The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-09-17

oihSiehI' Inc ulSeaSe was met and con-
quered. 1t did not get beyond the
Staten Island hospital in which the sick
were treated. At New Orleans il was
inherent. The cholera ship was allowed
10 iand her people. OF course they
spread the disease. 1t got out in the
city, boarded the steamboats,. went nm
the mississippi, stopping at Memphis
n st. Louis, thence took the rail to
Chicago, followed and travel
TO the other lake ports, and finally, in
May, lS40, six months after the disease
had been met and stamped out here, it
reached New York. 1t was still win
ter weather when it reached the lakes:
II 1t Travelled on. This shows how
completely the country is at the mercy
OF one port. 1t shows the necessity OF
uniformity and military strictness at
all the ports. Every port on the coasts
should be under uniform quarantine
regulations. They should be agreed
upon by conventions with neighboring
countries. or course the federal gov
eminent would have to do this.
Congress once passed a law to pre-
vent the importation of diseases of cat
lie. Why should it not prevent the
Importation of diseases of men?
THE government establishes Il port of
entry, collects revenue, and has the
right to close the port. 1t should there
fore perform all the duties of Il port. one
OF which is Il proper quarantine service,
kept under military regulation. by which
1t would be rendered uniform and eli
clent. The government would not hest
tate to take possession of any place
necessary for the common defense from
invasion by II foreign foe, regardless of
state boundaries or jurisdictions. Is il
not of equal importance that it should
take precautions for the public safe V
FROM II secret foe of pestilence and
poison so vastly more destructive TO the
lives Of our people:
Local control OF the uuarantines J.,
franght with IL great danger. 1t was
only II few years ago that the consulting
physicians of Boston issued II pamphlet
in which they seriously proclaimed their
belief that cholera is neither c0ntagiors
nor infections; that it cannot be prupl-
gated by being near the sick, nor by the
handling of the %sccretiOus or cXcrctions
from bodies Of the sick or dead; that the
IisC%fa is epidemic and cannot be con-
trollod or restrained in its progress By
guarantees or by cordons Of any kind.
Or. SNOW, CT Providence, II sanitarian
of reputation, has expressed similar sen
rimcnts. Now, suppose men If such
views were i'll charge of the quarantine
service at BOstDnor Providence. Infect
eel ships would be admitted without
f~umigatiOn. and llrir passengers with
out proper inspection. The whole coun-
try would bo endangered"
The views of the Boston and Prov
dcnce physicians. the doctor continued.
were those generally held throughout
the country twenty-five years ago. and
he remarked in IN amused mamie unol
HE scoring he received from the medical
profession and the press in 1866 Cor de-
c!arln9 the cholera to he portable and
contagious. lie was publicly denounced
by the New Iorl: sanitary commission
and by the Academy of Medicine.
IF any man, professional or laynan.
should say new that cholera is moi port
able and not contagious he would speed
lily forfeit his reputation for commoH
sense" was the chuckling conclusion Of
his comment upon these things.
DR.. Sayre has II letter received by him
from Captain Montague, Of the British
army. who served many years in India,
and had frequent experiences with the
cholera. In this letter the captain cote
of the military custom which obtains in
India of placing II Gordon around an III
fected town or city, saying that where
the picket service WAS rigid and no
one was allowed to pass in or out of t,I"
town, the disease had never been known
20 pass the Gordon. The doctor quoted
this letter to me us an evidence, if more
We're needed. that the disease is portable,
and that it al he restricted by rigid
quarantine measures and finallystampcd
ont. The old Boston and Providence
idea, he said, would not do.
But | want to emphasize the state
r1cnt that it will be IA very grave mis-
take if any of Our national or local Off
cials having control of guarantees shall
proceed upon the idea that cholera will
not do its deadly work in winter. At
that season." the famous sanitarian con-
cluded. "our overcrowded tenements are
closed to fresh air and their occupants
are hived together like SO many bees.
The conditions become ripe for dis
ease. Many of tho large towns will be
in an ~insanitary condition, for in the
winter sanitation is always relaxed.
The cholera cannot DO created in this
country, but it can be propagated, and
the tenements and the slums of the
large cities are a good field for it, once
started, frost or no frost. We must re-
member Russia and keep our powder
dry for tho common foe in winter as in
summer" EDSON BRACE.