The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-07-19
CHOLERA.
The Early History of the
Dread Disease.
IT'S SPREAD AND DEVASTATION.
A Readable Paper on the Subject
Translated from the German,.by
James L. Jennings.

S The definition Cholera" is very oil
: and like almost the whole of the ter
anthology OF medicine, derived from tn
Greek. The word signifies trough,
! and originally may have been apple,
by the people to some disease before i
was finally adopted by physicians.
Another version connects it with tn
bile and Alexander Trallianus, VIII,
lived m the sixth century after Christ
derived it from the Greek word repre-
senting the thin intestines.
Already Hippocrates knew such /,
complaint and described its symptom.
as vomiting and diarrhea. The cases
of illness he describes gives a cleal
idea of their nature. Other authors Of
antiquity such as CELSIUS. Aretacus
Galen, Caclius-Aureleanus, Orebasius
Actius and Alexander Trallianus have
expressed themselves in similar man
ner, and in the medicinal definitions
(Galen, XIX, 42D it is said that cholera
is an acute disease, causing violent
vomiting and diarrhea, cramp in the
calves of the legs, GOODNESS in the ex-
tremities, feeble pulse and sometimes
entire disappearance of the pulse. The
principal causes assigned are intemper-
ate eating and drinking, the use of I'M
wholesome food. such as watermelons,
ETC., and it is also attributed to exces-
siye GOODNESS of the limbs. This disease
made its appearance more frequently
in summer time and attacked youth
more than adults and especially chill
dren.
Under cholera was. therefore, under
stood that complaint which is known in
our days as cholera nostras. In this
sense has the definition come down to
our days i'll literature from the middle
ages and has as such been universally
acknowledged.
Not until the year 1917, some Eng
lish physicians in India learned to know
a disease which showed similar symp-
toms as the cholera known in Europe
and which seemed to differ from the
latter only IN its violence. This disease
for centuries and had been named
'Mordeshin" by the natives, which the
French turned into Mort de CHEN"
Later discoveries showed that this com
plant had caused great devastation in
the eighteenth century and probably
before that time in India, and had, no
doubt, crossed the frontiers of India. |
Allusions to that affect were found in
Ayur-Veda, OF Susrata, but the respect
full illusions may just as well be made
in connection with other diseases. On |
the other hand, it appears that the con-
tagion which the traveller, Sommerat, !
reports as having ragged during 1859 |
in the vacinity of Ponddicherey and on
the coast of Koromandel may be at
tributed to IA cholera epidemic. Also.
some years after it appeared here and
here, causing great devastations.
The attention OF state authorities and
earned physicians was, however, drawn
o this disease only through DR.. FYtler,
Who IN August, 1877, while at Fessora
where he practiced hi science, observed
number of cases of illness which he
It first attributed to poisoning until the
apld increase of the disease convinced
him to the contrary.
The cholera is said to have ravaged
With such violence in Fessora, during
wo months, that ten thousand persons /
lied IN consequence thereof.
No less violent did it make its appear
nee IN the next years in India, and
made also its appearance in China,
apan, Ceylon and Sunda Islands: the
African coast, Arabia, Syria, Persia. /
Difiis and Astrachan and also to the
cry frontiers of Europe.
The severe winter OF 1923 4stayed its ,
'rogress and for some years the disease
ppeared but in isolated cases. But in
S2a 1t ragged again with violence in {
ndia and two years later it had reached
'renburg. In 1880 it spread over vast /
ortlon OF European Russia, causing f
reat devastation simultaneously in d
iesopotamia, Arabia and Egypt. In /
ne following yearit appeared in Poland |
no mostly among the Russian troops s
inch were sent to quell the Polish in v
lrrectl0n. The death of fieldmarshal. a
rince Diebitsch, who died with this \
lsease in Warsaw, on the 10th of June
81, caused general attention. Austria Y
nd Prussia, which were threatened O
ltil cholera. sought in vain to protect q
lemselves from it through measures q
isolation. At the beginning of the ii
ear 1881, it had already appeared in n
ustrian Poland and Hungary and also n
the cas- era provinces OF the RUSSIAN II
onarchv. From here it soon spread N
yer the northern and central part of q
ermany and over the different coun- Fl
les OF the crown OF Hapsburg. n
Only southeastern Germany and the II
ountainoGs regions of Syria. Cor II
thia. Tiroi and Illiria renamed almost ~
holly saved therefrom. Soon after the
ntagion made its appearance in Eng T
nd and France, and in March, 1892 It a;
ged SO violently in Paris, that from pr
e ninety-eight persons who found adj pt
lssion in the Hotel Dieu, only two of
uld be saved. Whoever knew the th
arful sanitary condition of that hospi- p
which has since been replaced by a WI
ouel building, would, of course, not wi
1nder at such mortality. WI
W nile the contagion made its way into ar
'iglum, Holland and Scandinavia, it
30 crossed the Atlantic and entered all
nerica. The disease was taken to oil
nerIca Through an Irish emigrant as
ssel which left Dublin in April. 1882, lit
winch place it was raging. During so
voyage forty-two persons died from its
olerS. In June, 1882, the vessel landed tn
ar quebec, and few DAYS afterwards co
cholera appeared in those parts. and in,
Jan soon to spread rapidly over the Ell
'atest part OF North America and we
ched as . in 1895, the southern half co
that continent. "
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