The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-20
UNCLE SAM FIXED ID FIGHT CHOLERA Better Prepared Than The Foreign Countries QUARANTINE STRICT Plague Is No Longed Looked Upon As Dread Malady From Which
 Everyone Must Flee
 In Terror
By SIDNEY EsPEY

Nowhere in the world are the citizens of a country so well protected iron
 the dissemination of plague as in thu 1 United States. Especially Is this tru' l in protecting them from disease. brought to this country by infected per
 sons from abroad. The protection l.
 afforded by representatives of the Unite, States government, special service 0
 employees being hired for this purpose 1 They are part of the United State! public health and marine hospital serv ice, and extend to every sea port ant coastwise port of any consequence ir the country. They are also stationed in districts where contagious disease oi any character becomes epidemic, the matter being handled under their supervision. notwithstanding the fact
 that the states also maintain their re- spective bureaus of health.
 The United States government now is maintaining the strictest and the f1rst
 really scientific quarantine against cholera that has ever been maintained in the world. The man in the street does not know how big a force of the best medical experts in the world is working day and night. at home and abroad to prevent the spread of chol- era.
 When the cholera became a menace in Italy over a year ago there was a good deal known about cholera here. It was no longer a mysterious pesti- lence that wasted at monday" and acording to the old chronicles was em- bodied in the personu of the Wander ing Jew, and travelled at fixed rate of three miles a day.
 Modern science has found a little comma shaped germ and knows that cholera has to be introduced into the human system by way of the mouth, and that a nurse taking modern sani- tary precautions could live in a cholera hospital with safety.
 But 1t was only in the last year that the presence of the carrier was def initely determined and an eXplana- ton offered for the seeming mysterious cases that creep through the best reg ulated quarantlnes. This is the end of the problem that the United States has now taken hold of, and it explains why this country Is free of the disease, While II IS SLOWLY spreduihs III Eu- rope
 When the alarm of cholera carried by arriving immigrants was first sounded in this country the public health and marine hospital service was put on the job. Gen Walter Wyman. chief of the service, sent pr. Geddings to Naples and Genoa, the two largest ports of embarkation for immi grants, and had him see that the Italian authorities en- Ia raj nj rppt1la tinnE a .
 they were then understood. As cholera spread from Russia and Germany, and was noted at other ports of departure, several of the younger surgeons of the public health and marine hospital serv- ice were sent abroad to assist Dr. Ged- dings.
 But the precautions taken abroad were only the coarse mesh of the screed that was built around the United States At first the Italian authorities did not like to admit that they had cholera in Naples at all, and they declared that if there were cases there they were not serious. Afterward they found that denals were not as satisfactory as sanitation, and they co-operated heartily with the American authorities in enforcing the quarantine law.
 New York is the largest port for the ar rival of immigrants in the United States,
 
 operated with the United States authori- ties But the immigrants fleeing from the cholera in Europe sought other ports of departure than the usual Italian exits and the cholera spread through southern Rus sia and along the Baltic. It appeared in parts of Germany and now while the French authorities are 10th to admit # there are a number of cases at Marseilles
 The immigrants sought other ports of to ha rnit than New York Boston and Philadelphia were na.- urally the first, but it was only last week that an Italian steamer came into Prov idence, Rhode Island, bringing large number of immigrants.
 As the disease progressed abroad, there were more stringent regulations enforced The quarantine period was extended from five to ten days. Then came the revela- ton of the cholera carrier, a thing not previously well understood. It was found persons who had the disease always car ried the germs of cholera with them and distributed them after having been fully cured so far as outward symptoms were concerned.
 The same was true in some cases of per sons who had merely come in contact with the disease, and had never had 1t themselves. These Carriers" persist for period of 20 days, though some of them have been known to persist" for as long as 20 days. They are just as dangerous to turn loose as active cholera cases. How bad the disease is abroad is shown by the latest cable reports to General Walter Wyman. These state that from July 2 to July 25 there were 6S cases of cholera and 20 deaths in Naples. These were in the city. In Naples province there were 14S cases and "A deaths. Throughout the remainder of Italy there were 13o deaths. In Palermo there were 100 cases, 52 of which were fatal. In Sicily there were 13O leases and 42 deaths
 Of course, there may be some other means of cholera conveyance not now Understood by which the disease may gain entrance here. But the precautions
 are effective so far as the medical world
 understands the disease. and so far have
 proved entirely satisfactory to the mer
 who have had the work in charge.