The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1884-11-21

March of the Cholera.
Chicago Tribune.
, The alarm which our cable dispatches
3 have reported to exist in London on &C
count of the steady progress of the
cholera over the southern part of Eu.
rope is a symptom of a vigilance that
: is now being exercised all over the
western civilized world. 1t is as well
settled now as anything can be that the
confident prediction of the great Lon
don doctor, Gull, when the cholera
first appeared in Egypt, that it would
die out there and not make its way
into Europe is nestified to be falsitied.
Although this is not the season for its
prosperity the plague creeps along.
The recent session at st. Louis of the
various state boards of health drew up
a very elaborate report on the practi-
cal work required for the prevention
of cholera in this country. DR.. Rauch,
the secretary of our Illinois board,
was one of the committee which draft
ed this report, and he was assisted by
members of the Michigan, Massachusetts
and Louisiana boards and the board of
the province of Ontario. This report
is to be given the widest publicity for
the guidance of individuals. A second
conference of state boards of health will
be held at Washington in December
next for the purpose of impressing on
congress the necessity of action on its
own account and in cooperation with
the Canadian authorities, who are anx-
ious to establish a sanitary reciprocity
with the American government. The
leading sanitarians of the country who
attended the session of the American
public health association, held at the
same time as the conference of the state
boards of health, were almost unani-
nous in the opinion that the Asiatic
cholera will reach this country next
spring.
The discouraging spirit of controversy
has infected the investigators who are
studying the phenomena of the pesti-
lence in Europe, and, what is worse
still, the race hatred between the
French and the German has added its
gall to a bitterness which was bad
enough without it; for, strange as it
may appear. there are no such quarrel
ers as scientific men. The French
physicians in the south of France refuse
W dCCtDb luC CO1CluolOAS W llt 0Cl-
man DIR. Koch, and their treatment of
the sick is kept absolutely %uninfiu-
enced by his researches, to the
loss probably of many lives.
An Englishman, Prof. Ray Lancaster,
has made a very Incorporate attack on
DR.. Koch in the columns of the Pail
Mall Gazette, and has even gone to the
length of asserting that Koch was sent
out by the German government to study
cholera simply to checkmate Pasteur,
and that he was pressed afterwards to
produce something definite, however
immature, in order to crafty the as
sumed Jealous desire of the German
authorities to outshine the French
scientist. No one who knows the calm
progress of Koch's career will find it
possible to believe anything of this sort.
The man who let slip the magnificent
opportunity offered by the international
Medical Congress in 1881 in London to
announce his discovery of the bacillus
of consumption, and keep silent be-
cause one Slight link in his evidence
was wanting, is not a man who would
proclaim immature results on the order
of a politician, even though that politi-
clan were Bismarck.
Koch's theory that the cholera is
caused by the Introduction into the body
of a, distinct germ or bacillus fits some
of the most familiar facts of the plague,
and it leads to conclusions which are of
practical value. Koch finds that this
cholera bacillus will not grow in an
acid medium. Hence, if it is received
into a healthy stomach it is digested by
the Tactic and hydrocholoric acids con-
tanned there, and is prevented from
reaching the intestines, where it does
its mischief. This explains the reason
why cholera is almost certain to select
as its victims those addicted to drunk
enness and gluttony, and persons who
are for the time suffering from the eff
fects of some imprudence in eating or
drinking, or from some such disturbing
cause as a cold. Any OF these will
cause the inner surface of the stomach
to be coated with a tough, tenacious
which prevents the gastric juice
rom getting at the contents of the stom-
ach, and the germ may thus easily :
slip by its natural enemy-the acids
If a healthy stomach-and gain lodg- {
nent in the intestines. Koelrs theory :
llso explains why people who are
lfraid of the cholera are, as is well
more likely than others to catch l
t. 1t is because fear arrests the secre- I
ions and the invading germ finds no {
lcid in its path. |
~ I
The engagement is announced of AL '
an Arthur, son of President Arthur, &
md Miss Katy Beach, of Washington.
r.. III -~olto -. D.~-~&4~ s