive. But whether
the route by Scandaroon to BassOra be ultimately
adoptcd. or the alternative scheme which will
travel direct to Kowcyt, it appears certain that
tbe lapse of very few years will see the
Persian Empire and British India brought into
direct railway communication with the West
The mercantile world in Europe will feel
lust satisfaction when this result shall
have been attained. But there Is one
point of vital Importance to tho great
mass of the inhabitants of Europe, and for
that matter to this country AZ well, which
money-loving Railway Company may
he inclined to overlook. Cholera, like pale
sppcter, will step uniyited into the car, and
descend with the returning travellers to explore
every oity along the route. This is no imaginary
evil. Six times since the year 1923 has the
destroying angel breathed on the face OF
Europe and in each case science has distinctly
traced the introduction of the epidemic to
the Pilgrim crowds carrying back tue
Prophets blessing and ChOlera's curse to
their homes in Eastern Europe. The home
of the disease is in HndOstan, and thence
it is conveyed by Mussulmans to Mecca
and other shrines in the East. Mohammodan
devotees from Europe catch infection from
their Indian fellow wOrshipers, and thus the
pastilen e is carried to the homes OF the West.
When it has once established itself in rer
ticular locality the seeds of the maady are dll-
fused by water. 1t is found impossible to prevent
| SLIGHT infiltration from the drainage system
| of a town into its wells. Even in places where
no drains exist there are still people who
bathe and wash their garments in the neigh
! boring streams; and in India when sufferer
from cholera has bathed but once in rcser-
v0ir whole community las been known TO
fall victims to the epidemic. Some years ago
the United States Government sent colOred
regiment among whom cholera had appeared to
move by easy stages through the thinly-
peopled healthy plains of Colorado. Wherever
those soldiers halted they left the seeds
of the disease behind, and every passing
caravan suffered from an outbreak of the
disease ; and map of the route along which
| the regiment had marched might have been
drawn by simply noting the spots in which
cholera had appeared.
The persistence and recurring activity Of
To oil uol
paralleled by previous periods of long con-
tinued prevalence of the disease-fOr example,
from 1851 TO t861-haye led some scientific men
into the belief that the malady has become
naturalized in Persia, that the deadly plant
which grows wild on the plains of Bengal has
cast poison seed among the groves of Kho-
rassan, and that this has taken root inextermi-
nably in the soil Whether that view be well
grounded or no, it is certain that the diffusion
of cholera in Southern Russia has been proved
to be due in nearly every instance to the mi
grafton of the disease from the frontiers of
Persia, along the ordinary routes of commerce
which Join tho two countries together. Never
theless, the occurrence of certain cases in which
the disease has broken out anew in some To-
cality after n long interval of time, and under
circumstances which appeared absolutely to
exclude the possibility of its introduction from
the East, has forced some observers TO seek
for on explanation of the phenomenon in
theory that town once visited by cholera is
liable to suffer from recrudescence of the
malady even after lapse of years. F0rtu-
nately for mankind this hypothesis is far from
having been clearly established, and, indeed,
further investigation seems to threaten COM
pletely % overthrow it. One of the instances
which ia supporters have relied on is that of the
outbreak nc kiev, an inland town in Southern
Russia, which commenced on the 25th of
August 1869. IL continued to vex that city
till tho following December; it spread in
Western and Southern Russia during the
CLOSING months of the year; and i'll February,
1870, cases were already reported at Mini
Novgorod. The angel of death never rested
on us unwearied march. In 1871, the plague
had extended from the Euxine to the White
Sea, from Poland and the Baltic shores on
tho west 10 the l0wlylng Ural hills. Across
these il hurried to augment the miseries of
the hapless Siberian cxiles, and the most re-
cent news represents the rsvages spreading
through tho Governments of Yenes and
Tomsk. This is Il very serviceable instance
for .he supporters of the recrudescent hypoth-
ee;, The outbreak lad occurred at an ascer-
tanned date, in an inland town of Russia
which had suffered severely three years pre-
yiously us5j-GG) from visitation of the dis
ease; and tho notion that the case was an
imporlant one seemed to be entirely excluded
bv the fact that during the whole of 1860
there had been no extension of cholera across