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EPIDEMIC DISEASES, SANITARY CONTROL OF. 



mittee of the House of Commons, which con- 

 demned them both. The report of the commit- 

 tee precludes the construction of any tunnel un- 

 til other ideas control the minds of the military 

 authorities. The Duke of Cambridge, command- 

 er-in-chief, thought that the company should 

 first of all be required to deposit in the treasury 

 a sum sufficient to construct a first-class for- 

 tress and maintain a garrison of 10,000 men. 

 The absolutely necessary military precautions 

 demanded by him and General Wolseley, and 

 indorsed by the committee, were that the tun- 

 nel's mouth should be beyond range from the 

 sea, commanded by the guns of such a fortress, 

 and provided with a portcullis. There should 

 be arrangements at command from within the 

 fort, and at different points outside, for filling 

 the tunnel with asphyxiating gases, for tem- 

 porarily flooding it by means of sluices, for 

 closing the entrance with mines on the land, 

 and for permanently flooding it by mines above 

 the roof, opening communication with the 

 bottom of the sea. Even these precautions 

 would not satisfy the nervous warriors of Eng- 

 land, who dread that the tunnel and its defenses 

 might still be captured intact by a conquering 

 army invading England by sea, and perma- 

 nently held by the victors. 



EPIDEMIC DISEASES, SANITARY CONTROL 

 OF. The sanitary control of epidemic disease 

 in the United States, or, rather, its attempted 

 control, is of so recent origin that at the pres- 

 ent day but little other than the results of lim- 

 ited experience which has been gained in the 

 last few years can be recorded, leaving to the 

 future the final collation of the accumulated 

 evidence, and the settlement of the points in- 

 volved. Enough has been learned, however, 

 by that experience, and by the experience of 

 foreign nations, to justify the assertion that 

 the diseases now classed as epidemic may be 

 placed under control. We say epidemic dis- 

 eases, but, properly speaking, we should rather 

 say that such diseases are of a specific nature, 

 liable to be spread by certain material influ- 

 ences. There is at this time no reason for 

 going into the discussion of the contagious or 

 non-contagious nature of a class of diseases 

 known to invade certain localities at certain 

 seasons of the year, and to affect large num- 

 bers of the human family; for modern re- 

 searches into the causation and origin of the 

 class mentioned have proved beyond a doubt 

 that they are produced by a certain germ or 

 seed, capable, under favorable circumstances, 

 of self-prdpagation, and communicable by cer- 

 tain recognized agents. Among these agents, 

 air, drinking-water, and food, in the order 

 named, are believed to be the principal infec- 

 tion-carriers. Researches of Pasteur, Koch, 

 and others, have placed the germ or seed the- 

 ory beyond dispute ; and, although some doubt 

 has been expressed as to the demonstration of 

 the particular bacillus of each specific disease, 

 yet their existence, and the general agreement 

 among sanitarians as to the essential correct- 



ness of the theory, that epidemics are con- 

 secutive and not synchronous, is, we think, 

 established. There are five specific diseases 

 which have prevailed at different periods in 

 the history of mankind, about which the ques- 

 tion of transmission is pretty clearly estab- 

 lished. These are the Oriental plague, cholera, 

 measles, small-pox, and yellow fever. There 

 are certain other specific diseases, highly infec- 

 tious in their nature, which, although rarely 

 taking on the form of general epidemics, are 

 yet transmissible by some one of the vehicles 

 mentioned. These are typhoid fever, diphthe- 

 ria, and scarlet fever. It is common to speak 

 of all the affections above enumerated as pre- 

 ventable diseases, although it is best not to 

 accept that term in its literal sense ; for, while 

 it is true that they may be prevented from be- 

 coming epidemic by means hereafter to be 

 mentioned, yet it is doubtful if the germ can 

 be swept from the face of the earth, except by 

 a more united effort than has heretofore been 

 made, or is likely to be made in the near fu- 

 ture. It is, perhaps, scarcely in place to men- 

 tion the diseases of animals belonging to this 

 class, in this paragraph ; but the experiments 

 of Pasteur in regard to the prevention of chick- 

 en-cholera and silk-worm disease, and that of 

 the veterinarians of this country in the preven- 

 tion of pleuro-pneumonia and glanders, are 

 directly corroborative of the prevailing theory 

 regarding diseases peculiar to the human race. 

 "Without dwelling further on this phase of the 

 question, we pass directly to the consideration 

 of the essential characteristics of one of the 

 diseases named. The plague is a contagious 

 specific fever, attended with an eruption of 

 carbuncles, and swelling of the inguinal and 

 other glands of the body. Hecker, who has 

 written an extensive work on this disease, as- 

 sumes that Europe alone has lost no less than 

 twenty-five millions of its inhabitants in the 

 various epidemics of the plague that have oc- 

 curred. He says: "In regard to the nature 

 of the contagion, every spot which the sick had 

 touched, their breath, their clothes, spread 

 the contagion ; and, as in all other places, the 

 attendants and friends, who were either blind 

 to their danger or heroically despised it, fell a 

 sacrifice to their sympathy. The pestilential 

 breath of the sick who expectorated blood 

 caused a terrible contagion far and near ; for 

 even the vicinity of those who had fallen ill of 

 the plague was certain death, so that parents 

 abandoned their infected children, and all the 

 ties of kindred were dissolved." 



" The contagion of the plague appears to 

 have frequently been conveyed by drinking 

 water from the very inefficiently protected 

 wells ; hence there arose a cry that the wells 

 were poisoned, and suspicion fell upon the 

 Jews, who were almost everywhere racked and 

 tortured, burned and massacred." 



Dr. Russel states that " in the most destruc- 

 tive forms the vital forces appear to be suddenly 

 annihilated by a most intense and malignant 



