, 1884-08-10
A MEDICAL PUZZLE.
Some of the Strange Features
Of Cholera
Which Elude the Investigations
Of Physicians.
Texas Furnishes Its Daily
Blood urdling Murder.
Consul Mason,a Renort.

WASHINGTON, August Frank h.
Mason, United States Consul at Marseilles.
in a dispatch to the State Department rel
alive to cholera in that place and TouloD,
says: 1T appears that Notwithstanding
all the progress in medical science and the
very perfect arrangements for collecting
and treating the stricken victims of the
scourge, more than two-thirds of those at
tackled have died, ever during the first
fortnight of the epidemic when all santa
ry conditions were most favorable. The
almost immediate transmission of the dis
ease from 1oulon to Marseilles, and the
enormous death rate of 20 per cent in the
earliest stage of the epidemic, seem to
prove that sanitary science and medical
skill have made but little substantial prog
ress in dealing with Asiatic cholera. A
second feature of the present epidemic is
the rigor and deadliness of its attack as
compared with that of the last great chol-
era Summer of 1865. The rapidity
and virulence of these attacks are attri-
buted in some measures to the intense,
damp, sitting heat which prevailed dur
ing most days since the Both of June.
There are physicians of judgment and ex-
perience who maintain hat desiccation is
the only effective destroyer ofthe choleraic
microbe on a large scale, and that dry, hot
weather, while it may be u~nfayorable for
those already attacked, is the most efec-
tive in staying the spread of the conta-
gion. Another noticeable feature of the
present visitation has been the simultan-
eous and sudden appearance of the
malady in all parts of the city of MarseL
les. Fugitives from here have died at
AK, Grenoble and other towns in south
ern France, but the epidemic has thus far
not been 6ndled there nor have anypersons
been attacked, except such as brought the
eontagion from this city or Toulon. In
view of the enormous emigration which
has occurred since the outbreak (three
weeks ago it was estimated by good au-
thority ut 100, 900 persons from Marseilles
and $4,000 from Toulon), and the distri-
button of this vast contingent throughout
France, Italy, Switzerland aud the
Netherlands, it is noteworthy and
encouraging that no authenticated
case of cholera has occurred among this
army of fugitives at any point north of
Grenoble. Although a great number of
Italian working people left the two
striker cities for Northern Italy during
the early days of the epidemic, the dis
ease has % apparently been carried with
them, or if it has, it is not yet developed.
Nothing in all the dispute concerning the
origin and cure of the disease had added
any effectiveness to the means hitherto
known for treating choleraic patients, and
the proportion of deaths to cases appears
to increase rather than diminish. A mo-
mentary CLEAN of hope was difused by
the announcement that patients had been
rescued from the collapse stage of the
malady at the hospital in Toulon, by the
inhalation of oxygen, but this encourage
ment has been clouded by the discovery
that the effect of this powerful stimulant
was but temporary and patients thus
treated finally died in the same ratio as
those treated by other methods"