PROGRESS OF THE CHOLERA. [From the Britannia, Aug. 12.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 358, 6 January 1849, Page 3

PROGRESS OF THE CHOLERA. [From the Britannia, Aug. 12.]

It would seem that we must shortly expect the cholera to appear in this country, as there are all the indications prevailing which heralded its approach in 1832. In the last return of the Registrar-General we find a very serious increase in the deaths from diarrhcea and dysentery. During the last three weeks in May the deaths from these diseases were only 12, 15, and 16, respectively ; during June they had increased to 37 ; and now, for the week ending August 5, we find they have risen to the large number of 154, which is more than double the average of the seasons. It must be. remembered that diarrhcea was the forerunner of cholera when that scourge made its last visit to London. By the accounts from. St. Petersburg it seems that the disease had raged more extensively and more fatally than' on any previous occasion. For the twenty-one days from the.

30th of June to the 21st July the deaths I have exceeded on the average 500 daily. Of the total number attacked nearly three per* sons died to every one that recovers. The Military Medical Gazette of St. Petersburg states that since the first appearance of the disease in that city, on the 30th of June, there had been attacked, up to the 21st July, 19,772 persons, of whom 4,834 recovered, and 11,068 died. In the whole of Russia, since the first appearance' of the cholera, the 28th October, 1846, to the sth July, 1848, 280,318 persons were seized with the epidemic and 116,658 died. On the 28th July there were at St. Petersburg 2,396- cholera cases. In the course of the day 137 fresh cases occurred; 211 recovered, and 82 died, 45 of whom were in their own dwellings. On the 29th there were 2,240 sick — 132 nevr cases ; 188 recovered, and 68 died. On the 30th there remained 2,116 cases under treatment. From this statement it would seem •that the disease is diminishing in intensity. The cholera has also, we learn, broke out at Revel ; on the 22nd the number of patients amounted to 40. ' In Galicia the disease has also made its appearance. Four cases had proved fatal in the Charite Hospital in Berlin. In Wallachia tl'e pestilence was raging with great virulence. Letters from Alexandria, of the 22nd ult., announce that -the cholera had manifested itself with considerable intensity at Cairo, and that the epidemic had also reached Tantah, a town on the Damietta branch of the Nile. Ibrahim Pasha had immediately given orders to suspend everywhere all laborious works, and to supply the men engaged in them with wholesome food. All the public establishments in Cairo were placed in quarantine, and the country people expressly forbidden to bring into their towns either grass, vegetables, or fruit. All those measures had ben executed.