THE CHOLERA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1232, 26 August 1884, Page 3

THE CHOLERA.

The municipal authorities of Toulon have excited indignation by refusing to allow a procession of women in the streets. They desired to offer prayers for the cessation of the scourge. Despite the attempt of French scientists to minimise as pouch as possible the panic on the-Continent, it is now admitted that the German expert, Dr Koch, was justified in those horrible predictions which alarmed all Europe.

The condition of the Thames, in view of the cholera in France, excites alarm in London, for the sewage, though discharged far below the city, washes past the Houses of Parliament. The cholera in France has reduced the travel to Europe Tery much. Cases were reported in Brignoles, Arles, and the environs of Paris on the 20th July . Throughout Italy and Prance nearly all the summer resorts are closed, because of the entire lack of patronage. At Lake Keningala, in Northern Italy, at lest accounts, there were 2000 travellers imprisoned under quarantine, Rich and poor were herding together, and the sanitary condition of the Hospital there is reported dreadful in the extreme.

A r >*nic was crented at Toulon on llio | nigiii of the 22nd July, by the arrival of IUO coffins, ordered frcrn Marseilles. In order to allay the excitement it was found necessary to send the, coffins back.

A classification of the deaths by cholera in France, made up to July 31st, gives the following results ; French 798, Italians 332, Spanish 18, Greeks 9, English, Austrian, German and American, 1. u At Arles many persons became insane through fear. A cholera patient in the hospital at Toulon committed suicide on July 26th by plunging a knife in his heart. A mild form of cholera appeared in St. Petersburg and o'ber towns of Russ’n on July 30th. . The Ne w York Times of July 27th prints

a telegram five columns long, giving a account of the first English-sneaking coi respondent who visited Marseilles an Toulon during the epidemic,. The follow ing are extracts ;— 11 1 have visited ever room in every cholera hospital '••voting b Marseilles and Toulon, and sm i. y atche< people dying in the hospii 1-' and in iht-i own hovels, and buried at midnight ii cemeteries by the light of torches an< lanterns. I have discussed all phases o the epidemic exhaustively with hospita doctors, with priests, and with nurses, am my conclusion is that the much dreadec cholera is probably the most fatal am severe of all diseases to which human flesl is heir; yet it is a thing of which n< intelligent community of well orderec lives and well arranged system of sewe pipes need have a'arming fears, evei when brought into close contact with it; to say nothing of getting into a panii when it is at a distance. The vilesi quarters of Marseilles, Capallete and iti adjoining districts have furnished most o: the cases of cholera, and it is «u interest ing fact that the largest proportion ol them arc Italians. I have visited the chief hospital, where 1 sow eighty-fmn patients in all stages of the from the first agonised breath to the period ol convalescence. Every face of these eight-four males, and females was the face of a person from the lower walks of life, and this, I am told, has been the rule among the patients from the first. Nineteen-twentieths of the patients received at the Phaioaa Hospital fail to recover, but for the last fortnight matters have improved. The treatment both here and at Toulon in the first stages is twenty drops of laudanum with three grains of ether, with ice placed in the mouth to stop vomiting. In the second stage the patients become very cold, and from ten to fifteen grammes of acetate of ammonia, the same quantity of alcohol, and two injections of morphia are given daily. If the patient cannat breathe artificial respiration of oxygen is produced, and the limbs are rubbed with turpentine. The third stage is in the coffin. Delay in placing the bodies in the coffin is made necessary by the fact that violent postmortem. action of the limbs takes place, caused by the terrible reaction after death, in which the temperature rises from extreme cold at dissolution to 120 degrees after it. Each coffin is carefully disinfected.” After visiting the cemetery at night and witnessing the horrible scenes of burial there enacted, the correspondent returned to the central part of the city, and it was gay enough. “ Bands were playing and cafb. lamps were gleaming. People in throngs were walking in the streets, laughing merrily, and many heads were poked out of the windows of houses. Next morning 1 saw a mournful procession of 500 people forming opposite the Palais de I’jndustne. They were poor people taking their turn, so thot they might obtain their modicum of bread. The condition of Marseilles is frightful, but that of Toulon struck me as simply murderous. Toulon must be inhabited by people who literally ignore every precaution which health requires. Their habits, both in their homes and m the public streets, are indescribably filthy. It is impossible for people who live on fruit, who drink all kinds of poor fluids, who sleep in dirt and nastiness, who breathe air polluted by the sew £o e of the town itself, to escape cholera. The marvel is that the disease did not find its birth here years before. Toulon always has been a breeding place of disease. Smallpox when it breaks out in Toulon is always of a malignant type, and more difficult to stamp out then elsewhore. I saw there thirty-six casec of cholera. The condition of the patients differed in no respect from those of Marseilles. I noticed that the doctors smoked cigars, and chewed considerable Quantified of camphor. The doctors drank wine and beer freely, I put a piece of tobacco in my mouth and chewed during my visits, following th? advice of an old seagoing friend of mine familiar with the disease. The cholera has gone to Italy, and should it reach Naples the slaughtei will be terrible, as the city is one of the dirtiest on earth.