Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-07-09
DIR. RAMsEY's VIEW OF THE "PRE-
vAIIING DISEASE"
wbnt Hc saw and Heard In Hts visit TO
GreeneviIle.

ton of worthy citizen of that place, /
visited Greeneyille Tenn, and employed
thirty hours diligently visiting the sick,
and prosecuting inquiry in the direction
that your instructions designated as most
desirable.
In reply to the first question / asked |
after left the cars at the Greeneville de-
pot, citizen told me that " the town had |
twelve hundred Inhabitants two weeks |
ago, and just before the outbreak of this |
sickness but now, there are hardly three |
hundred, all told-death and fear have !
produced the notable difference, and are |
still actively Iessening the numbers of the |
few who remain" All trade had stopped, |
except o very limited traffic in food, be- |
cause of the meagre quantity for sale and |
the pecuniary inability of much the larg-
est proportion of purchasers to buy all they |
needed, and no opportunity to make |
money with which to pay for food; and
except very constant labor by the apothe-
carries, dispensing medicines. The men
and women WHO heretofore easily obtain
ed work and the pay for 1t each day, and
had no care for the morrow, cannot now
find opportunity 10 earn money, and either
60 hungry or are supplied 10y more for
tunate neighbor. A very few of the citi-
zens remaining have moderate pecuniary,
or property, ability, have had, and now
have, the onus of feeding and paying for
medicines issued to considerable proper
ton of the inhabitants who have remained
with them in the infected town.
Why all the sadness? Why the desc
lateness presented by deserted town?
Why the abandonment of houses, and
property, and of business, and of the pleas
ures of homes? Why have the lawyers
put aside their dockets, the officers of the
corporation put off their insignia of office
and gone where they can have no authori-
ty, the artisans laid down their working
tools d? Why have all the avocations of
men ceased in Greeneville, except the
r apid, anxious passing from house to house
of the doctors, the steady persevering but
Wearied manipulations of the apothecaries
and the undertakers in the mournfully
silent performance of their office-burying
the dead ? The answer is plain, and
though the results are sadly disastrous, the
cause is simple. The citizens of Greene
vile are reaping the reward of reliance
upon self, when, in fact they needed coun-
sci +; they have "played with edged TOOLS
and have been wounded" they handled
poison as though was sweet morsel, and
death has come.
More than quarter of a century ago an
immense pit was dug in the very center of
the town, and cloaca erected over it with
capacity sufficient for the accommodation
of the entire community during all these
years. y very short time before the erupt-
ing of the disease by which the town has
been depopulated, an energetic citizen in
contents wagoned through the town, and
spread upon the face of a hill on the
northwest verge of the corporation, the
contents from the pit spreading over q
very considerable surface of wet ground,
exposed for several days to q fiery sun.
Then there occurred the heaviest rain
that any citizen of Greeneville had ever
witnessed. 1t was the eastern side OF
slope of the hill on which the deposit was
made and of course the wash of the hill
was into and through the town. The
heavy wash of this rain carried all the sur
face soil from the hill, and as the water
covered an area equal to three-fourths O
the corporate extent of the town, the de-
brls from the pit which it held, fairly d
vided, if not dissolved, was distributed t.
lust SO much of the surface of the ground
But this is not all, the pile is yet incom
plete The town of Greeneville is a town
OF gardens, each householder, probably
having garden, to which he gives atten
ton during all the time not required by
his regular vocation; ard each garden
owner INDUCING an emulation as to whC
would have the best grapes-all the gar
dens having grape arbors of less or very
large extent. The discovery belongs to
citizen of Greeneville, and the experience
forsoOth, of one man was adopted as be
yond cavil, and in every essential right
that applied by every garden owner in tn
town, that the debris of the human econ
Omy, the focal deposit, made by men
woman, and children, is of all things, TIL
best to give vigor to the grape vine, full
ness to the grape, and luscious delicate
ness to the flavor, and mellowness to tn
odor of the juice of the fruit. Every clio
AGA in the town surrendered its contents
End at the root of each main stem, wa
buried, in wet earth, n pile of human ex
crement, in process Of chemica
action, resulting in products and educts
readily communicated to the atmospher
and impaired to water and through ther
as vehicles or carriers, presented to the al
sorbing surfaces of the living man-th
skin and the mucous lining of the moutl
lungs, stomach and bowels, The cons,
quences are seen and read of all men, /
the healas that have been rent, in the clio
ed dwellings and business houses, in til
forsaSen streets in the absolute desolat
ness of the town of Greeneville, In IL
overflow several wells were contaminatet
the waters of which, of course, are poison
Gus now but outside of the overflow, the
il no reason to believe the water of I'll
town to be otherwise than pure. The cl
acie of the town are without pits and a
all built upon "A natural or artificial drai
or sewer, communicating with cree
that passes from n northwest point, rul
ming east and then south through and {
the edge of town, aud soon entering al
passing through farms more or less cont
To lan tom 90. OIL on, he