The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-09-16

at sea. One made Now Orleans, the
other New York. Both arrived in De-
cember, long after frost had set ,il--at
least at New York. The New York
quarantine measures were vigorous and
efficient. The disease was met and con-
quered. It did not get beyond the
Staten Island hospital in which the sick
were treated. At New Orleans it was
different. The cholera ship was allowed
to land her people. OF course they
spread the disease. It got out in the
city, boarded the steamboats,, went up
the Mississippi, stopping at Memphis
and st. Louis, thence took the rail to
Chicago, followed commerce and travel
to the other lake ports, and finally, in
May, 1S49, six months after the disease
had been met and stamped out here, it
reached New York. 1t was still win
ter weather when it reached the lakes;
but it travelled on. This shows how
completely the country is at the mercy
of one port. 1t shows the necessity Of
uniformity and military strictness at
all the ports. Every port on the coasts
should be under uniform quarantine
regulations. They should be agreed
upon by conventions with neighboring
countries. OF course the federal gov
eminent would have to do this.
Congress once passed law to pre-
vent the importation of diseases of cat
tie. Why should it not prevent the
importation of diseases of men?
1.-THE government establishes a port of
entry, collects revenue, and has the
right to close the port. 1t should there
fore perform all the duties of port, ore
of which is q proper quarantine service,
kept under military regulation, by which
it would be rendered uniform and eff
Gent. The government would not hest
tate to take possession of any place
necessary for the common defense from
invasion by a foreign foe, regardless of
state boundaries or Jurisdictions. Is it
not of equal Importance that it should
take precautions for the public safety
from secret foe of pestilence and
poison SO vastly more destructive to the
lives of our people?
s'Local control of the luarantines is
fraught with a great danger. It was
only few years ago that the consulting
physicians of Boston issued pamphlet
in which they seriously proclaimed their
belief that cholera is neither contagious
nor infectious; that it cannot be propa-
gated by being near the sick, nor by the
handling Of the secretions or excretions
from bodies Of the sick OF dead; that the
disease is epidemic and cannot be con-
trolled or restrained in its progress by
guarantees OF by cordons of any kind.
DR.. Snow, of Providence, sanitarian
of reputation, has expressed similar SEN
timents. Now, suppose men of such
views were in charge of the quarantine
service at Bostono or Providence. Infect
ed ships would be admitted without
fumigation. and their passengers with
out proper inspection. The whole coun-
try would be endangered"
The views Of the Boston and Provi-
dence physicians, the doctor continued,
were those generally held throughout
the country twenty-five years ago, and
he remarked in an amused manner upon
the scoring he received from the medical
profession and the press in 1886 for de-
claring the cholera to be portable and
contagious. He was publicly denounced
by the New York sanitary commission
and by the Academy of Medicine.
''If any man, professional or layman,
should say now that cholera is not port
able and not contagious he would speed
lily forfeit his reputation for common
sense" was the chuckling conclusion Of
his comment upon these things.
DR.. Sayre has a letter received by him
from Captain Montague, of the British
army, who served many years in India,
and had frequent experiences with the
cholera. In this letter the captain wrote
of the military custom which obtains in
India of placing Gordon around an in
fected town or city, saying that where
the picket service was rigid and no
one was allowed to pass in or out of the
town, the disease had never been known
to pass the Gordon. The doctor quoted
this letter to me as an evidence, if more
were needed that the disease is portable,
and that it can be restricted by rigid
quarantine measures and finally stamped
out The old Boston and Providence
idea, he said, would not do.
But | want to emphasize the state
ment that it will be a very grave mis-
take if any of our national or local Off
Gals having control of guarantees shall
proceed upon the idea that cholera will
not do its deadly work in winter. At
that season, the famous sanitarian con-
cluded, tour overcrowded tenements are
closed to fresh air and their occupants
are hived together like so many bees.
The conditions become ripe for dis
ease. Many of the large towns will be
in an insanitary condition, for in the
winter sanitation is always relaxed
The cholera cannot be created in this
country, but it can be propagated, and
the tenements and the slums of the
large cities are a good field for it, once
started, frost or no frost. We must re-
member Russia and keep our powder
dry for the common foe in winter as in
summer" EDsoN BRACE.
Nehemiah Boynton's Dollar Bath.