Asiatic cholera : history up to July 15, 1892, causes and treatment / by N.C. Macnamara.

  • Macnamara, Nottidge Charles, 1832-1918.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Asiatic cholera : history up to July 15, 1892, causes and treatment / by N.C. Macnamara. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    iSTortli-Western Provinces of India and tlie Punjab. The effect of cold in arresting the progress of epidemic cholera is still more marked during the continuance of a Euro23ean winter ; when spring returns the disease reappears, becoming most vigorous in summer. As an example, we may refer to the disappearance of cholera after being introduced into E'ew York during the winter of 1848; and of its spread at the same time of the year from New Orleans during hot damp weather. Cholera has, how- ever, sometimes extended its ravages in the winter, as was the case among the troops of the Eussian Army in Poland in 1830-31, but we must take into account the high temperature at which many of the houses in Eussia are maintained during their long winter. We are, therefore, in a position to affirm that Asiatic cholera is endemic among the inhabitants of Lower Bengal, but that it does not extend from its endemic area by means of the wind, in other words it is not carried by the wind from Lower Bengal over India. When introduced by human beings suffering from the disease into a locality, no kind or condition of soil can pre- vent it from spreading among the inhabitants of the place. 'No race of men are exempt from attacks of cholera ; those living at 7,000 feet above the level of the sea may suffer equally from the disease as persons dwelling on or below the sea level. But ]3eople existing under bad sanitary conditions are more Kable to suffer from cholera than those who live in healthy localities. The influence which imp>erfect sanitary conditions have on the dissemination of cholera is twofold; in the first place, people dwelling in these conditions are less capable than their more robust brethren of resisting the development of a micro-organism like that of the cholera bacillus, when it enters their stomachs mixed with water or food. Beyond this, there is every reason to believe that the cholera bacillus is dangerous, not only according to the dose received into the stomach, but also in proportion to the favourable or unfavourable conditions under which it has been developed. The cholera bacillus, I repeat, is a delicate organism; its vigour depends on the medium in which it is sown, and upon the temperature in which this medium is placed, upon the free access of oxygen, and, I believe, of Light. Moisture is essential to its development, and probably certain salts of lime as well as organic matter. If the bacillus is sown, as Mr. Watson Cheyne has observed, in a particular locality, what happens ? It is deposited in the soil, in the water, &c., and, according to the conditions in which the bacillus finds itself, it grows or it does not grow. If it is deposited in a place where the sanitary conditions are good (in other words, where the con- ditions are adverse to its growth), it either dies out or it grows