The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1882-10-12
The Cholera at Manila.

The foreign papers by the last mail
contain very complete details of the
sudden visitation of cholera in the
Philippine Islands, which is causing
much alarm in Europe, especially in
Spain, to whose jurisdiction the islands
belong Owing to loose quarantine
regulations the disease was first brought
to the Sooloo Islands by a steamer. and
rapidly spread among the natives all
over the islands in the SOOlOo Arehipel-
ago There are 120 of the SoOloo Islands
alone, and as they have an active trade
with China and Japan, with little or
no quarantine regulation, the Chinese
vessels carried the disease to Manila
and Luzon, Of the Philippine group of
islands, still further north. At these
points it at once commenced to rage
with terrible violence. The average
number of deaths in Manila alone, the
Capital of the Philippines, is about $50
a day. From the 18th to the goth of
August 1850 persons died in Manila
alone. 1t is difficult to get complete
returns, as the Indians are so super
stitious that they make no resistance to
the disease, but it is known that nearly
20, 600 victims have persisted in the
archipelago, which is exclusive of those
who have died in the Sooloo Islands,
amounting to several thousand more.
From the Philippine Islands the disease
has been carried to Japan, where it has
commenced to spread rapidly. Twen-
ty-five cases were reported daily when
the last mail left Yokohama, and all
religious festivals and theatrical eX-
hibitiOns have been discontinued In
addition to this sufficiently alarming
news, it is now announced that the
cholera has broken out among the
Moslem pilgrims, who were fearfully
filthy, returning from Mecca to the
Mediterranean States on the African
coast, and cholera patient was found
on board a pilgrim-ship from Bombay
entering the Suez Canal.
The canal is the new gateway of the
cholera on its march toward Europe.
The Director of the Medical Department
of the Russian Government writes:
"Since the opening of the Suez Canal
Europe has been placed in such close
and almost immediate relations with In
dia, the birthplace of cholera, that al
most all the other routes by which it has
hitherto penetrated into Europe from
that country have lost their exclusive
importance" To hold this gateway
closed against the admission of this
most unwelcome visitor, Europe is max
!
MERGE with her Indian colonies passes
through the canal, likewise her mail
and military service. Her steamers
and men-of-war enter it every week,
and the Government has ordered all
Spanish vessels leaving the infected
colonies to be subjected to the most rig
orOus quarantine, and for that purpose
has established large lazarettos in the
Balearic Islands. These may be con-
sidered the finest line of intrenchments
against the enemy. The citadel is at
the southern mouth of the Suez Canal,
where an International Sanitary Com
mission, representing fourteen Powers,
the United States among the number,
has control. The barrier was estab-
lished year ago, and the commission
boasts that it kept the cholera out of
Europe in 1873, 1877 and 1881. The
cent. of the commerce pass
ing through the canal. have
complained of the vigorous interference
of the commission with vessels, but, as
the Pati-lfaU Gazette says, 1.-the MAORI
ty of the Sanitary Commission look at
their duties with a strictly professional
/ eye They are appointed to keep out
cholera. 1t is their rdiSOH d'eiTe to inn
/ pose quarantine regulations, and they
/ lose no opportunity of doing so. The
brave Horatius did not hold the bridge
more tenaciously IN the old days of
| Rome than the Sanitary Commission
| hold the Cholera Gate of Europe against
the Asiatic INVADER This is cheering
news, since next year is the appointed
time for its temperance in Europe
and the time when cholera will be at
its maximum in the world. BY numer-
Gus citations of dates. a member of the
Royal Academy of Sciences in England
has shown that tho maximum of cholera
! occurs every seventeen ears, which will
/ locate its next occurrence in 1888. As
a curious coincidence, also, it is noted
that the present summer in the cholera
! localities, as well as in Southern Europe
and Northern Africa, has all the char
acteristics of past summers immediate
/ " preceding cholera seasons. So far as
the United States is concerned, there is
a double danger. Vigilance at the Eu-
ropean gateway may save US from at
tack from that quarter. but we have a
gateway of our own on the Paciiir coast
where the epidemic may enter from the
Asiatie coast unless great vigilance is
exercia ed. - Chicago Tribune.