Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-31
PLAQUES AND FEAR.
The Cool-Headed Ones Proof Against
the Attacks of Disease.
SYMP TOMS OF THE CHOLERA.
Where the Dreaded Epidemic Is Born and
E0w 1t Travels.
SANITARY PRECAUTIONS A SAFEGUARD

Residents in the volcanic regions of
Spanish America generally become converts
to the theory that animals can foretell an
earthquake, and many old soldiers confess
belief that death in battle casts its shadow
before. Napoleon, in his conversations with
Las Casas, for instance, mentioned that
General Dessaix was moody and thought
full before the battle of Marengo, as if the
gloom of his impending fate had already
overshadowed his soul"
Similar premonitions seem to indicate the
peril of certain epidemics, says writer in
the San Francisco Chronicle Smallpox and
yellow fever appear to, have no power over
the constitution of some persons, while
others are instinctively sure that they will
be attacked and succumb to the contag1on
unless they can save themselves by timely
flight / remember the case of New Or
leans hospital nurse who was supposed to be
fever-proof, but had deadly horror of the
grippe, the very disease to which she even
:ualiy fell victim.
In the case of some Eastern epidemics
those warning instincts may have saved
countless lives, since medicine is powerless
to arrest the progress of the disorder after
it has reached certain stage of develop
ment The history of Asiatic cholera, for
instance, has emphatically proved the fact
that prevention is better than cure.
Hidden Foes Hard to Overcome.
Remedial expedients, such as they are,
at best can assist the progress of recovery
after powerful constitution has turned the
scales OF the crisis, but much ottener the ap-
parent improvement is only a last flicker OF
the flame of lite before its final extinction.
BY injecting the veins OF a cholera patient
NH lInT in 1fc
composition that of human blood, the
irance-like lethargy of exhaustion can
be broken for few minutes, but in nine
out of ten cases the patient relapses into
more and more irremediable torpor. till at
last the wornout energies of the system fail
TO respond to the most powerful stimulants.
The skin becomes cold, the pulse feeble and
intermittent, the patients breath resembles
convulsive sighs, and gradually subsidies
into mere twitches OF the diaphragm. The
entire mechanism of lite comes to stop,
overpowered by the superior vital activity
OF countless invisible foes.
The germ theory of the disease finds, in
deed, one of its strongest supports in the
symptoms of Asiatic cholera The drowsi-
ness cramps and headaches of the initial
stage closely resemble the effects of blood
poison. The lower extremities become cold,
and constant discharges of watery fluid
Seem 10 lnulcdIe Tue Idplu Ol
microbes that sap the fountains of life bv
feeding upon the nutritive elements of the
blood and other vital humors. The extreme
rapidity of that process may partly explain
the conflicting results of various attempts
10 identify the cholera germ in Its successive
stages of development.
some Blame It on the Planets.
Some of the theories advanced to ex-
plain the origin of cholera epidemics are
absurdly and almost Incredibly far-tetched,
-,,nh as the existence of an atmospheric
Hi"h at certain intervals Qike
-~nears in countless
., VI rne still more astonishing
hypothesis of Surgeon Knapp, of Mexico,
who attributed the periodicity of the cpl
demic to a planetary pestilence, caused
by an increase of planetary attraction, and
specially incident to the perihelion of Jupi-
ter, which occurs about once in twelve
year."
The only plausible feature of that night
mare is the circumstance that cholera of a
specially virulent type has actually made
the tour of the world in periods of almost
exactly u wears CS26, 1888, 1850, 1862,
etc. }, lingering about six years on les jour-
nev from Eastern Asia to Western Europe.
That fact, however, has been accounted for
by the II years interval of the great mass
meeting of Brahmin pilgrims at the shrine
of Hurdwar on the upper Ganges 'Thou-
sands of Hindoos make the jour
ney every third year." says COM
missioner of the British Government
Every sixth year the number is
still greater, and once in u years an i'm
mense throng numbering more than 8, ,000,0O0
people makes this long pilgrimage. Poor
food, impure water, together with depress-
ing climatic conditions and the entire ab-
sence OF sanitary precautions, result in the
production of the disease we'll characterized
Asiatic cholera There is more or less con-
tagion every year, but once in II years at
the great pilgrimage it assumes such pro-