28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



of Craponne. In the " Gazette Medicale de Lyon " for 1854, page 252, 

 we read from a letter by Dr. Gensoul : " In the month of July, 1854, 

 two fugitives, a man and his wife, from cholera, alighted from Mar- 

 seilles at the Milanese court. They had hardly arrived before they 

 were attacked by cholera, the germs of which they had brought with 

 them, and both died on July 17th. Some days later the washers of 

 the Gasthof Bouchard in Craponne, a village about twelve kilometres 

 from Lyons, came to fetch the linen for the wash. The soiled clothes 

 and linen of the cases of cholera were given out in a separate bundle, 

 placed in a separate part of the cart, and finally given to a washer- 

 woman to clean. The washer-woman was struck down by a rapidly 

 fatal cholera, and the washer's daughter shared the same fate. No 

 other cases of cholera existed in the district on which the blame could 

 be thrown. Such a choice of victims needs no comment." The 

 cholera was not limited to the two cases. J. Garin (" Gazette Medi- 

 cale," p. 309) says that eight cases of death followed in Craponne, and 

 among them the washer's wife. From the statistics of Dr. Garin it is 

 gathered that the disease attacked almost exclusively the washing- 

 folk and their children. The population of Craponne numbers about 

 1,600 inhabitants, several families of which have charge of the wash- 

 ing for the hotels of Lyons. As a later report of Dr. Bouchet showed, 

 there were besides twenty-five other cases of cholera, with fifteen re- 

 coveries and ten deaths, which occurred in the course of two months. 

 The year 1854 was that in which the lower-lying parts of Lyons were 

 invaded by an epidemic. It remains a striking fact that in the fair- 

 sized village of Craponne cholera attacked almost exclusively the 

 laundry -workers. With the exception of the washers, Craponne might 

 be regarded as a place free from cholera. In 1855 severe epidemics 

 prevailed in villages near Lyons e. g., St. Bonnet and St. Laurent de 

 Mure though the outlying districts always enjoyed immunity from 

 cholera. The same held good of other exempt districts. A very in- 

 structive example of this kind is furnished by Stuttgart in 1854, wbich 

 is usually exempt from cholera. At the time when the severe epi- 

 demic prevailed at Munich an inhabitant of Stuttgart left Munich while 

 he was suffering from diarrhoea, and arrived at Stuttgart, where he 

 became worse and died of cholera. A few days later a case occurred 

 in the person of a woman who had never left Stuttgart. She was the 

 nurse of the case which had come from Munich. This case might be 

 quoted as one of direct contagion. Again, after some days, a third 

 case appeared, and this time it was the washer-woman who had cleaned 

 the clothes of the first case. Finally, the washer-woman's husband suf- 

 fered from cholerine. But no further cases appeared. Such cases are 

 always wrongly interpreted by the contagionists as examples of direct 

 infection, and such, at first sight, appears to be the case. If the case 

 from Munich had infected the three at Stuttgart, how was it that none 

 of the three infected other individuals ? For it must be remembered 



