San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-05-09
The Daily Eight.
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1898
CHOLERA PROSPECT IN 1898
Tt is coming Toward New York
Rut Can be Kept Away With
Proper Care.

the president of the New York
Academy of Medicine, DIR. ID. B. st.
John Rosa, says in the Engineer
Magazine:
The most recent adVices are that
cholera is still raging in Russia,
and that it exists in a slight de-
gree in Hamburg and some parts
of France. The probabilities are,
unless travel and immigration
from Russia are Immediately and
strenOusly intcrdicted, and unless
the water-supply of Hamburg is
made absolutely pure, that cholera
will reappear in an epidemic form
in Germany and France this
spring and summer. But these
two contingencies are within hui
man control. Travellers and immi-
grants may be prevented from en-
tering Germany and purity of the
water of Hamburg may be secured.
While cholera has not been cpl
demic in any European port dur
ing the past winter, "spOradic" or
isolated cases have occurred con-
stantly in some of them. There are
SOme-I will not say authorizes,
who assert that true ASiatic cholera
exists in Paris during the entire
year. Certainly it was there last
summer. Assuming these state
mentS to be facts, we have good
reason to fear that this disease will
reappear in New York harbOr dur
ing the summer of 1898. But it is
quite possible for the city of New
York and the other parts of this
country to be so protected, and for
those coming here with the dis
ease to be so isolated, as to prevent
an epidemic in the United States.
AS to the prevention of cholera,
much has been said for and against
strenuous maritime quarantine.
The more ignorant the nation, the
more intense and annoying the
quarantine, whether maritime or on
the land frontier. During tbs cpl
demic of 1881 in Italy and the
south Of France, the Italians out
did themselves in ridiculous and
inefficient and obnoxious rules, to
prevent perfectly we'll people from
going from one country to the
other. England perhaps, lays less
stress upon maritime QuraAtine
than any other nation, but Eng
land is not a depot for immigra1
ton, and filthy immigrants from all
parts of the world do not come to
her shores as they do to those
of the United States. Those who
visit England come only as actual
travellers or immigrants in tranSi-
tn. If the Russian immigrants
who, having passed few days in
Hamburg, without any cleansing
and other sanitary means, were
put upon ships which they infect
ed, had been allowed free access to
New York city last summer and
autumn, they certainly would in a
few days, have 50 polluted water
sources that cholera would have
become epidemic.
We must, therefore, have quar-
antine regulations in this country.
But, if a ship comes to New York
harbOr, even during the visitation
OF cholera, from a. nOn-infected
port, and has passed seven DAYS
without the occurrence Of any case,
it would be folly to retain the
passengers on the ship. They
Should be allowed to land as soon
as the facts about their condition
are aScertained. If cholera
has actually broken out upon
a ship, the healthy passengers
should certainly not be retained
upon it, when the port is reached.
They should be put on shore in
comfortable quarters, and after a
very short quarantine, if the
disease does not break out among
them, they should be released. If
quarantine must be practised, it
must be civilized and humane
quarantine, instead of initiating
the Turks and Italians.
If the quarantine regulations
are honestly maintained, with
skill and scientific knowledge,
there need be no extension of the
disease from our harbOr. 1t
may be that it will not
be brought here at all. The
effect upon the Worlds Columbian
Exposition by the appearance of
the cholera in New York, would,
IN the nature of things, be extreme
~ bad. Europeans, having read
much of the scenes in our harbor
last year, would be afraid of their
repetition, even if they did not fear
the disease itself. "he precautions
trnl- l. l.