Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-09-22

ana local OltlClalS nave been Stralninu
every nerve TO prevent its gaining a foot.
hold in this city and being spread by
various channels to the country at large.
The health officials have been strict even
to severity, but while all were looking
seward, and while preparations were
made to repeal an advance from across
the water, it has quietly made its pres
ence felt in our midst, and five corpses
to-day mark its advent. How did it get
In is the question on every ones lips.
The health officers faces wear puzzled
expressions when asked to solve this
problem Disinfectants have been used
with lavish hand both atquarantineand
In the city, baggage has been disiniected
passengers have been detained even on
healthy ships, and in the city stringent
rules of cleanliness have been laid down
and acted upon.
The houses of the dead are not under
quarantine in the sense of being shut
up, or are their tenants being prohibited
to go and come when and where they
please. But no one goes or comes with
out the knowledge of the doctor ON
duty. The medical sentinel never loses
sight, for many hours at time, of his
charges. His Instructions are most
minute, and his duties, in Il tenement
full OF people, most arduous
The summer corps of so tenement
doctors was recently turned into an ex-
pectant cholera squad. The idea is to
overwhelm and stamp out the disease in
each house, as was done with the typhus
upon its first appearance.
That this could be done was success
fully demonstrated in 1866. The two
doctors now on duty in each infected
,frs11 80, IL
danger of further outbreak has finally
passed.
The health officers fully believe that
this will be before long. Other cases
are expected to develop from scattered
centres of contagion, but none in the
same buildings.
That is the way the health officers
propose to drive the cholera from the
city, now it has got in, and if the citi.
Zens will use reason, and not get into a
foolish and needless panic, they are sure
that they will succeed, though they by
no means undervalue the danger.
Everything is ready for an attack The
floating hospital is in order, and the
proposed cholera camp, the site Of which
is yet the departments secret, can be oc
cupied on the briefess notice. There is
no panic, and no undue hurry ut SAM
tary headquarters. Every possibility
every feature of a cholera epidemic has
been discounted and provided against
How the disease slipped through quar-,
antine and got in is, as before stated, a
mystery which the doctors are trying Ia
solve by tracing each case rs far back as
possible. 1t is hard to do that because
all Of the victims are dead. Of none OF
them had the department any notice un,
til they had died
The situation is identical with that Of
1866, when the cholera suddenly ap
peared in three or four widely separatGt
places IN the city, III Ninety.fhird stree
and IN Mulberry street, quite five mile.
apart, after it had been successful,
quarantined out the previous fall. Then
as now, Il fleet of plague ships lay il
the bay. But the cases of cholera tina
broke out in New York had nO connec
ton with quarantine. The real origir
OF the plague was never discovered.
The first case WAS that Of Charlie
McAvoy Of $40 Tenth avenue. lie wa
plusterer. The only possible clue ma,
be found in the statement that lie hat
been working about the steamboa
wharves. Yet none Of the pest shin,
had como up to its wharf lie VA
seized with cramps in the legs on Mon
day evening, but felt better in the morn
ing and went to his work. AT / o'clocl
in the forenoon he came home, and sait
he was sick, He went to bed and hat
fresh attack of cramps. The pain ex
tsaded to the abdomen and kidneys
and violent diarrhma and vomiting fol
lowed. Or. Robert DeShOnn Of 354 Yves
tiIty-sixth street, was called in. II
diagnosed the case as Asiatic cholera
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