Cholera

New Zealand Tablet, 22 October 1908, Page 9

Cholera

' Advices from Manila,' says a cable message of last week, ' state that, owing to the prevalence of cholera, none of the men belonging to the American squadron were allowed ashore, and all the celebrations were consequently abandoned.' Later advices report a hundred deaths a day from cholera in Manila. When Artemus Ward espied a "rattle-snake looking put of -a hole, he reckoned that ' that hole belonged to that snaix * and ' sheered off r to the left. The American squadron displays equal wisdom in ' sheering off ' from a port that is held in the deadly grip of myriads of the comma bacillus. This microscopic parasite (if he is really responsible for Asiatic cholera) is one of the most energetic destroyers that has ever burrowed in the human system.

* 1 In his Dictionary of Staiisiics (cd. 1899, p. 195)' Mulhall marshals (in figures) the vast hosts rhat have been slain since 1832 by thi* almost invisible human pest. During the vititations of 1832, 1849, and 1865, some 148,000 souls were wrenched apart from their bodies by cholera in the United Kingdom. In the same years — with the epidemics of 1873 an <* '884 added — the cholera bacillus cut off 457,000 of the population of France. Germany had 351,000 of her people coffined by it, and Austria 1,118,000, in 1832, 1849, 1565, and 1873. Italy lost 27,300 persons through cholera in 1865 and 1884; Spain and Portugal, about 507,000 in 1854, 1865, and 1884; and the deaths in other countries in 1832, 1849, 1854, 1565, 1873, and, 1884 are set down at (approximately) 1, 7751000. The cholera scourge of 1848-9 is described by Mulhall as ' the worst plague that visited Europe since the Middle Ages.' From another authority we learn that the cholera epidemic of 1592 ' was specially severe in the previously famine-stricken districts of Russia, where it carried off 220,000 victims, and in Humburg, where, of 17,000 stricken, 10,901 died.' An epidemic is generally to be treated with respect — especially if its name is cholera. And the American squadron is well advised in avoiding a closer acquaintance than it must with His Microscopic Mightiness, the Comma Bacillus.

Like sundry other of the deadliest ills that flesh is' heir to, Asiatic cholera is a filth disease. It will- vanish in proportion as people are coaxed or driven jnto cleanliness. Unfortunately, cleanliness and order are not n.atters of instinct ; they are (as Disraeli once remarked) ' matters of education, and, like most great things — mathematics and classics — you must cultivate a taste for them. ' Cleanliness may (as the old proverb saith) promote godly-living ; it certainly promotes healthful living.