The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-08-25
TO ARREST THE EPIDEMIC
Executive Committee of the State Boards
of Health Will Meet in This City.
Quarantine Arrangements of the Ports on
Both Coasts to Be Inspected How Cholera
riginates-Some Great Plaques

KY, president of the International Confer
once of State Boards of Health. has called
a meeting of the executive committee of
the conference for Friday next, in this
city. The object of the meeting is to con-
slider the matter of appointing commit
tee to inspect all the quarantine stations
: on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, with o
view to ascertainIng their efficiency in pre-
venting the introduction of cholera into
this country from Europe. In fact. it has
already been decided to appoint the COM
mittee, and they will proceed at once to
make thorough investigation. While it
is not regarded as certain that the dreaded
scOurge is likely to reach this country, tho
situation is such that DR.. Mccormack and
his associates of the conference deem it
necessary to see that the quarantine is
made as effective as it 10 possible to have
it. In his action he is Endorsed by all the
State boards of health who have been con-
ferredwith.
As will be seen By the telegraphio dis
patches in this mornings Journal. this &C.
ton is being taken none too quickly. There
10 now no doubt whatever that the plague
/, is prevalnt at Ham burg aud the commu-
nioation between that port and this conti-
nent is constant.
The rapid march westward being made
by the dreaded Asiatic cholera, In spite of
every governmental or individual precau-
ton taken al the ports where foreign ves-
sells land, naturally excites local interest
in the disease, and perhaps some knowl-
edge Of Its history is at this time readable.
Inasmuch as the disease has reached the
most important ports of Europe with
which this country has daily inter
course, the probability of it reachi ng the
United States becomes each day more
alarming The fact that tho disease does
not confine it's ravages to any particular
cline. but rather goes to work in its death
1y mission wherever 1t Is brought, ar0usos
public concern despite the assurances of
any department whose duty 1t is to arrest
It's immigration.
septic cholera. and In ages past seems to
have generally originated in Hindostan
and like the CONTAGIOUS forms of influenza,
dysentery or erysipelas, has become port
able and capable of reproducing itself in
every body in which it gets Judgment
Four hundred years before Christ Hippo
crates made such comments on the disease
as leaves the assurance that the disturbance
was at that early period transferred to
ID. so described the symptoms of the dis
order. Beyond this the age of the dis
ease Is o matter of conjecture. When
the French and English struggled
for the CoIomandel coast Of India
Madras and Pondicherry, in connection
with the great Hindoo pilgrimage. while
Alexander, of Tralles, A. ID. 525 speaks of
its certain symptoms, such rs the suppress
sion of the pulse. followed by secondary
typhoid fever or death in few hours.
The year 1856 marks the RECOGNITION of
periodically returning twelve yearly cpl
denies. connected with the great twelve
yearly Hindo0 festivals at the great
temples. On March 20, 1871. i've thousand
English troops. marching near Canaan. not
far from tho great temple OF Juggernaut
and very shortly after the twelve yearly
festival had taken place. were attacked by
the disease very suddenly after camping on
foul pilgrim grounds and drinking polluted
water. Men previously healthy dropped
down by the dozens, while those less
severely affected were generally past re-
covery in twenty-four hours.
Three times twelve or thirty-six years
subsequently the great historical epidemic
of 1917 occurred. This proceeded up the
Ganges as far as Allahabad, when ii was
detected southwark to the province of
Bundeleund, in which the Marquis of
Hastings was carrying on war against the
Mahrattas with ninety thousand men.
Ten Thousand of the natives had already
died with the disease, and In q short time
nine thousand men of the English army
had succumbed to the pestilence. The dis
case reached Bombay. and was carried up
to Bassorah. at the head of the Persian
gulf, whore eighteen thousand persons
died In eighteen days. From there it won't
faded away in 1881. Every successive cpl
demic of cholefa has been carried MP the
Persian gulf from Bombay, Surat. Kur-
fachee and other ports on the western
coast of India, and thus reached tho .Medi-
terrauean. Black and Caspian seas and the
neigh boring countries by the So called Per
sian gulf route.
In fsS6 tho first indication of another
pestilence appeared In the north of India
rdarr ahotA
the great plac of pilgrimage at tho source
of the Ganges VIII ere it first issues from
the foot of the Himalay q mountains. A few
hundred Thousand pilgrims 20 to Hurdwar
more every sixth and ninth year. and final-
ly three million assemble every twelfth
year. From Hurdwar cholera was carried
back by the huge caravans which came
down to the festival from central Asia,
Persia and Afghanistan to Cabool. Then
the disease I'D sanced over the great nsrth.
west central Asiatic caravan route to Russia.
Also from Cabool by the north Persian
route due west to the Caspian sea. and
from there to Astrakhan. in Russia, both
burg Aug. g. 1929. and Astrakhan in Sop
TENDER. From Orenburg 10 proceeded due
west TO Nijni-Novgorod and Moscow. and
from AstIakhan 1t advanced step by step
sian depredations began this year. At this
time the Polish revolution was going on.
and Russian troops carried the disease to
Warsaw, whence 1t was conveyed west to
Berlin and from there to Hamburg, the
point in Germany 1t has now reached and
from there to London.
After the pestilenoe had prevailed in Eng
land, and Ireland, and Scotland it was car
ried by ien or twelve Irish emigrant ships
to Qnetec In the spring of 1882. and from
there up the st. Lawrence river, across the
lakes to Detroit, where 1t met the United
States troops going to the Black Hawk war.
In short time the whole army sent by way
of the lakes was rendered incapable of
taking the fold. The greater part reached
Chicago In most deplorable condition.
One company which had been mustered
and inspected fourteen days before. with
out q man on the sick list, had dropped
forty-eeven men ont OF seventy-eight In
that short time, and one regiment lost two
hundred men in one week. 1t was distrlb-
uted TO all the national posts and forts in
the extreme West, especially to Forts Dear
born and Crawford, and Fort Armstrong, on
Rock island. From there the pestilence
was carried down the Mississippi to New
Orleans by October 1882. Six thousand
died out of O population of fifty-five thou
sand.
The next twelve-yearly epidemic CON-
menced in lower Bengal, 1871, supplement
ed by q Hurdwar epidemic in 1913. and was
found in Afghanistan In 1874. in Persia and
Mcshed in lS45. advancing west in 1876 to
Teheran. reaching southern Russia in lS47.
In 1866 the United States was visited
with the disease again. 1t spread all over
the country with fearful results, as many
will d1afiuetlv rerpe I'm her Ono of Ia