Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-08-11
Cholera and Yellow Fever.

II cholera and yellow fever are of any
utility whatever to mankind it must
consist in the fact that they impart an
instant interest in the sanitary precau-
tions and welfare of distant peoples.
to whose conditions we would otherwise
be supremacy Indifferent. A hundred
deaths q day from Asiatic cholera at
Damietta makes Egypt again the pivotal
point of interest to the whole world.
The arrival at Havre and quarantining
oftwo steamers from Bombay, via Suez,
having each a case Of cholera on board,
intensifies this interest. Nor is it di-
minished or allayedby the simultaneous
quarantining of a vessel at Ship Island,
near New Orleans, having on board a
case of yellow fever.
While some writer's have attributed
the origin of the virus which produces
cholera to miasmatic causes operating
in India, Arabia and Egypt, others are
equally strenuous in attributing it to the
exposure of the ofal and the bodies Of
the unburied dead to the influence of a
torrid sun, in connection with the great
religious pilgrimage to Benares, the
sacred city of the Hindoos, and to Mecca,
the sacred city of the Mohammedans.
Others have attributed the special out
breaks OF che malignant type of cholera
IN India in 1871 and 1841 to the inn
mense numbers of unburied dead, which
the periodical famines in that country
under British rule have caused, to re-
main unburied upon the surface. At
present no information has been re-
ceived of cholera in India, the disease
having apparently originated in Egypt.
Some discussion was had in Parlia-
ment at the close of the late Egyptian
war as to whether there had been a
proper burial of the dead Egyptians.
The Secretary for War stated in effect
that while the Egyptians had not re-
manned to bury their dead, the English
had buried both their own and the Egyp-
tan dead. In view of the fact, however,
that charges were made that the Egyp-
tan combatants had purposely filled up
the canal with the bodies of mules, men
and horses, and that burial among the
shifting sands of the desert is likely to
be only temporary affair, the suspi-
cion will be felt that if the origin of the
present outbreak of cholera is Egyptian
it will be found to be connected with the
exposure to the present hot summer
SUI of the bodies of men and animals
left half buried after the collapse of the
Egyptian emeute. Burying in the air
is one of the native Indian customs
prevailing on the banks of the Amazon
andin the neighborhood Of the West
Indies, which are the cradle of yellow
fever. Among civilized races the
custom has nc considerable prevalence
except at New Orleans. and possibly at
points higher up on the Mississippi,
where the lowness of the ground, and
the fact that graves of ordinary depth
fill with water, is made a reason for
building tombs or vaults of brick for
burial entirely above ground. This
method simply diffuses the decompos-
ing body through the atmosphere at a
slower rate, but without at all l~essening
the quantity of the deleterious matter
which the air must receive. Numerous
and well-verified instances of the out
break of plaques through the removal
or exposure Of decaying human bodies
prove that the putrefaction of THE
human bodMis a most malignant type,
and that its tendency to originate
epidemic disease of several virulent
types, including the black plague OF
London, cholera, and yellow fever, is
most pronounced. There can be very
little doubt that the burial system prac-
tised at New Orleans has much to do
with the prevalence of yellow fever in
that city, though other local may
concur.
Its a prevalent defect among prac.
teal medical investigators that they
occupy themselves very little with
causes of disease, being content with
remedial measures. It is extremely
doubtful whether any scientific theory
of remedial measures can be adopted
while the ultimate causes of the disease
remain unknown Chicago Inter Ocean.