Year: 1866

About Cholera.


Jacob Bigelow, NJ. D., communicates a
sensible article to the Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal, upon the subject Of
cholera. We extract:


Whatever may be the cause of vehicle
of cholera, credulous and excitable per-
sons are impatient of suspense, and are
prone to cut knot which they fail to un-
tie. When an epidemic disease first ap-
pears, some coincidence is always brought
to light which is supposed capable
of accounting for it. The arrival of a
ship, the opening of a trunk, or the wash
ing of garment, are among the most fire.
quently accepted causes. But as these
have happened a thousand times before,
and apparently under like circumstances,
without any known results, it has been
thought necessary, by some Of our late
writer's to narrow the compass of actual
exposure down to the reception of the NOR
bid excretions of one individual into the
digestive canal Of another. The first i'm
preston made by this announcement must.
if true, be one of relief, the danger not
seeming likely to happen very often. But
to the possibility of such danger we can
never oppose an absolute negative, so long
as we persist in eating smelts and founders
caught about the mouth Of drains, or even
turnips, salads. and strawberries raised at
Brighten. The risk, however, is so small,
that most persons will prefer to take it,
rather than to deprive themselves of food
or luxury.


Of the many sensation tales printed and
reprinted about cholera, and the supposed
instances of remarkable communication or
arrestation, it is sufficient to say that they
are frequently interesting, being fully as
dramatic as they are probable.


In the same regard we cannot help no
ticing that credulity, and perhaps private
cupidity, have caused much stress to be
laid on the supposed preventive efficacy of
what are called "disinfectants," mysteri-
Gus word which implies thing assumed
but not proved to exist. We have deodor-
izers, such as chlorine. charcoal, etc.,
which by their combinations render cer-
tain efiiuvia imperceptible to our noses
The narrative, then, of the physician of
Malta, who covered certain surfaces in
vessels with oil, and had them "disinfected
by chlorine gas ..after which no new
eases occurred. y is to be classed with other
like results with which the medical press
always abounds at tNe close of epidemics.


In clean and well-pegulated cities of tenn
perate climate, cholera is far from being
the most formidable OF epidemics. A
greater part of it's victims are the misera-
bly, poor, the worn out, the ill provided,
and the Incorporate, in whom this disease
only anticipates the date, but does not
greatly increase the annual and biennial
number of deaths. Its mortality in our
Northern Atlantic cities rarely amounts to
one per cent. of the population in a given
place or year, so that a man may reside
through an epidemic in one Of these cities
with less risk than he can take a pleasure
voyage to Europe. After having witness
ed many cases Of cholera in this and other
cities, am further satisfied that it affords
one of the easiest modes Of exit from the
world


People who would avoid or prevent chol-
era should cultivate equanimity, regularity
of life and habits, cleanliness, salubrious
exercise, temperance, and avoidance of all
excesses. When they have done their duty
| in providing for the care Of the sick, allay-
ing public panics, and abating public nuis-
ances, they may safely dismiss their APP
prehensions. Little good and some harm
| is always done by the indiscreet agitation
of subject which is to great extent be-
yond our control. A single or sporadic
case of cholera occurring in a village OF a
thousand inhabitants may attract little no.
tice, and perhaps without record; but a
hundred thousand inhabitants make an ag-
gregate which generally causes some panic,
though the proportion is exactly the same,
and the panic equally unnecessary. 1t is
possible that the supposed immunity Of
country districts in comparison with cities
may be accounted for by the fact that the
sparse population of country towns are
less liable to be detected and published.


may be excused for repeating the fol-
lowing remark from among some "Apho-
aisms' published by me about thirty years
ago, when the disease was new and little
known among us: "Should the cholera
continue to prevail for three years through
out this continet, it would cease to inter
rupt either business or recreation. Man
kind cannot always stand aghast, and the
wheels Of society at length would be nc
more impedcd by its presence than they
are now by the existence of consumption


of old age, or of drunkenness