The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1911-07-27
DREADED DISEASE
asIATIC CHOLERA is KNOCKING
y AT OUR VERY DOOR.
% Facts About This Awful Plague
that win Be Of Interest just at
the Present Time.


Six deaths in New York and one
in Boston OF victims of Asiatic chol-
era give warning. chat the United
States is seriously menaced by the
plague which is so serious in Italy
that the authorities of that country
will not permit any information as
10 actual conditions there to be sent
out to other countries, says the Wash
ingtcn correspondent of the Charlotte
Observer
It does not follow that the plague
is likely to become epidemic in this
country, for proper precautionary
measures will preclude that. How
ever. the plague is at our doors, and
public health authorities, both Fed
erai and State, realize that they have
a serious problem tn handle. That
they have the situation we'll in hand,
il generally recognized, but it Is also
recognized that conditions might de-
velcp such that the United States
would have a genuine cholera scare.
Fortunately the Federal health Of
ficers have been preparing for this
emergency for more than year.
Cholera is world disease and moves
in cycles. For eight years the pres.
ent pandemic has been spreading over
Asia and Europe and it was expected
to reach the United States this year
A year ago the United States public
health and marine hospital service
issued a bulletin on Cholera: Its
Nature, Detection and Fermentation" "
which gave warning to the coming OF
the plague and told State and munich
pal health authorities how to- deal
with the problem when it reached
them.
This is by no mears the first time
The United States has been threat
ened with this plague. For centu-
ries there have been epidemics of
cholera in India, but 1t was not until
early in the last century that it as
sumed pandemic proportions and
swept over the world Since 1917
there have been six great pandemics
Of cholera, as follows: 1S17-1S23:
1S26-fS3T; 1S46-186G; 1S64-1S75;
1902-1911.
The first pandemic spread slowly,
involving India, Java. Borneo, Maur-
titus, the PHILIPPINES, China. Persia,
Mesopotamia, Arabia, Syria and Egy-
pit. The second had a wider spread
Europe became infected from Persia
and Turkey and it was\ carried to
England, Canada, the United States,
Cuba and South America. Since then
each pandemic has covered practical
If the entire world.
The fifth pandemic was perhaps
the most serious. It is estimated
that in two years, 1S92-94, over
800, 900 people died OF the cholera in
Russia, and q terrific outbreak in
Hamburg in 1892 cost the lives Of
$500 persons. In 1S93 the disease
reached the port of New York in the
person of immigrants from Europe
and few cases occurred in Jersey
City.
The present pandemic began in
1902 and spread through farther In
dia and China to the PHILIPPINES. In
1903 it spread as usual by way of
Afghanistan, Persia and Arabia to
Egypt. Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor
and the Black Sea. In 1904 it fol-
lowed the caravan routes from Cen
trail Asia and the following year
spread over Russia and Poland and
appeared in Prussia.
No great spread og the disease has
occurred in the German empire, be-
cause of the constant vigilance eXer-
cised by the German sanitary author
tiles, although the continued persist
ence of the disease in Russia has fur
nished Germany new infections al
most yearly. The presence and spread
of cholera in Italy, a country from
which this country receives more
immigrants than from any other
country, makes the menace of chol-
era to the United States more direct
and threatening than at any time
since 1928.