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both are so readily multiplied that every care to prevent their increase is the 

 first duty of man to himself and his fellow-men ; to the cattle over which he 

 has dominion, and a no less duty of government to its subjects. It is more im- 

 portant to determine the means by which the atom of disease is brought into 

 the body, than to dispute about the names by which they should be called. For 

 having a certain knowledge of these agencies, we can know how best to destroy 

 them. In speaking of them we will separate the diseases, and notice — 



1. Cliolera. — Whatever may be the character of the germ of these diseases, 

 whether a poison simply, or in the nature of an ovum or ^^^, from "o^iich, cell- 

 like, it rapidly multiplies itself, we know from facts that there are agencies by 

 which this germ is conveyed into the healthy body. The following statements 

 in regard to the propagation of cholera we take from the London Social Science 

 Review, edited by Benjamin "W. Richardson, M. D. : 



" There seem to be three distinct modes by which the cholera poison enters 

 the human body. In the first place, the poisonous cells may be disseminated 

 on articles of clothing in the dried form, and may thus be conveyed loug dis- 

 tances without losing their peculiar properties. Carried in this manner, some 

 person who undertakes the cleansing of these articles becomes exposed to the 

 poison as it emanates in the dried and gi-anular form from the infected material. 

 The poison is thus lodged in the nostrils or mouth, mixes with the secretions 

 there, is swallowed, enters the alimentry canal, finds there the situation for rapid 

 gi'owth, robs the blood of its watery parts for its own support, and gives rise to 

 the disease." 



" A second mode by which the poison travels is by direct conveyance of the 

 poison thrown off by the sick to the bodies of the healthy, from uucleanliuess on 

 the part of attendants, the poison adhering to the vessels used by the patient, 

 or to the hands of the attendants, and being thus conveyed. We ourselves knew 

 an instance where a wife was clearly poisoned with cholera by drinking from 

 a basin into which her husband, who was suffering from cholera, had vomited, 

 the basin having only been rinsed with cold water. The symptoms in this case 

 were as clearly traceable to the swallowing of the poison as though it had been 

 arsenic or antimony." 



" We add to the above remarks the fact that an assistant in the cholera hos- 

 pital at Berlin produced cholera in himself by tasting the excretse of a cholera 

 patient, and that the symptoms were induced within six hours." 



" In the course of great epidemics, these two methods of taking cholera are 

 by no means uncommon; and, indeed, the propagation of cholera from country 

 to country as frequently takes place by means of infected clothing as by direct 

 personal intercourse ; at the same time the progress of the disease would be very 

 slow if it depended on these methods alone. The great means by which cholera 

 poison is propagated to communities at large is by the water supplied for the 

 domestic wants of such communities. A cholera patient is imported into a 

 country; he is yielding the poison, and eliminating it freely. From him it is 

 conveyed to the sewer, and through the sewer to the well, or it may be direct 

 into the river that supplied every household with water. Thus the poison is 

 disseminated at large, each new case adding to the mischief, and at last a univer- 

 sal and decimating plague prevails until it can find no more victims on which to 

 disport itself For the discovery of the fact of the communication of cholera by 

 water, the world is indebted to one of the most illustrious men of our time — the 

 late Dr. John Snow." 



"The proof of the communication by the means stated was afforded by Dr. 

 Snow in various ways. Thus, in 1854, he showed that of 286 fatal attacks of 



