Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-06-25
IMPORTANT MEDICAL ADVICE.
The Character of Cholera Now Raging i'm
Nashville and Elsewhere.


MeSsrs. Editors:
SIRs-I am glad to hand you for publ
cation very interesting and now emil
nently important communication from the
pen of one of our most active, able and
distinguished medical confreres. For the
want of a we'll organized State Board of
Health to look after our most sacred inter-
ests (health), and mitigate, if not entirely
avert, many calamitous scourges, the peo-
pie, when panic-stricken by pestilence,
and the medical profession, in its high
state of scientific advancement, must look
to the public press for the dissemination Of
correct and established hygienic principles,
as well as for a source for defense against
false instructors. For these reasons, if no
other, most cordially ask place in your
columns for the communication, and would
recommend a more serious consideration
of the whole subject by the different au-
thorities and legislators of our State
Very respectfully,
ALEX. b. TADLoCK, NJ. D.
To Il. b. Tddlock, NJ. d.. President of the
Rno1 County Section Of the East IenncS-
see Medical Society,":
An editorial in the Press and Herald.
issued Sunday, June %, 1878, suggests this
communication.
A sentence in that editorial reads thus:
"The professional bubbles of the medical
philosophers have no effect upon the
scourge-eXcept as they may affect the
treatment-and in the light of passing
events, it is impossible for the people to
discover that the putting of an American
label upon the disease contributes any
thing to the relief of the situation
Controversy is not my forte. / eschew
any feeling of desire to be drawn into a
discussion savoring, In the least, of polem-
les. But confess myself anxious to have
the truth received, in matters belonging to
my profession, as well as to points of prin-
cipie or policy belonging to other vocations
IN society. Hence my disappearance in
tie role of fighting against choleric dis
ease having foreign origin. There is a diff
ference. There is difference in origin, in
treatment and in ratio Iof mortality.
But of most importance is the difference in
origin. At Memphis, at Nashville and at
Greeneville the newspapers report pre-
valence at points of those LOCALITIES where
cause of disease is affirmed by The unpro-
fessional to have generated. Now, i may
be true that an individual will die, after
slckenlng under the operations of such q,
cause, and so far as he is concerned, the
American or the Asiatic label will con-
tribute no relief. But, suppose the authori-
ties OF either one, or all, of those towns
had seized upon the winter months and
destroyed the cOnditionsin which the cause
of disease had birth, how many individuals
would have died with cholera / believe
none. There'd been no waiting winds
from Africa's sunny plains to disseminate a
dire poison" IA mans enemies are those
of his own householdu is applicable
to this matter and the citizens of affected
towns are responsible for the havoc amongst
them. 1t is no abstract question 1t is
practical, eminently practical, and no city
in Tennessee, East, Middle or West, ought
to be permitted to pass through such a
scourge; but if the permission is granted
the citizens are responsible, and the medi-
calprofessiOn has not been permitted to do as
much good as it is capable of accomplish
ing.
In epidemic cholera all the cleanliness
that can be produced will fail to stay its
march, or reduce its mortality. OF course
epidemic diseases are dependent on con-
dltlons, but it has not yet occurred to man
to learn these conditions. But diseases of r.
local origin are well understood by physi-
clans, and If the power is given them by
communities, they can prevent much bet
ter, much easier, than they can cure, dis
ease. .....
Winter is the time to cleans, a town. Just
now every shovel of dirt uncovered TO the
sun, is focus from which disease ema~
mates. Cover the .fth deeper rather than
turn it over, and, except when absolutely
necessary, let foundation, building and
street excavations remain unaccomplished
for while. ...... -"
have written hurriedly, but hope that
you will give the note an official direction
that the readers of the Press and Herald
may see its writer of medical editorials.
is more disposed to ignore truth, than he is
to pay Difference to the profession of medi-
cine. FRANK A. RAMSEY, M. ID.