ge id 
rT 
NOTES ON RECENT CHOLERA EPIDEMIC IN GERMANY. 325 
odd medical men, who during the height of this Hamburg calamity 
attended to patients day and night, wading as it were, in the very 
essence of the infectious poison, only one took ill with the charac- 
teristic symptoms. 
The terror, with which whole communities are often stricken, 
if a case of cholera appears in their midst, is not justified to a great 
extent. Should the disease ever make its appearance in Australia, 
which I trust it will not, there is no need for panic and flight. If 
we say with Cromwell: ‘“‘ Trust in Providence and keep your 
powder dry,” in other words, if we do not lose our heads we will 
not lose our lives; if we rationally guard against an infection, 
the infection will not come to us individually. It must always 
be borne in mind that the cholera can only be eaten or drank. 
The infection can be acquired by way of the mouth only; but 
even if this should happen, there is no need for despair. It has 
been proved beyond doubt, that the Comma bacillus will die a 
natural death in any stomach with a healthy digestion. Only 
if it should pass the stomach in an undigested state, it will multiply 
and make itself unpleasant in the intestines. We learn therefore 
that diet and cleanliness are the two principal and simple weapons 
with which this enemy can be kept effectively ata distance. But 
this point has probably been well discussed privately and publicly. 
To one circumstance, which may not be generally known, I wish 
to draw attention, that is the danger which flies may inflict by 
carrying the cholera virus about. This may give us a clue to the 
cause of the sudden appearance of the disease in divers parts of a 
town. Dr. Simmonds, Prosector of the ‘‘Old General Hospital ” 
at Hamburg, in one of his experiments, put nine flies on the freshly 
dissected intestines of a late cholera patient, and then isolated each 
fly, first into empty tubes, and after thirty minutes into tubes 
half filled with a soft gelatine mass. After the lapse of forty-eight 
hours it was proved that in six out of the nine gelatine prepara- 
tions countless numbers of colonies of the Cholera bacilli had been 
bred ; in the seventh tube one thousand colonies; in the eighth 
tube thirty-two colonies; and in the ninth again numbers too 
numerous to be counted. 
