Cholera epidemics in East Africa. An account of the several diffusions of the disease in that country from 1821 till 1872, with an outline of the geography, ethnography, and trade connections of the regions through which the epidemics passed / By James Christie.
- Christie, James
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Cholera epidemics in East Africa. An account of the several diffusions of the disease in that country from 1821 till 1872, with an outline of the geography, ethnography, and trade connections of the regions through which the epidemics passed / By James Christie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![XIV.] MR. SIMON'S MEMORANDUM. hand it was by no means intended, as the limiting word 'almost' shows, by those who supported the resolutions to deny the possible, nor the probable, existence of a longer period of incubation in some cases, nor that dangers might, though rarely, arise therefrom. The concluding scientific question, regarding disinfect- ants, is not illustrated by any occurrence during the prevalence of the East African epidemics. Mr. Simon, in a Memorandum issued from the Medical Department of the Privy Council Office in 1871, writes as follows on the same subject •}— Happily for mankind, cholera is so little contagious, in the sense in which small-pox and scarlatina are commonly called contagious, that, if reasonable care be taken where it is present, there is scarcely any risk that the disease will spread to persons who nurse and otherwise closely attend upon the sick. But cholera has a certain peculiar infective- ness of its own, which, when local conditions assist, can operate with terrible force, and at considerable distances from the sick. It is characteristic of cholera, not only of the disease in its developed and alarming form, but equally of the slightest diarrhoea which the epidemic influence can cause, that all matters which the patient discharges from his stomach and bowels are infective, and that, if they be left without disinfection after they are discharged, their infectiveness during some days gradually grows stronger and stronger. Probably, under ordinary circumstances, the patient has no power of infecting other persons except by means of these discharges : nor any power of infecting even by them, except in so far as particles of them are enabled to taint the food, water, or air, which people con- sume. Thus, when a case of cholera is imported into any place, the disease is not likely to spread, unless in propor- 1 Precaution against the Infection of Cholera, by Mr. Simon, Medical Department of the Privy Council Office, August 10, 1871. I I 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21353700_0517.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
