The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-07-11

MHA
weeks. This il customary, and mcst unjust
liable, as it allows the pestilence to gain head
way "a TaFioTs Pi=SSs sess~e asaner& ane
elnclent measures can be taken to stamp i
out
They are burning great fires in the streets
IN order to purify the air and amuse the pub
nc, The disease does not float about in the air
but comes from microscopic germs which
breed immensely in the bowels Of those who
swoHow them with their food and drinking wa.
ter, They are cast out in great numbers with
the discharges from the bowels and kidneys,
and the soiled bed and body clothes of cholera
patients abound with very live and active ones.
These germs always thrive best in alkaline
nulds, where putrefaction and decomposition
are going on and where there is warmth. The
r~iee-water discharges of cholera are always
alkaline and more usually prone to decomposi-
tion All the acids are good disinfectants, es-
peclally the sulphlric, and aromatic suiphuric
ACID, Or elixir yitriol, is one Of the best cura-
tive remedies.
Unfortunately, it was supposed that the sui
phuric acid in sulphate Of iron, or copperas,
would prove sufficient to kin these germs,
but 1t has signally and repeatedly failed. The
acid Is neutralized by the iron. 1t was select
ed because il was safe to handle by ignorant
people, far more so than sulpheric acid or oil
or vltrloL Carbolic acid, so called, was sup
posed to be an acid, but it is not. and is also
unreliable. Turpentine lisa splendid disinfec-
tant, but the danger Of fro in its use by care
less peoples too great for its general recon-
mendation. Corrosive sublimate, OK bedbug
poison, is thoroughly reliable as a germ killer,
and viii probably be used largely by physi-
clans.
1t has not generally been realized that
cholera germs are present in the urine as
well as in the discharges from the bowels,
and that has usually not been disinfected
Cholera patients commonly have more or less
0IArrlapa for aQVnral Hax,a hafora fhau hroal II
Town and SHOW unmistakabie signs OF the
disease. In the meantime they are goiG,s to
and fro in various places, injecting every
water closet and urinal they make a con-
y%enience of and every wayside fence or lot
they may be compelled to soil. The first
question which should be put to cholera pa
tents, soon as they have been prescribed for
and made comfortable, Is to find out every
place they have visited and used
from the first moment they be-
came sick. Every one of these places
should be promptly disinfected by
health officers: Unless this precaution is TAX
en- cholera will crop up in the most varied
and unexpected places. 1t will seem to have
been dropped from the heavens, and to have
been blown about by the winds, instead of hay-
ing effectuslly deposited by persons already
sick with it. Cholera generally crops out at
first in various and distant parts of a town,
where no cholera patient has been supposed to
have come. 1t seems to arise spontaneously.
The cases seem TO have no direct connection
with each other, and the whole is a great puz-
zle to simple-Rainded people. 1t is especially
difficult to track down the first cases, which
may nothave been fatal ones. Importation is
denied, and only TO often successfully concealed.
There Is no doubt that cholera was imported
into Egypt from India last year, and that the
English authorities did not hunt it down skill
fully. The same thing happened in New Or
leans in 1871.