The New York herald., 1873-06-15

ny 10 arIllS tney Will uOt nave OInCorS 10 CON-
mand them worthy Of the name Of the Ameri-
can soldier
The Great Asiatic Plague and It's
Medical Meteorology.
The tidings that have already reached us Of
the arrival of the Asiatic cholera in the Lower
Mississippi Valley should excite immediate at
tention and stimulate us to the most exhaus-
tive sanitary precaution. The uncertainty
which attends the march Of this pestllence and
our ignorance of the geographic belts which it
will devastate are among the circumstances
that lend terror to its approach. Until 1850
the cholera had steadily and persistently re-
Southern Hemisphere, and confined its ravages
to the populous zones which gave it birth. 1t
was first observed, as an epidemic, in the
month of May, in Bengal, in the year
1917, although it had existed from time i'm
memorial. Strange to say that although its
progress was first northward it afterwards
took direction contrary to that of the mon
soons of India and overspread the southern
and southwestern districts. It's first landing
on our shores was simultaneously at New York
and Quebec in 1892 whence it rapidly spread
along the chain of the st. Lawrence Valley
and lakes and by ship from New York
to New Orleans. From the delta of the Mis-
sissippi it took its way up stream to st. Louis,
Louisville, Cincinnati and Pittsburg, and
having then, seemingly, recruited its deadly
power and malignity, crossed the AlIeghanies
to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. 1t
was remarkable that although it had reached
Quarantine previously, its chief virulence was
manifested after its recurring through the
Mississippi Valley and its rearrival at New
York. But once at New Orleans it shot
across the country to Texas before it became
epidemic OF the Crescent City; and from st.
Louis it stalked westward to Fort Leaven-
worth, independence and Fort Laramie, near
the Rocky Mountains, and attacked the In
short distance Of the city. 1t seemed to
overleap points contiguous to the scenes of
epidemic as if borne by some powerful i'm
pulse. And, after sweeping the vast CONT
mental basin from the Rocky Mountains to
the Allegheny SUBMITS, it was arrested by the
sea for it hardly affected the Atlantic sea-
board lying under the shadow of the highest
ridges of the Appalachian chain.
These facts have led to the belief that the
medical geography of the disease locates its
expansion along the great sweep of the equa-
torial current of moist southwest and south
east winds. 1t is known that these humid
winds, supposed by some to be the DETECTION
of the trade winds into the Mississippi Valley
penetrate to high latitudes in the central part
of our Continent. volney first pointed out
this DETECTION as beginning in the Bay of
Honduras and attaining southeasterly direc-
ton at Vera Cruz Redfeld thought that it
was to this southerly and southeasterly wind the
Mississippi Valley owed its fertility. Mr.. Blod-
get also determined that southeasterly winds
prevail in this section, and suggested that they
might be due to an impulse not wholly at the
coast, but in the interior. 1t has been ascer-
tained that at Natchez the winds
are mostly southeasterly; and, accord
ing to DR.. Engleman, from April to
OctODer, SOutn ana southeast WluuS prevail
at ST. Louis. During the celebrated
cholera epidemic of 1854 it was found that
southerly winds and calms prevailed The
extension of the disease to the cities Of Mexico
and Texas its ascending above the sea to
chihuahua give thousand feet high, and to
a still greater elevation in the district of Paso
del Norte on the Rio Grande, its invasion of
the west and the Plains and its actual extern
sion to California at the very time that the
Southern States almost wholly escaped it, are
all circumstances confirming the belief that it
follows the equatorial air currents As the
latter are known to reach the loftiest noun
tains tops, SO the great epidemic, unlike the
yellow fever, is known to disregard attitudes
and has ragged at times with great violence on
the snowy slopes of the Himalayas and at
Erzeroum, in Armenia, six thousand one hun
dred feet above the ocean.
1t was long since remarked by an eminent
physician that the fountain head of all sani-
tary and epidemic science was in the applica-
tion of meteorology. 1t has been conclusively
shown that the recurrence of yellow fever, in
o series of years from 1893 to 1851, has never
been known when the average thermometer at
three clock was under seventy-nine degrees