Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1884-08-21
ALVIN f.. CROCKER.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
holera Not stopped by QUARANTINE
Nor CordOns.
". Hasold ]

L
New York Herald.
In reply to an inquiry. Miss Florence
| Nightingale, the Crimean heroine, kindly
| sends to The New Herald:
Sir: | beg to reply to your note ask
ing for practical advice in view of the
rapid spread of cholera" That our
whole experience in India, where cholera
is never wholly absent, tends to prove
nay, actually does prove-that cholera
is not communicable from person to
person. That the disease cannot be
ascribed to somebody else" that is,
that the sick do not manufacture a
special poison" which causes the
disease That cholera is a local disease
an epidemic affecting localities, and
there depending on pollution of earth,
air. and water and buildings.
That the isolation of the sick can not
stop the disease. nor quarantine, nor cor
dons. nor the like These, indeed, may
tend fatally to aggravate the disease, di-
rectly and indirectly, by turning away
our attention from the only measures
which can stop it. That the only pre-
yentive is to put the earth, air, and
water, and buildings into healthy state
by scavenging. Gmewashing, and every
kind of scavenger work, and, if cholera
does comes, to move the people from the
places where the disease has broken out
and then to cleanse.
Persons about cholera patients do not
catch the disease from the sick any
more than cases of poisoning infect
others. If a number of persons have
been poisoned, say by arsenic put by
have each swallowed the arsenic 1t is
not because they have taken lit, the
mysterious influence" of one another.
In looking sadly at Egypt-Egypt,
where cholera did not begin anywhere
along the route from India to Europe,
but at Damietta, where no ship and no
passenger ever stops, and where the
dreadful insanitary condition of the
place fully accounts for any outbreak OF
cholera-in sorrowfully looking at Egypt
and at Europe now, one might almost
say that it is this doctrine of a special
poison emanating from the sick, and
which it is thought can be carried in a
package that has (mentally) poisoned"
us. People will soon believe that you
can take cholera by taking railway
ticket. They speak as if the only reason
against enforcing quarantine were, not
that it is an impossibility and an alb
surdity to stop disease in this way, but
tIlftt ~ 40 iiIpcSSitfIt " SuloTSc dudTdil=
tine. IF only we could" they say, 'all
would be WE'LL
Vigorously enforce sanitary meas
ures, but with judgment-e. g., scav-
enge, scavenge, seavenge; wash, cleanse
and limewash; remove all putrid humaL
refuse from privies and cesspits and
cesspools and dustbins; look to stables
and cowsheds and pigsties; look to COM
mon lodging houses and crowded places;
dirty houses and yards. Set your
house in order" in all ways sanitary and
hygienic, according to the conditions of
the place, and .'all will be WELL"
The real danger to be feared is IN
blaming somebody else and not our own
selves for such an epidemic visitation
As matter of fact, if the disease at
tacks our neighbors we ourselves are al
ready liable to it. To trust for protec-
ton to stopping intercourse would be
just as rational as to try to sweep back
an incoming flood instead of getting out
of its way.
With the most earnest wish that
America, as well as England, may ''set
her house in order and so defy chol-
era and turn its appearance elsewhere
into blessing, pray, believe me, ever
her and your faithful servant.