The morning call., 1892-09-08
INTERNATIONAL QUARANTINE.

However the pending battle between the
cholera and the quarantine doctors may
terminate it is clear that the business of
barrieading against pestilenee must be revo-
lutionjzed. 1t viii never do to leave it at
loose ends as It is at present Under the
existing system quarantine regulations are
enforced al eight or ten seaports under
State laws which vary as widely as the State
laws OF marriagelaud divorce, The health
officer Of New York declines to accept the
Presidents plan for uniform twenty day
quarantine, and proposes to detain immi-
grants from infected ports for such periods
as be deems necessary. The health officer
al Detroit proposes TO subject European
Immigrants via Canada to a uniform twenty
four days quarantine. Meanwhile a tramp
steamer landg passengers on the coast Of
New Jersey. where there is no quarantine,
and goes on sending boats through the surf
until stopped by a member of the life
saving service. At San Francisco there is
no detention of passenger steamers for pur-
poses Of quarantine, there beng no need Of
such precautions. tits evident that quar-
antine varying so widely in its rules woIld
amount to no quarantine at all If a serious
danger arose Of the spread OF an epidemic.
be no provision under which Congress could
assume authority 10 legislate for the public
health. But neither is there any provision
which would stand IN the way Of an inter-
national treaty looking to the prevention Of
the spread of an epidemic. Exlgencies
which have arisen since the last amend
ments 10 the constitution were framed
have imposed on the Government duties
which. though not foreseen at that time. are
none. the less imperative. If it APP
pears that the preservation of the
public health requires JOINT action
by The United States and foreign powers.
it clearly deyolyes on the Government to
take such action, because the States can
not deal with foreign powers, and because
the duty OF the Government to do It's best to
check the spread Of the pestilence is self
evident. 1t would be mere casuistry to con-
tend that because there is no provision in
the constitution regarding quarantine,
therefore the United States is debarred
from concluding a convention with Euro
pean powers to check the spread of cholera.
Such convention would be in line with
enlightened public policy. The comfy of
nations has led 10 the establishment Of an
international postal union and to the con-
clusion Of treaties of extraditiOn for the re-
capture of fugitive criminals 1t would not
be stretching that comfy far TO make it the
basis Of new treaties binding each nation
which is afflicted with fatal epidemic to
do everything in its power to prevent the
epidemic from spreading to the territory Of
its neighbors. That would be merely a
legal acknowledgment offa pre-exsting duty
growing ont of the obligations of interna-
tional good-fellowship.
Tie alarm and expense to which the sea-
ports of the United States and of Great
Britain have been put to keep out the
cholera would have been avoided il Russia
and Germany had stopped the export of
disease germs when the disease became
epidemic at st. Petersburg and Ham burg
1t would have involved no sacrifice on their
part. They are losers, not gamers, by the
spread of a Destilence which arrests trade
Ii we had had treaty with Germany i'm
posing on the latter the duty Of suspendlng
intercourse with the United States from the
moment that that intercourse seemed likely
to propagate disease we should have saved
much and Germany would have lost moth
ing.
For such an International arrangement
there is scientific reason which is not with
out weight. When pestilelce is isolated
and inclosed within narrow limits it soon
exhauSts itself and dies. In the old DAYS in
the Levant IL was found that the best way
OF sitting the plague was TO immure it
within military lines. In short while the
disease germs had no material to feed on
and their activity ceased. 1t is only when
they are left free to feed in new pastures
that they gain strength. Every fresh ac-
cumulation OF filth supplies them with
nutrition. In the course of their travels
they encounter plague spots which are per
haps richer in mephitic material than the
cradle from which they sprang. On several
occasions in past epidemics of cholera the
disease has been more deadly in crowded
ill-drained cities than it was in its primitive
jungle.
IL the leading mercantile nations-the