Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-07-27

The continued increase of mortality from
cholera in Egypt is causing widespread
alarm-and with good reason. Though the
quarantine regulations are rigidly enforced in
the Mediterranean ports, and the British gov
eminent is making strenuous oxertions to re-
tard the progress of the pestilence, there is
reason to fear that before the year expires
many countries in Europe, and quite likely
the United States as well, will suffer from
| the ravages of the most malignant of Asatic
| plaques.
Although the returns from Cairo differ
widely, they clearly show that the epidemic
is one of the most destructive in the history
Of the disease. Four hundred and twenty
seven deaths in twenty-tour hours of one NAL
ady in a city one-fourth the size of New York
is a record which ought to quicken the ener-
GIGS of tho government of the country to
measures much moro heroic than have yet
been adopted. And with the reports of the
progress of pestilence in Egypt comes an in
timation that it may become epidemic in
British India in the form of an announce
ment that thirty-soyen cases have occurred in
Bombay.
The records of previous yistations of
cholera show that whenever Egypt has been
attacked by the disease England and the Con.
tinent have not escaped. The lower Nile ba.
sin, however, has often become infected from
Europe. In 1929 the disease was carried
from Persia across the Caspian into Russia,
and was gradually communicated to Germany,
Austria and Hungary. 1t was not until S32
that it prevailed extensively in England,
France and Spain aud it was in that year
that it appeared in Egypt, having been car
ried thither from Germany by way of Con-
stantinople and Syria. Tho same route was
followed in the next terrible visitation. The
disease reached Astrakhan from Persia dur
ing the summer of 1917 and spread rapidly
in Southern Russia, following the Black Sea
to Odessa and Constantinople, passing up the
Danube into Germany, and being carried
from Holland to England about the time of
its ravages in Egypt. During these two
cholera periods the disease was not directly
communicated from Alexandria to the Euro.
pean continent In 1865, however, the out
break in Egypt preceded the ravages on the
Continent, cholera being carried to Mar
ports by Mediterranean steamers In that
year the disease was Arabian rather than In.
dian in its origin, and Alexandria offered the
shortest line of communication with Europe.
The other visitations were to be ascribed to
Indian cholera communicated to Russia
through Persia. The present outbreak, like
that of 1865, is apparently Arabian in origin.
The United States will share in any dan
gers of infection to which Europe may be
exposed. In 1882 cholera was carried by
emigrant ships from Ireland to Quebec and
thence along the st. Lawrence and through
Ontario to Detroit. United States troops
that were transported by vessels on which
some of these emigrants had been sick were
attacked by the disease, and the infection
was carried along the chain of military posts
as far as the Mississippi. New Orleans was
subsequently visited and the disease ex-
hausted itself in the surrounding country
In lSiS the pestilence was imported in ships
arriving at New Orleans from Havre, and was
communicated rapidly to st. Louis, Cincin-
natl and Buffalo, and subsequently carried
across the plains to San Francisco. In 1866
New York was the distributing point from
the emigrant ships; but although outbreaks
of the disease occurred at long distances
from the seaboard, the area of infection was
comparatively narrow. If Europe suffers
this year from the pestience, its ultimate APP
pearance in the United States may be accept
ed as foregone conclusion. Quarantine reg
ulations cannot be SO thorough as to exclude
the disease when the tide of immigration is
setting in so strongly as it is at present. San
itary SCIENCE however, has made such marked
progress in American cities since the terrible
visitation of cholera in 1919 that the prospect
of the onward course of the disease across
the Atlantic ought not to cause widespread
apprehension.