218 
that is more likely to further such a hazardous and dan- 
gerous object. In vain did Dr. Thorne, one of the 
English delegates, urge at the Conference the iniquity 
and danger of this recommendation. The French dele- 
gates leading the majority turned a deaf ear to any 
reasonable suggestion; they seem to have learned no 
lesson from the misery that lazarettos, fumigations, and 
all other measures of land quarantine, without stopping 
the introduction and spread of cholera, have in the past 
inflicted on their country. 
If we ask ourselves, What new facts, what new experi- 
ences have in the last cholera epidemic in 1884 been 
gained in order to justify these recommendations of the 
majority of the Conference? we have to answer—None; and 
those that have become known point in the opposite 
direction. The recommendation as to five to ten days’ 
quarantine off Suez for ships coming direct from India 
seems to imply that the late outbreak of cholera in Egypt 
owed its origin to importation from India. This view has 
during 1883-84 been stated and re-stated by French 
writers with their usual self-confidence, but not a tittle of 
evidence has been brought forward to support it. More- 
over there exists a good deal of evidence showing that 
that outbreak, which, as is well known, commenced in 
IDamietta, owed its origin to importation from an altogether 
different direction—viz., overland by pilgrims from 
Mecca. As Prof. Lewis, another delegate from England, 
has urged at the Conference, no English ship coming 
from Indiahas ever been known to have imported cholera 
into Egypt and Europe ; and, considering the enormous 
number of vessels arriving from Indian ports in Egypt, 
the Mediterranean countries and Europe, it is certainly a 
very remarkable fact that importation, if it happened in 
this manner, should not be of common occurrence. 
The real danger from cholera for Egypt, Turkey, and 
Europe does not lie at Suez and the Suez Canal, but at 
Mecca and the countries about the Caspian Sea, this 
being the route in which cholera has hitherto travelled— 
viz., from Mecca, Mesopotamia, and Persia, into the Red 
Sea coast, Egypt, Syria, the Levant, Turkey, and Russia— 
and therefore these are the portals, if any, which the 
European Powers ought to guard. As England has 
urged in the past, and as it has also urged on this 
occasion, every country may, and has a right to protect 
itself as it thinks best. France and Spain may make their 
own maritime quarantine as rigorous, their land quarantine 
as vexatious as they choose; but that these countries 
should dictate measures to others, which past experience 
has proved to be fallacious and futile to achieve the end 
they aim at, is as iniquitous as it is against common sense. 
Cholera in Europe being dependent on importation 
from the East, it is quite clear that absolute prevention of 
such importation would theoretically be the best safe- 
guard ; but then the question arises, and itis one that has 
been repeatedly asked—viz., can this be practically 
achieved? To stop unconditionally every and all com- 
munication with an infected locality involves, apart from 
the great practical difficulties in carrying it out, such 
enormous hardships, material loss and misery, that the 
remedy would entail greater misfortunes than the evil it 
tries to cure, even granting, for the sake of argument, that 
it is capable of so doing. 
NATURE 
[Fuly 9, 1885 
subject of quarantine has fully and clearly stated the case, 
and their perusal would have materially enlightened many 
of the members of the late Conference. They would also 
find in those writings what they might have found already in 
the protocols of the former conferences (in Constantinople 
and Vienna), viz. that one of the chzef and first duties of 
the State in order to prevent and check the spread of 
cholera is a proper attention to general sanitation. Make 
your military cordons as strict as you please, stop and 
impede all traffic by sea and land as much as you like, 
fumigate your railway travellers and mails as carefully 
and rigorously as possible, you will not hereby succeed in 
stopping all communication with an infected country. 
On the other hand, give up all those silly and harassing 
limitations, but keep a good look-out for infected ships 
coming to any of your ports, detain the infected persons 
in a_specially-fitted hospital, disinfect the ship and 
articles, but allow the rest of the passengers and crew to 
depart, keeping their names and addresses, and notify 
their arrival to the sanitary authorities of the place they 
are bound to. Further than this, see that your dwellings, 
your water and air are in sanitary respects looked after, 
and that filth is properly disposed of, and you will hereby 
have done what is compatible with all past and present 
experience in order to chec’s the entrance and dissemina- 
tion of cholera. It is admitted on all hands that general 
insanitary conditions of dwellings, water, and air are the 
most powerful allies of cholera ; without them, cholera is 
as unable to spread as typhoid fever. 
The principles just mentioned are practically those on 
which the sanitary authorities in this country have been 
acting in the past, and on which they are acting in the 
present. The danger to this country from importation of 
cholera from Spain is greater than perhaps to any other, 
seeing the vast maritime communications existing between 
this country and the east and south coast of Spain ; but 
there can be little doubt that, if cholera should unfortun- 
ately be imported, it can never assume those gigantic 
proportions that it has assumed in France, Italy, and that 
it is now assuming in Spain. 
If one reads of the unspeakably filthy conditions pre- 
vailing in Spain, and reads at the same time of the silly 
and arbitrary proceedings of the authorities in carrying 
out quarantine, one is reminded of the General who, in 
trying to keep out a powerful enemy is putting up on the 
frontier a few dummy soldiers and toy guns, but who has 
omitted to provide the interior of the country with a rea] 
army and guns. The result is, of course, clear: the 
enemy cannot be prevented from entering, and, having 
entered, cannot be kept from overrunning and devastating 
the country. 
A NATURALIST’S WANDERINGS IN THE 
EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO 
A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, 
a Narrative of Travel and Exploration from 1878 to 
1883. By Henry O. Forbes, F.R.G.S. With numerous 
Illustrations. (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 
Searle, and Rivington, 1885.) 
R. FORBES’ Wanderings in the far East extended 
+ over about four and a half years, during which 
Prof. von Pettenkofer in his various writings on the | time he visited the Keeling Islands, Java, Sumatra, 
CO ———— 
