Los Angeles herald., 1892-09-18
ICE AND CHOLERA.

Los Angeles is not the only place
where controversy is going on with ref
erence to the danger Of ice manufactured
out of water suspected of impurity. The
Partisan faculty is just now exercised
over the fact that ice is manufactured
in that city from the water of the river
Seine, which is polluted by the dis
charges from the sewers. But nearly all
cities located on the banks of streams
are in the same fix, and the complaint
about ice in London is loud and deep.
DR.. Daremberg, who is rather inclined
to aphorisms, recently advised the
Parisians to boil their ice. This ex-
preston seems to have tickled the pro-
fessional mind, and has been pretty ex-
tensively plagiarized in interviews re-
garding cholera. One of London's med
ical baronets advised reporter, if he
would avoid the dread diseasea not to
drink water contaminated with cholera
germs or sewage, and to boil his ice be-
fore using it. A New York physician
varied this rule by telling an anxious
inquirer about the best way to avoid
cholera was to "boil everything-except
ice, and throw the ice away" But this
rule would find as much objection
among ice manufacturers as a positive
prohibition OF its use by the powers
that be. ~
The New York Medical Record says
that it is true that ice may contain the
germs OF typhoid fever and other dis
eases, and that the immoderate use Of
even pure ice may disorder digestion
and thus pave the way for the lodgment
of the cholera bacillus. All the physi-
clans agree that ice made out Of impure
water, may, in cholera infected districts,
contain the comma microbe, and thus
imperil the health of those who use it,
and the advice of both the Partisan and
London doctors might be followed in
those districts with advantage.
The best test to apply TO manufac-
tured ice is to ascertain that the water
from which it is made is pure. II it is
not pure, then in fever and cholera
times its manufacture should not be
permitted. No doubt many were amused
at the position taken by one of the ice
manufacturing companies in this city,
that if its ice were officially tabooed it
would he an act of confscation of it's
property. The only question which
should govern the judgment of the au-
thorities in such a case, would
be whether the water from
which the ice is made is pure or impure.
If found impure upon satisfactory tests,
then its manufacture should be stopped,
for by no stretch OF Imagination has any
one the right to sell impure ice to the
people. The fact that the hill people CT
our city were for time compelled to
eat the water supplied to them forms
no precedent, for they were without Ie-
course. They had either to eat the water
served to them or 60 without. Not go
with ice, however; for here we have a
choice, We can take it, or go without.
The city's only way out of this ice
problem, s to have the ice of the vari-
GUS competing companies tested, and if
any of it is found to be manufactured
from impure water, exclude it from the
patronage OF the public.
Perhaps the phrase of DR.. Daremberg
ought to be paraphrased, and instead of
advising consumers to boil their ice be-
fore using it, the manufacturers ought
to he made to boil or distil the water
they use in its manufacture before max
ing it,