FOUL FISH AND FILTH FEVERS. 313 



On September 14, at Mansfield, Notts, the wife of a fishmonger named Coleman 

 died within twenty-four hours, of cholera. 



In spite of the weather becoming suddenly much cooler, on September 22, 1893, at 

 Newcastle, in its poor and crowded district of Byker, a fishhawker, Thurgate (or 

 Stringate), died of Asiatic cholera, which he had previously fatally communicated to 

 his friend and neighbor Platten. 



The cockles and mussels in and about Grimsby and Cleethorpes are stated to be 

 more or less sewage-fed, from the filth of the great fish-trade center. 



Of all food trades the fishing populations are the most slovenly and dirty m their 

 habits, overcrowded in their dwellings, and therefore more prone to endemic as well 

 as epidemic affections; for, though apart from the manner in which inoculation occurs, 

 cholera, jail fever, virulent smallpox, typhoid, typhus, diphtheria, leprosy, and the 

 " plague," etc., have been always associated with poverty and avoidable filth, of course 

 unwholesome food and dirty surroundings diminish our resistance to these infectious 

 diseases, against which a healthier, stronger condition, obtainable by superior san- 

 itary social surroundings and good food, becomes immune or free. 



When light is thrown upon the present state of Grimsby and Hull, fishing ports 

 of great importance, we find that their sanitation is very imperfect, that the fish trade 

 has remained in its old-fashioned unhygienic ways, and that poverty has increased 

 owing to the recent strikes. No wonder that these ports should form an apt nidus for 

 disease. And, digressing for the moment, let me point out that in ports like Hull and 

 Grimsby not only should we be exercised in preventing the entry of a contagium rirum 

 from a foreign infected port, but by internal sanitation, dealing with our food-refuse, 

 secreta, etc., we should prevent the origin of sporadic diseases. 



Taking for granted that specific bacteria have been latent or dormant, u sporadic" 

 disease suggests that local filth and other local causes are alone sufficient to produce 

 and originate disease, apparently without any direct infection by infected persons or 

 by infected imported clothing, rags, etc. Unless this view be accepted there appears. 

 to be no reasonable or rational explanation of sporadic disease, as of course in these 

 Darwinian days of evolution no sensible person believes in " spontaneous " generation. 



It is probable that the cholera bacteria may have been introduced last year or 

 years ago into Grimsby or Hull, where the germs remained dormant till increasing- 

 filth and poverty, augmented by the recent local strikes, caused the cholera bacteria 

 to infect some of the people at these seaports. 



Whilst in strong, robust health, Pettenkoffer experimentally swallowed a lot of 

 cholera bacteria, which practically caused him no inconvenience. Had he then been 

 in ill-health this dose of cholera bacteria would probably have killed him. 



No one can tell, therefore, that last year or years ago the inhabitants of these 

 places and of other unsanitary fishing towns have not had mild attacks of cholera. 



Tetanus, or "lock-jaw," essentially a dirt disease, is always with us, yet the tetanus 

 microbe can only thrive in the absence of air, a circumstance which, one would think, 

 would tend to have long since caused the extinction of tetanus. 



Especially in the United Kingdom, practically all our leading fishing districts are 

 more or less "health" resorts; thus, for all intents and purposes, Brighton is a rail- 

 way suburb of London. It is therefore evident that the healthy condition of our 

 seaports immediately concerns the inhabitants of our inland towns and districts. 



