The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-10-04
CHOLERA MICROBES b l,
DR.. OSWALD HAS NO DOUBT OF
THEIR EXISTENCE.

Is Propagatod-Crowdin Patients Into
Hospitals Aggravates tho Disease.
Especial Correspondence.]
CINCINNATI, Sept 12.-There is a story
Of Kansas athlete who held that a man
should bear up against any gale, and ridi-
culed cyclone pits till n tornado flung him
into the middle of the next county.
With a similar conclusiveness certain
epidcmics are apt to remove the doubts in
the germ theory of disease individuals
with perfectly sound lungs may indulge
in the belief that such affections as hay
fever are due to the influence of imagina-
tion, but the grip refutes that tenet by
arguments not easy to resist, and every
cholera epidemic makes thousands of con-
verts to the doctrine of atmospheric poi
sons In Havre some of the victims were
persons OF wealth who had kept the sur
roundings of their residences scrupulously
clean and "abstained from fruit and all
perishable vegetables" but persisted them
selves In spite of remedies that would
have nipped ordinary bowel complaints in
the bud.
1t is true that in many parts of Europe
the heat of the last two months was abb
normal and almost unprecedented but
summer heat alone evidently fails to ac-
count for the virulence of the epidemic
Cholera, as deadly and contagious dis
ease, is almost unknown in the sultry low
lands of the Congo valley, and visited the
coasts of South America only century
after the arrival of the first European
colonists. In it's progress from the Caspian
to the Atlantic the epidemic, moreover did
not follow the lines of highest tempera-
ture, and spared Buda-Pesth, where the
mercury rose one day to 11S dogs. in the
shade, but spread along the main high
ways of travel, and proved most virulent
in the principal railway centers of three
different countrics-St. Petersburg, Ham,
burg and Havre.
The symptoms of Asiatic cholera are
likewise Enthusiastically those Of germ
disease. The drowsiness, cramps and head
aches of the initial stage closely resemble
the effects of blood poison. The pulse
works at fever speed till it GIBBS with the
utter exhaustion of the vital powers, and
violent discharges of watery fluid, follow
ing each other with appalling rapidly,
seem to Indicate the rapid multiplication
of microbes that sap the fountains of life
by feeding upon the nutritive elements of
the blood. DR.. Dcrlinski of Odessa, and
several German pathologists claim to have
identified the cholera germ in minute
organism, resembling cluster of globes
which separate and become the nuclei of
new clusters. A more distinct parasite
the yellow fever microbes ensembles linked
punches OF sugar cane sprcuting out sep
arating and sending out new branches in
all directions, but not with the fearful
rapidity of the cholera germ, which often
In less than two hours contrives to turn
several gallons of blood into turbid fluid
resembling rice water.
Hindostan, that hotbed of contagious
diseases, is as ubtedly the birthland
of tho cholera ynicr0Ia IF III
ascetic religions. In some form or otner
cholera morbus Is chronic affliction of
the Ganges valley, and the twelve years.
interval Of its epidemic outbreak his been
fully explained by the mass meetings of
pilgrims at the shrine of Hurdwar, where
every twelfth year an enormous multitude
OF devotees crowd about pond of holy
water, Wanted as panacea for earthly
Affections, which it certainly often cures
on the Buddhist plan of ending the ills of
life by the termination of life itself. Be
sides bathing and washing their clothes in
the temple pond, thousands-nay millions
of pilgrims complete the ceremonial by
swallowing three or four pints of the s,i-
cred fluid, and may escape the consequences
by timely return to n cool highland
home, though a considerable percentage of
the coast jewellers reach the land where
microbes cease from troubling because
their victims are forever Mt rest
The assembly of a large number of pa
tients in hospitals and crowded camps ap-
pears to aggravate the virulence of the
disease. The percentage of fatal cases
increases, and the spread of the epidemic
becomes more rapid and irresistible, like q
conflagration grown fierce by an abun-
dance of fuel. On the comparatively thinly
settled coast of Coromandel, where spo-
radio cases may occur at any time of the
year, the average of mortality rarely eX-
ceeds 80 per cent, while thousand miles
farther west, in the crowded city region of
central India, the proportion of fatal cases
rises to SO and even 60 per cent. e., an
average of six out of ten patients die with
in half week after the appearance of the
first symptoms. In Finland, Russia,
climate and frugal habits saved three out
of five patients. In Hamburg 800 out of
700 died in spite OF first class medical as
sistance and strict enforcement of sanitary
regulations, especially in respect to the
control of the provision market.
1t might indeed be doubted if the fruit
and vegetable alarmists are not raising
their hue and cry on wrong trail. De-
cayed vegetable substances are of course
apt to prove injurious ut any time, but it
is equally certain that fresh fruit and well
selected vegetable are the most appropri-
ate summer diet form the almost ex-
elusive food of l...iIions of our fellow men
who enjoy n remarkable immunity from
contagious diseases
Climatic fevers," says n medical re-
former, "bcing summer diseases, could not
very well be ascribed to the chief bugbear,
cold air; but the antinaturalsts, still re-
solved to find an eXtraneous cause have
selected as their scapegoat the only kind
of natural food and drink most Christians
ever touch in summer time-fruit and cold
water The police of fever stricken towns