Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-07-23
WHAT Is WHAT WILL YOU
nm WIII VITO

IN Lne NaSnVHIe vOUTnut OF 1M6UtCtn6
and Surgery for July, DR.. Bowling writes
as follows: May, 1878, sent the sbiyouae
of the dead seventeen remains of mortals,
and June the same year, sent more than
one thousand sOh, The filth of Nash
vile!' cry out ring makers, jnb-hunters,
croakers, and repeaters. Tell us, oh ye
faithful, if there was not as much filth in
Nashville on the 9th of July, with two
burisls, as on the 10Th of June, when en-
hundred of our people were buried out Of
our sight. How is it that filth Is so potent
upon the one day, and SO impotent on the
other?" ,-.--. -r-.-. s...r, ,.s
DR.. Bowling should answer his own ques-
ton, and point out, if be can, some other
causes more likely than general filth and
human excremen's to generate fatal dis
eases. His reasoning is defective. He
tacitly assumes that fire which sweeps
over dry sedge field or prairie on the goth
Of one month is logically boInd to burn
over the game surface in the same manner,
evolving the same degree of heat, on the
9th of the next month following. Is this
the right way to deal with either tie chem
ical or vital facts involved in such phenom-
ena? DR.. Bowling appears to overlook the
fact that according to his own showing,
eJune sent more than a thousand" of the
most combus,ible of human bodies in this
city to the condition and repose of ashes.
The same pestilent fire scorched un-
known other thousands in June,
whose bodies, Ike wood saturated
with salt, could not easily burn again onthe
ninth of July. When rust strikes field of
wheat in June and blights It, is It usual for
it TO blight the blighted crop in July? Doc
TOR, you reason badly. Human excTements
are the food of d human parasite called
cholera-not the parasite. 1t is not in The
nature Of this parasite to multiply its mi
croscopic cells continuously, killing and part
ly devouring all OF woman born. Such an
enemy of man would soon accomplish two
results. First, it would eXterminate man.
kind from the earth. Secondly, being par
ssite, and as dependent On man for perma-
nent subsistence as the bot-fy is on the
horse and mule, it would destroy its own
species. Nature is wiser than such suici-
des implies, whatever doctors may write or
think. Asiatic cholera is thing of life,
and should BIZ dealt with
according with the laws of life.
The principle of vitality explains all of its
phenomena in clear and satisfactory man
ner. Without organic life, neither human
excrements, nor any known gases, nor any
poisonous minerals dissolved in water,
vapor or air, nor chemistry, electricity, nor
any known physical force, does, or can do,
what cholera is doing from day to day, in
some parts of the world. You might SIS
well plant small particles Of true nightsoil,
and call them mustard seed, and expect a
crop of mustard, as to think of raising q
crop of true cholera in any jections
from man without its veretable seed. But
the germs of such Vegetable parasites as
prey on man, his wheat and grapes, his
pears, apples, peaches and cotton, are not
so very scarce in summer as many appear
to believe. We contend that these most
injurious parasites should receive more study
in cur higher schools by learned and
professional men. We give indefinite nil
lions of our money, and years of the
precious time of our sons to study, and
learn in part the dead languages of dead
people, for the sake Of fossil fractions,
while the living things, which Kill our cit
iHeuS by the thousand a month, nobody,
nor city, nor State investigates, because
that would be likely to increase useful
knowledge AID apply it to noble purpose!
Dr.. Bowling asks, ''What will you do
with it?" We answer, make it the mud
sill of great reform in the city of Nash
vile, and if possible, in all other American
cities. Whatever seed a community sows
and cultiystes, that must be its harvest.
Every child twelve years old should have
human reason so lar developed as
TO understand that there never is
an effect without an adequate cause.
Search for the csuse Of cholera.
To ask, "Who struck Billy Patte.son?" is to
trjfle with a momeptous vital problem.
Make al the conditions favorable for tie
growth of mildew, and you will have fine
crop. Make the conditions such that mil
dew cannot multiply its spores, and no mil
dew will be seen in that place. Deal with |
cholera in the same way and none will be |
seer. Our health and life, or lives, are at |
the mercy of conditions. These must be
studied and understood. If silly people are
bent on killing themselves or children with |
burning fluids, cholera poison, or some 9TH
er, bow can few professionaIImen prevent |
ii? Raise the standard of cultivated COM
mon sense higher in the public mind, and it
will, in salf-defence, Danish forever the
causes that produce three-fourthssof all our
diseases. Ignorance and blind devotion to
the god, Juggernaut, in Indie, in some
way have developed cholera germs
from extreme uncleanness. Pro- |
found ignorance and superstition,
whether in whites or blacks, may do as
much to propagate and perpetuate cholera
in America as in Asia, We worship one
idol, they another; and both ascribe the ex-
istence Of pestilence, no. to human conduct,
but to higher, unseen power. On both
continents this mistaken view of the facts
in the case prevents the use of the only
means that will prevent cholera.
EARTEF-CInSETS