The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-12-12
THE DREADED SC0URGE.
WILL AsIATIC CHoLERA APPEAR
IN AMERICA IN 1882
Prospects of Its Appcarancc-I1ow
the Epidcniics OF 1882, 1915 and
1866 Spread TO this Country.

A reporter of the New York Ecening |
Post, who called upon several we'll |
known medical authorities in order to
obtain their views as to the likelihood |
of cholera making its appearance in this
country next year, and also as to the |
scientific opinion concerning the various
theories of cholera recently put forward
by Koch, Pasteur, and Others, found,
that whereas there was but little doubt |
that cholera might be expected here next
spring, there is great diversity of opinion
concerning the values of the theories and !
observations recorded by recent investi- !
gators.
AS to the probability of the cholera
coming here next year, says the ECenng
Post, the weight of evidence is in favor
of the plaques arrival, and it seems to
be we'll established that the more rapid
and frequent is the communication be-
tween countries, the more certain the
spread of the plague. DR.. Max Won Pet
tenkofer, of Munich, one of the leading
authorities upon cholera, in a recent
series of papers translated for the Lon
don Lancet, says:
The question why cholera remained a
thousand years in India before it first
began to migrate is one of great in
tcrest, but one which cannot be satisfac
torily answered. The principal consid-
Grafton appears to me to be the event
happened at the time when inter-commu-
nication in all directions, both by water
and land, had become more rapid. The
first steamship appeared in the Indian
waters at the beginning of the second
decade of the present century. By land
also intercourse was greatly accelerated.
The Russians possibly took cholera from
India, Arabia, Afghanistan, or Persia,
through couriers and stage coaches. 1t
soon became clear that cholera, the spe-
chitic cholera germ was in some way or
other propagated along the paths of
human intercourse, and it also became
evident that unless the germs found
suitable soil within a certain time they
did not flourish. Observers soon dis
covered that cholera was more prone to
appear in certain regions and to affect
certain localities, while it Stunned other
districts; and again, that other regions
were only visited at intervals of many
years. 1t is also fact that Asiatic
cholera never yet appeared at a place
which had not previously been in com
munication with a region where cholera
from an infested locality never yet passed
on to another place if the journey lasted
q certain time without interruption. The
large intercourse between India and Eu-
rope, more particularly England by
means of ships which sailed re I'd the
Cape of Good Hope had never succeeded
in carrying cholera from India to
England; it was only by the over
IL. i
England. Neither had the Cape or
Australia ever been visited by cholera
1t is possible that in the future the COM
munication may be so much accelerated
that cholera may get to these countries
In much the same way South America
escaped during the epidemic QS30-1840)
in Europe and North America. 1t was
supposed that in South America yellow
fever was enough to prevent cholera,
until suddenly, in 1854, after service
of fast sailing vessels between Philadel-
phia and Rio de Janeiro had been estab-
lished, the chief town in the BraAils eX-
perenced Il terrible epidemic of cholera.
When cholera passes overland it dies out
unless it find a suitable soil within GER
tain time. Rainless deserts are unfavor-
able to cholera. Caravans which pass
from infected localities through deserts
have never spread the disease, provided
the journey in the desert lasted at least
twenty days"
AS the frequency and rapidity of inter-
national communication IS constantly in
creasing, so appears to be the danger of
cholera. When the disease has appeared
in the old world in epidemic form, it
has never failed to spread to the new
world. The first appearance of the
plague in Europe was in 1880. 1t came
from India by way of Persia and Russia
, From Moscow it was distributed all over
, northern and western Russia, especially
, to Riga on the Baltic, from which port
sixty or seventy English coal vessels sailed
in haste, carrying the disease to Sunder-
land and Newcastle. All this time the
, Polish revolution of 1930-1S3l was going
on, and Russian troops carried the dis
ease to Warsaw, whence it spread TO
Posen, Berlin, Hamburg, and
over to London, In the
spring of 1882 some Irish emigrant
> ships carried it to Quebec. and from
there up the ST. Lawrence and across
the lakes to Detroit, where it met the
United States troops going to the Black
, Hawk war. In a short time the whole
p force of troops sent by way of the lakes
was rendered incapable of taking the
field; one company which had been mus
tered and inspected fourteen days before
without a man on tine sick list, had
dropped forty-seven men out of seventy
! eight in that short time; and one rcgi-
ment lost over 200 men in week. II
was generally believed that the infection
was contracted on steamboats, which had
previously transported emigrants from
Montreal to Quebec. The disease wa:
rapidly distributed to all the posts and
forts in the West especially to Fort
+ Dearborn at Chicago. 1t was carried
down the Mississippi to New Orleans il
r the autumn of 1882, and 5000 person.
out of population of SIS, 600 died.
The next outbreak of the cholcri
plague reached southern Russia in July