Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-02
THE CHOLERA.

The arrival of a regular steamer from
China and Japan on Tuesday was chiefly
significant for the news it brought of the
alarming spread of the cholera in the
Orient. In Japan the pest has developed
remarkable virulence, and the death rate
is astounding. The official reports to
September 7th state that there have been
1880 cases, and nearly 10000 deaths in
Japan. In China the disease is spreading
with great speed, so rapidly, indeed, that
the living cannot, or are so frightened
that they do not bury the dead. There
are at one point 1900 corpses of victims Of
the plague piled up and rotting in the air.
From these statements we may well take
such alarm as will inspire us to renewed
precautions to prevent the ingress of the
disease, or in case of its arrival, to meet
it with the preparation that sanitary
science advises. With the frequent and
quick communication that exits between
this coast and the Orient, it need not sur
prise the people if the germs of the plague
are brought in. a rigid quarantine at San
Francisco may exclude them there, but
there are other points where there are no
preparations for fumigating ships that ar
rive, or for holding them in quarantine.
The disease may easily get into Puget
Sound, it may enter at San Diego, it may
secure foothold by being introduced at
some of the lesser coast ports.
The King of Hawaii appears to have
taken the right course. He has established
an out-of-harbor quarantine, and does not
permit vessels from infected ports to come
into his harbors at all, until they have
been visited by his health officers, fumi-
gated and the baggage of the people
on board laundriei. This is precisely
what should be done on this coast. No
ship from an infected port should be al
lowed to pass through the Golden Gate
until all possible precautions have been
taken to prevent the introduction of a sim
gle vital germ of the cholera. Spain
adopted that system, as also did Italy a
few years ago, and though cholera ragged
all around the Mediterranean, it was sue
cessfully excluded from the territory of the
two nations named.
What we should do in the hot valley Of
California is to remove all filth and ere.
mate it, fire being the one great specific
for disease breeding germs. We should
allow no filth to be buried in pits as is the
present custom, but all pits should be emp
tied and fumigated or otherwise treated
instead of being filed. No more garbage
should be dumped upon low lots and there
left to breed ills innumerable. Our main
sewers should be flushed very frequently,
and we should lift all drainage as
fast as it accumulates and pump it into the
river, closing the pestilential drainage
canal completely. All cesspools should be
thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and
all decaying vegetable and animal matter
gathered and burned.
All this is not nearly so difficult as may
at first appear. Suppose the cost say
$4,000, is distributed among all the peo-
pie, what does it amount to compared to
the insurance it will give US. On the
other hand, should cholera reach the State
and the hot valleys, ten, nay fifty millions
Of dollars would not cover the financial
loss, and decade would not restore to us
our prosperity and the confidence of the
world in the healthful character of our
climate.
The cholera may not reach us; it came
once, many years ago, and our climatic
conditions may not invite it now. But il
it does not come at all, the energy and
money we now put forth in sanitary pre-
paration will be we'll expended and
largely repay in many ways. If every
owner of house and lot will cleanse his
or her premises, empty filth pits and disin.
feet them, and if the city will require all
the removed matter to be rendered inocu,
Gus, the work will be done in large part
and the cost very evenly distributed The
result viii be to give US an improved
health standard, though that of Sacra
mento is now very high and extremely
gratifying. But that We are poisoning tn,
soil by our retention of filth in it, is unde
niable, and in all such cases not only tn
plague fastens upon the saturated soil an
makes it its home, but it breeds fever an
filth diseases and ills that are charged t
any but the true cause, fact of whic
every physician is fully aware