630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cholera found their way into a jug of drinking-water, and the mixture 

 was exposed to the heat of the sun for the day. Early the next morn- 

 ing a small quantity of this water was drunk by nineteen individuals. 

 Nothing was noticed, either in the appearance or taste of the water, by 

 those who had partaken of it. All remained well during the first day. 

 On the following morning one man was seized with cholera as he 

 awoke ; the others remained well till the second day had passed, when 

 two more cases of cholera occurred, and the day after that two other 

 cases were observed. The rest of the party remained well till sunset 

 of the third day, when again two were seized with illness. These were 

 the last cases, and the other fourteen persons continued to enjoy im- 

 munity from diarrhcea, cholera, or any disturbance of health." This 

 case is, etiologically, not worth much. Where was the original case 

 from which the infection was supposed to have come ? Was it not 

 possible for the nineteen persons to be brought under the same cir- 

 cumstances as those under which the original case had become affected ? 

 Were the nineteen in a place which was as a rule free from cholera, 

 and could they only be affected through the drinking-water ? Several 

 cases in India are known to me where guests at a banquet having 

 drunk no water were yet the victims of cholera. For instance, at a 

 baptismal feast which a sergeant gave, a gallon and a half (six litres 

 and three quai'ters) of rum was supplied. Twelve persons, including 

 the man and his wife, sat down to the banquet, and on the following 

 evening the whole of the group, except the baby which still lives in 

 Calcutta, were in their graves. At this feast there was no question 

 of a mixture of anything with the stools of cholera. 



When I ask myself how it is that men usually astute can place such 

 implicit reliance on the drinking-water theory, which entails such am- 

 biguity and contradiction, I can only think of two reasons. Partly, 

 no doubt, there exists the belief that on general hygienic grounds no 

 stone should be left unturned in order to procure a good supply of 

 water where it had previously been bad, and thus the fear of death 

 and the devil proves stronger than the love of truth and God. Again, 

 the drinking-water doctrine appears to many to be the lesser evil as 

 compared with the threatening local and periodical predisposition, 

 which implies a more mysterious and less definable conception. They 

 imagine that the (to them) uncomfortable facts of time and place may 

 be explained on the drinking-water doctrine. The places where the 

 cholera excreta can contaminate the drinking-water have a local dis- 

 position, and the times at which even cholera prevails, and excreta may 

 contaminate springs and water-courses, have to do with periodical dis- 

 positions, and thus they escape from explaining the subtile influences 

 of soil and ground-water. But any one who thoroughly investigates 

 the local and periodical factors in epidemics of cholera must reject 

 such an explanation. A study of the tables previously given from 

 Brauser places great obstacles in the way of accepting these doctrines. 



