The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1884-08-07
SCOURGE-S
Ravages Of the Cholera in tho Cities Of
France Described by an Eye
Witness.
Filth and Restilence Stalking Hand n
Hand Through Marseilles and
TOulOn.

narrative Of scenes and incidents of the
cholera district by an eyewitness. It says:
Passing along the narrow and squalid Rue
Caisserie, over one-half the shops were
seen to be closed at every crossing. From
q tenement region on the hill above
stream Of fetid water flowed across the
descent on the other side through dari
lanes crowded with towering rookeries
swarming below with idle men and children
playing in the filthy cutters, the women
meanwhile smashing the water about
with their brooms, under the evident i'm
preston that they were cleaning something.
Each glimpse of any one Of these streets is
enough to turn the stomach Of any healthy
man. The smell through all this quarter,
in which during space Of twenty minutes
we met three laden hearses, was bad enough,
but the smell was indescribably worse when
We had driven across town to two Of the most
afflicted quarters of all Marseilles-Ca-
pelette and the adjoining quarter.
In order to reach them we crossed
the old ship canal, which was filled
to the brim with reeking water
and had its surface thickly covered with
garbage and refuse of decidedly miscel-
laneous and revolving kind. Finally we got
thoroughfare without shade-tree. Its gut
tiers ran rivulets Of drab- colored water which
had overflown from the canal where it was
damned now and then by heaps of rotting
vegetables or worse substances, including
dead cats and dogs. Four ont of every five
houses were found closed. Those which re-
NAMED open were mainly estaminets, where,
under dirty awnings and on dirty sidewalks,
men and women sat drinking, or were already
reduced to stupor by previous drink
ing, and junk-shops in which filthy
people were sorting rotten rags in IN
unspeakably vile atmosphere. fostering
filth was around them, and tropical sun
beat fercely down upon the scene, binding
the eyes as its rays were reflected from the
White road, across which in the Quarter
Capelette courses q stream the size OF
main sewer in New York, winding its way
uncovered among the houses on its jour-
ney to the sea. The stream was laden with
the sewage Of the vilest of the Marseilles
quarters-Capelette and the adjoining
which have furnished much over
one half of the deaths that
have occurred ut Marseilles, and it
is m interesting fact that the largest pro-
portion Of them were Italians. The wharfs
oil along the water front we're found to be
crowded with quarantine shipping most
Italian and French, and picturesque sights
were the Mediterranean sailors, among
whom were many negroes, lying about in
the shade
At the beginning nineteen-twentieths Of
the patients received at the Pharo failed to
recover. For the last fortnight matters
have SO far improved that only thirds
of those received have died. This excessive
mortality at first was largely due to
the fact that most cases when received
developed into hopeless condition.
The highest number that have
been in the hospital at any one time is Ito,
and the largest number received in any one
day is thirty-seyen. There are two chief
doctors. The treatment both here and at
ToNlon, in the first stages, is twenty drops
Of laudanum with three grains of ether,
with ice in the mouth to stop the vomiting.
In the second stages the patients become
very cold. From ten to fifteen grammes OF
acetate of ammonia, the same quantity Of
alcohol, and two injections OF morphia are
given daily. If the patient can not breathe,
artificial respiration Of oxygen is pro-
duced and the limbs are rubbed with
turpentine. The third stage is the
coffin. Delay in placing the bodies
in the collins is made necessary by
the fact that violent post-mortem
action of the limbs takes place, caused by a
terrible reaction after death, in which the
temperature rises from extreme cold at dis
solution to 100 after it.
OF many pathetic sights the most painful
that saw occurred in the female ward,
where one room was mostly occupied by
children. A nun held in her arms by an
open window dying babe 10 months old.
Its three sisters lthe oldest being only 10
vaarcl Low haIc rnor In thar 40 rn,,<c
both Of whom died the same day, and there
was small hope for any of the remaining
children save the oldest. A dozen children
in all were to be seen here, some Of them
in state of recovery.
Late at night I drove with my courier
outside the city to the Cemetery st. Pisrre
to see the burial of the three patients whom
had observed in the Pharo hospital in the
afternoon. After brief burial service,
intoned by pale young priest who looked
badly scared. three boxes were hurriedly
lowered into a trench eight feet deep by
twenty feet long, and goodly quantity OF
lime was shoveled on top. 1t was CHASTITY
trench and there was plenty of room for
more collins. 1t was a weird and sadden-
ing sight. There stood the tall white
houses. The dead still wore their tawdry
trinkets, and the whole was lighted up as
in picture by Rembrandt by the ftful
glare Of three lanterns. Those gaping
thousands. A concierge showed me
burial permit. Across the face Of the docu-
ment was written: "Cholera-urgent," and
there was requisition for some disinfect-
ant.
The same correspondent visited Toulon,
and thus depicts what he Witnessed: IL in
a sanitary sense the condition OF Marseilles
was frightful, that of Toulon struck me as
simply murderous. Although Toulon has
background of mountains, the city itself
is situated on a fat plain. four feet only
above the level of tideless sea. The con-
sequences arising from imperfect drainage,
with a natural want of slope, are that
the sewers have only fall Of eighteen
inches; SO, with sluggish movement, the
filth of the town drops into an almost stag
nant sea. What is worse is that at tho
points where these drains flow they are only
covered with plank, and the filth, disgusting
to the nose, impresses itself on the eyes.
You not only then smell but you see the pub
lie garbage Of Toulon. just fancy people
living in this city Of quite $4,000 inhab-
itants without the faintest glimmer Of COM
mon sense in regard to common hygiene!
Toulon must be inhabited by people who
uaeTiy ibuoIe every pIecdutlOu winch Qealt0
requires. Their habits both in their houses
and i'll the public streets are indescribably
filthy.
The plain English of it is about this:
That it is impossible for people who live on
fruit, who drink all kinds Of poor fluids,
who sleepin dirt and nastiness, who breathe
an air polluted by the sewage Of the town
itself, and rendered donbly poisonous by
excreta left by the training ships, to escape
cholera.
The marvel is that this disease did not
find its birth here years before. Toulon
pox, when it broke out in Toulon, was
always Of a malignant type, and more diff
cult to stamp out than elsewhere. The
natural death rate was invariably high, and
likely to be increased at any time by abb