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HOW CHOLERA IS SPREAD.


DR. JOHN C. PETERS, of this city, in a recent contribution to the
_Medical Record_, gives the following interesting particulars:

I have read many brilliant essays of late on these topics, but not with
unalloyed pleasure, for I believe that many writers have fallen into
errors which it is important to correct. No really well informed person
has believed for a long time that carbolic alcohol will destroy the
cholera poison; but many fully and correctly believe that real germicides
will. It has been known since 1872 that microbes, bacilli, and bacteria
could live in very strong solutions of carbolic alcohol, and that the
dilute mineral acids, tannin, chloride, corrosive sublimate, and others
would kill them.

In 1883 cholera did not arise alone in Egypt from filth, but from
importation. It did not commence at Alexandria, but at Damietta, which is
the nearest Nile port to Port Said, which is the outlet of the Suez
Canal. There were 37,500 deaths from cholera in the Bombay Presidency in
1883. Bombay merchants came both to Port Said and Damietta to attend a
great fair there, to which at least 15,000 people congregated, in
addition to the 35,000 inhabitants. The barbers who shave and prepare the
dead are the first registrars of vital statistics in many Egyptian towns,