CHOLERA  AND  ITS  PREVENTION. 
437 
more  active  then  ;  but  even  the  coldest  weather  is  not  a  com- 
plete check  to  its  growth  and  advancement. 
And  the  premonitions  to  which  we  have  already  adverted,  that 
have  been  occurring  in  many  parts  of  our  own  and  in  other 
countries  during  the  past  six  months,  all  go  to  demonstrate  that 
the  disease  has  not  yet  been  "  stamped  out,"  and  is  liable  to 
recur  on  the  slightest  provocation.  We  may  therefore  safely 
assume  that  we  are  liable  to  a  return  of  the  disease  this  summer 
and  fall,  both  by  importation  and  domestic  origin,  for  neither 
our  great  cities  nor  the  country  at  large  can  be  said  to  be  in  a 
condition  less  favorable  to  its  prevalence  than  heretofore,  and  we 
know  with  what  virulence  it  has  broken  out  at  various  points 
throughout  the  country  within  the  past  year. 
It  becomes,  therefore,  the  solemn  duty  of  every  individual, 
especially  those  on  whom  rest  the  responsibility  fof  the  sanitary 
condition  of  dwellings,  hotels,  schools,  factories,  workshops, 
prisons,  hospitals,  ships  and  other  vessels,  and  all  places  where 
crowds  of  people  assemble,  to  see  to  the  adoption  of  measures 
best  calculated  to  prevent  another  visitation  of  cholera  or  of  any 
other  malady  that  may  be  brought  on  or  increased  by  the  foul 
emanations  in  filthy  and  crowded  localities. 
In  the  Reporter  for  June  15th,  we  called  attention  to  the  pro- 
gress made  of  late  years  in  the  control  of  cholera  and  other  dis- 
eases. Prominent  among  the  means  employed  for  this  purpose, 
we  mentioned  the  use  of  disinfectants,  and  quoted  from  a  letter 
of  Dr.  Elisha  Harris  to  the  President  of  the  Metropolitan  Board 
of  Health,  in  which  he  spoke  of  their  great  importance,  and 
mentioned  some  of  the  most  prominent  disinfectants  hitherto  in 
use.  We  shall  also  soon  give  a  classified  list  of  these,  with 
directions  for  their  proper  application.  The  difficulty  with  these 
disinfectants,  however,  is  their  costliness.  This  has  prevented 
their  coming  into  common  me.  To  be  practically  useful  to  the 
people,  a  disinfectant  should  be  cheap  as  well  as  good.  A  labor- 
ing man  should  be  able  to  go  to  a  drug  or  grocery  store  and,  for 
a  few  pennies,  buy  a  pound  of  disinfectant  that  will  neutralize 
foul  emanations,  and  not  merely  substitute  one  bad  smell  for 
another. 
We  have  heretofore,  on  two  or  three  occasions,  called  atten- 
