The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1892-09-29
DRINK AND CHOLERA.

ish the saloon and to pulverize the rum
power. Blade.
DRINK AND CHOLERA.
The Use OF Liquor Paves tho Way for the
Dread Disease.
paper was read before the British
Medical association in 1871 by Robert
Martin, NJ. H., of Manchester, on the
best means to avert the scourge of
cholera, which was then on it's way
westward, as it is now. DIR. Martin
held that in preparing to meet the ap-
preaching foe the principal predispos.
ing cause was being ignored, and as it
was preventable cause the neglect of
it seemed to him altogether wrong. It
was probably due to the feeling that he
had to conciliate his audience that he
did not call it criminal. He proved
pretty satisfactorily, however, that
cholera's chief ally or forerunner is in
temperance, and that if the means Of
drunkenness were removed from the
people the plague could be almost de.
fed
p ople generally listen to such recon-
mendations. when they involve pet
and popular vice, either with great
stolidity. or with the anger of Naaman
the Syrian. when bid to battle in Jor.
dan. Stopping mems liquor by state
interference is sadly off the lines OF
orthodox medical practice. The aver.
age Englishman would rather die than
change his ways; he would rather have
the means of drunkenness, plus cholera,
than be without them. We quote few
of the facts on which DR.. Martin based
his important conclusion. There was
great mortality among tho nurses at
the Manchester cholera hospital, and
new cases continued to break out
among them so long as they were al.
| lowed to leave the hospital for an hour
or two day for fresh air.
1t was found that they used that time
to obtain drink-a> it was in the year
1882 they were probably Of the Sa;ry
Camp sort. After the daily outing was
stopped there were no more cases
among them. Joyousness is a great
preventive Of disease, but not joyous.
ness inspired by John Barleycorn. The
cholera visitation of the same year had
almost passed away in Glasgow when
the people held a great jubilee over
the passage of the reform bill, which
they celebrated, according to their GUS
tom at that time. with much whisky.
The result was that cholera burst forth
afresh. A similar renewal Of spent
epidemic was observed at Gateshead
after the excuses of the Christmas
holidays.
The Toxteth Park board of guardians
found that the applications from
cholera cases were from seventy to
one hundred more on the first three
days Of the week than on the other
days, which they attributed to ''the
drunken orgies of Saturday night, Sun.
day and Monday which follow the
weekly receipt of wages on the part OF
the laboring community An East
end medical officer in London reported
that water drinkers, and especially
teetotal!ers. We're prominently exempt.
A Liverpool medical officer reported
that his first case of cholera was that
of an 1rishwoman who was walked in a
most drunken fashion. the result being
| forty-eight deaths within a month. ali
directly traceabc to that horrid reveL
What, then, is the natural thing to dc
on the approach of cholera? Why,
simply stop the sale of drink as we dc
on election days but we verify be-.
lieve large proportion of people
would think that the greater evil of the
two. If not, why not stop the drink? 1t
would do nobody any harm. and is a very
much smaller interference with liberty
than enforced Montreal