The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-07-12
THE PEsIILENTIAL NAyE!

AS the wave of ptStilence tiiab he
gan in Asia moves westward, man
jfest anxiety spreads before it. Eu-
rope is alarmed, and well it may he
Tor the unwelcome ASiatic visitor baS
often decimated its cities and its
thickly populated districts. The pes
tilential scourge has, time and again,
swept over the American continent
and it always travels as it now does:
and desolation is always in its track.
1t is at this time playing wild havoc
in Egypt, and any day it may present
itself on the shores of the
Bosphorus. Damieta. where the
cholera is at this time raging
with great fatality, lies near the
coast on the east branch of the Nile
about quarter of the distance from,
Port Said to Alexandria by sea. Man
surah, where additional cases are re-
ported, lies short distance up the
Damieta branch; and Rosetta and
Port Said, where the disease is also
said to have broken out, are on the
coast to the west and east. Damieta
itself, which is the center of conta-
gion, is separated from Port Said only
by the shallow salt mere, Lake Men
Zaleh, through which NJ. de Lesseps
followed out his great ditch. The
scourge has appeared in a quarter
where it is directly communicable to
all southern Europe and to England.
But the movement of the disease. as
stated, creates alarm throughout
Europe, and this is naturally shared
in by people on this side the Atlantic.
Asiatic cholera, it is said, is a disease
as old as Hippocrates and Galen, and
yet it battles medical skill. For
a century and quarter its periodical
movement has been attributed to the
dense masses of population gathered
together every twelfth year at the
great Hindoo festivals. From the
Shrines in the interior, to which pill
grimages are made, the disease has
been carried to the coast at Bombay
Dr. Calcutta, and thence by ship to
Ceylon, Mauritius and China, or
along the caravan roads to the Per-
,ian Gulf, the Caspian and the Medi-
-erranean. and even across CentrM
Asia into European Russia. The
most terrible visitations of this
plague which hav,- occurred since
-756 have followed this periodical
aw. The disease broke out in India
n 1917 and ran its course in four
ears. In 1929 cholera reached Oren-
)urg, spread to Poland and eastern |
europe, and was carried by emigrant
hips to America in 1882. In 1871
here was fresh outbreak in Bengal,
ne effects of which were traced year
liter year in one country
,fter another until the pestilence
gain spent its force in America. In
S65 the infection was communicated
more rapidly, steamships carrying it
o Marseilles and England, and finally
o New York. The next visitation
vas due under this periodical law in
S77, and in December of that year
here was great mortality from the
iSease in Jeddah, Mecca and through
ut Arabia, and sporadic cases were
eported in land caravans at long dis
ances from India. This Was the year
f the RussO-Turkish war, and if the
isease had broken out in Asia Minor
r the Balkans its ravages would have
een terrible. Its progress was stayed
q 1878, and it did not reach the Medi-
ports. 1t is not easy to de-
ermine whether the present appear
nee of cholera in Egypt is directly
onnected with the outbreak five
ears ago in Arabia, or is to be attrib-
ted to more recent infection from In
la. Whatever may be its marching
ace. and wherever may have been its
riginal point of departure, it is Wis
or whose approach has not ceased
o be an awful warning. In
Is travels, heretofore, it has
listed all portions of the United
tates, and has several times ravaged
istricts in Texas. A strange feature
f its existence in this country is that
has been known to travel great dis
ances in the air, bouncing down upon
istricts thousand miles or more
rom It's last resting place. 1t has
cen known in Austin, but never be-
anne epidemic here. What effect our
hanged water supply system might
ave on its presence is not known;
there would not be the same
as heretofore. La the south
IN portion of Travis county it has
cen k own to be epidemic and dread
ully fatal. On the Brazos river and
4 San Antonio it has fed heartily on
uman life.