The Hawaiian gazette., 1878-09-18
Asiatic Cholera.

We clip the following interesting history of the
Asiate Cholera from the San Francisco Chronicle, of
July last, which we republish for its statistical
racy:
The cases of Asiatic cholera reported at Norwich,
Connecticut ON the 10th instant, were probably not
genupe cholera, but milder type of the disease.
II is in New England that we may expect the first
appearance of this scourge in America In 1882 it
first broke out in Quebec, among emgrants from Eu-
rope where, in St. Petersburg Vienna, Paris, Mar
settles and other large csnters of population 1T broke
out in the winter Of lS3l-32. 1t was brought into
Europe by the overland Tonte from Picking, UiG To-
busk, Siberia, to Moscow and st. Petersburg. AL
most simultaneously with the that occurred at
Quebec it broke out in the valleys of the Ohio and
Mississippi raging with great violence at Cincinnati.
Louisville and ST. Louis, but only during the spring
and summer months. 1t disappeared on the coming
Of frost and reappeared again in the spring of 1888,
but generally attacking only such places escaped
the year before In 1888 travelled up the Missis-
sppi to Prairie du Chen, and up the Missouri far
St. Joseph, then an outlying town. 1t followed
the overland trail from Independence, Mo-, TO Santa
Fe, and some of the Indian tribes nearest the white
settlements and lines OF commerce were attacked and
decim ted. 1t nowhere 10 the interior than
among the limestone settlements and towns of Ken
lucky and Tennessee. Lexington, shebyville, Paris
and Nashville suffered frghtfully and yet the lime
stone region of Pennsylvania entirely escaped La
proportion to population there was less cholera in
Phiadelphia than in any other city of the United
States, not excepting Boston.
In ls4S the disease again made its way into Europe
from Its old home Asia, and in 1919 became rag
ing epidemic at St. Louis and all the large cities of the
West The population of St. Louis at that time
less than one hundred thousand, but for six eight
weeks the deaths from cholera averaged over $50 a
day. And it as bad in most of the small river
towns above and below. 1t attacked the camps of
the California emigrants the plains but followed
the trail that year epidemic farther out than
hundred lilies In 1850 il visited about
all the that had escaped the year before, and
followed the California emigrants across the Rocky
Mountains and down to the Humboldt Desert. We
believe there Of cholera this side of
the Desert. twas brought into the State in Septem
ber 1885, from the Isthmus of Panama, first to San
Francisco, where the type mild and soon after
ward to Sacramento, where all the conditions-heat,
filthy streets, exposure to the night-air bad food
and thousands of people without homes-developed
probably the worst form of cholera ever experienced
outside of the peninsula of Hindoostan. All through
the month of October the death rate from 60 to
as high as 1875 per day, in town that did not then
contain $1,000 souls, including the transients.
1t disappeared after the first frosts, and we'll
marked case occurred after the LIST of December.
Some cases were reported in the mining towns and
camps, but they all traced to Sacramento or
Marysville and though all the conditions of life in
the mines at that time favorable to the develop
ment of the disease there is to believe that
any of cholera originated at any mining town
camp as much as 500 feet above the level of the
This is the curious from the fact that overland
emigrants attacked by the pestilence in 1851
and 1852, in the saubrous regions of the Goose
Creek and Rocky Mountains, and from the other fact
that vrulent and chronic forms of diarrhea and dys
EMERY for several years after lS49 quito
throughout the mines.
From the first to the second coming of epidemic
cholera in the United States, there interval 10
seventeen years, and it was generally believed in
lS49 80 that there would he regular recurrence of it
every seventeen years. This fearful prediction has
not been verified 1t is now twenty nine years since
the second appearance of the epidemic. Its third
coming is believed be at hand but not by the
old European route. Nothing is better known about
this terrible plague than that it follows the lines OF
commerce most Travelled, regardless of climatic nau-
ences, always starting from the lowlands of India.
Our latest advices from China and Japan seriously
apprehensiYe of outbreak of cholera this year
Canton and Shaughae There have been number OF
sporadic cases. and the great famnes, both in China
and India. circumstances which probably justify
these fears 1t has too been observed by physician:
that cholera is always preceded by certain forms oil
disease, and these forms this year uncommonly
PREVALENT both in China and in this country If ii
becomes epidemic at Canton, Shanghae and Hong
kong it will reach this country, if at ALL by the China
steamers and it may reach us IN thirty days after i
first development there. Our only safeguard is in
thorough and perfect quarantine regulations. The
landing Of single infected person package will bC
enough to inoculate all the city with the poi
son. For whatever the doctors may say to the con
trary, we think nothing is clearly proved thar
that the cholera is contagious smallpox or the
ancient plague which has often visited the citic
| of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and which in 1865 deci
mated London. 1t is worthy of remark, touching
this ancient plague, that the doctors thousand year
ago pronounced it not contagon, but that it is
as carefully guarded against by quarantine reguhi
tions small pox, and therefore longer the dread
full scourge it used to be to the Western nations be
fore the application of quarantine laws. In view o
all the circumstances, it behoOves the authorities
this city to keep sharp eye the China steamer
and on the Chinese quarter.