The record-union., 1893-08-24

from which stream the people drew their
supply of water for domestic purposes.
For the cholera is not taken from the air;
the germ must enter the stomach, and
hence water is the chief vehicle for its
transmission
The Eloe has for some years been grow
ing more and more foul, and when the
cholera reached its head waters in 1892 it
found the river congenial to its ap-
proach, and it was not long before the
murky stream, receiving the drainage of
the towns and cities along its course, was
regular cholera conduit. Under such
circumstances, of course the pest must
break out in Hamburg, and there it
ragged, in population of over $40, 900 peo-
pie. for over five terrible months, during
which there were $4,000 cases and over
5000 deaths from the plague, and all due
to drinking the water OF the Elbe Sew
/ enty thousand people fled from the city
in single month, commerce was par
| alyzed and shopmen went into bank
ruptcy. All Europe was ransacked for
nurses to care for the sick, aud medical
assistance had to be sought in other parts
OF Germany, as the local staff of physi-
clans soon wore out and some thirty of
them fell victims to the plague.
What had to be done? Science told the
people to either cease drinking the e'river
water or else boil it. After stubborn re-
( sistance on the part of large portion of the
/ people who pooh-poohed at the doctors,
and told how they had thrived upon the
river water for forty and fifty years, and
/ how the city had used it for an age, and
had not before suffered from cholera. the
| Government stepped in and compelled
all people using river water to boil it.
At the same time works were established
to cleanse the river banks, and guards
sent to patrol the stream and prevent the
dropping of filth into it, and as result
the cholera ceased almost as suddenly as
it had appeared.
That was in the summer and the fall of
1892 This year the cholera has again
appeared in Europe but all the people of
Hamburg boil the water they drink, and
to this date not a single case has appeared
in the city, nor is there likely to- 1t is
said that financially Hamburg was dam
aged by the cholera visitation more than
! six hundred millions of dollars. She lost
large portion of her best population per-
manently, and millions Of wealth was
Withdrawn from her trade. The latter
will of course in time return.
The Elbe is about 700 miles long; it
drains a pOpulous country, and on its
banks are situated many towns and some
cities Its rise is in the SHOWS, but for
han 700 feet, so slight is the inclina-
ton of its bed. 1t is a much larger river
than the Sacramento and its volume of
water is more than three times as great
y ct it was so easily contaminated that to
its waters Hamburg owes the visitation
of cholera that so sadly punished her last
year.
Just what might happen should the
cholera ever reach the hot valleys of Cali
fornia no one can say, but just what we
in Sacramento would have to do as to
drinking water every intelligent person
knows. We would have to abandon use
of the river water or boil it. So small a
river is easily contaminated, and that the
Sacramento is becoming foul no one con-
versant with the facts will undertake to
deny. That within the next ten years it
will be wholly unfit tor drinking pur-
poses is positive, unless the settlement of
California absolutely ceases, and the
navigation of the river greatly declines,
and the towns and cities along its course
cease growing. 1t is not, then, one hour
too early to experiment with view to
| finding new source of water supply,
and the voting of Saturday next is only
in experimental direction. 1t is an ex-
preston with an if attached to it. If it is
found it is what we want then we will
take it, otherwise not.