1885.] on Cholera : its Cause and Prevention. 293 



in a lodging-house in Quebec* wliicli had received a number of these 

 emigrants, destroyed fifty-six lives, and in the next fortnight spread 

 everywhere in the town, it is impossible to doubt that these persons 

 brought with them to their new home the seeds of cholera. The 

 history of the invasion of Montreal, which occurred about simulta- 

 neously, was but a repetition of the experience of Quebec. During 

 the autumn of 1832 and the year following, cholera ascended the 

 St. Lawrence to Chicago, and thence found its way to the Upper 

 Mississippi, where it very seriously interfered with the military 

 operations against the Indians. In 1833 it appeared in Cuba, whence 

 it spread later in the same year to Mobile, New Orleans, Tampico, 

 and other ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually to Mexico and 

 Vera Cruz. Epidemics continued to occur in the Spanish-speaking 

 countries of the New World until 1834-35, in the former of which 

 years Spain itself was for the first time invaded. The great epi- 

 demics of Madrid and Barcelona were followed by a general exten- 

 sion along the Mediterranean coast — Cette, Marseilles, Toulon, Nice, 

 Genoa, and Naples being attacked in the order in which they have 

 been mentioned. As there was an interval between the Mediterranean 

 spread and the great wave which had alffected England in 1832, it 

 seemed as if the disease, which was communicated to the New World 

 from the Old, had been returned back to it from the West Indies. 

 Whether this was so or not is scarcely wortli inquiry. It w^ould be 

 much more interesting if we could explain how it was that the Medi- 

 terranean, which was in 1832 exposed to every conceivable chance of 

 infection, was not invaded until 1834 ; and why, having seized upon 

 such ports as Marseilles and Genoa, it showed no tendency to travel 

 northwards to the country it had previously invaded. Let me add 

 that cholera did not leave Euroj)e until 1837, after which the Western 

 World was free from it for a decade. 



Cholera reached the Caspian for the third time in April 1847, its 

 arrival being the outcome of a general spread of the disease in Persia 

 and Central Asia. It soon found its way into the interior of Russia and 

 broke out for the second time in Moscow, two months after it had 

 appeared, almost simultaneously, at Astrachan and Constantinople. 

 By the winter of 1847-8 it was at Riga, and spread, during the 

 following summer, just as it had done before, along the Baltic coast, 

 reaching Hamburg in September. 



The conveyance of cholera into England, and from England to 

 America, was but a repetition of what had happened in 1832 ; and 

 the same sort of evidence existed at New Orleans and at New York, 

 in which j)laces the epidemic began simultaneously (December 1848) 

 of importation by emigrants. From 1847 Western Europe was again 

 free from cholera for six years, notwithstanding that it was always 

 present somewhere in the East. 1853 was a cholera year : it was 

 marked by a fearful epidemic in St. Petersburg, which again spread 



* Dr. Peters, he. cit. p. 564. 



