Harper's Weekly, April 7, 1866, p. 211.

PREVENTION OF CHOLERA.

In his admirable lectures Dr. Southwoord Smith tells us that epidemics all belong to the class of Fevers. The Black Death, the Oriental Plague, the Sweating Sickness, Cholera, Typhus, SmallPox, and many other diseases of less selrity are epidemic end periodical in their, character, and are usually preceded by Infiuen.za. The first outbreak of declare in Great Britain was heralded by it, and the influenza of 3847 announced the cholera of 1848. During the prevalence of cholera all other diseases are apt to partake of its type, owing doubtless in a great measure to the terror which pervades a community at such times, and we find that the reaction of the mental impressions on the body are so powerful as frequently to result in the death of the nilfortunate unless his attention can be diverted from himself.

Cholera, like all other epidemics, is fearfullv rapid in its action, and if death does not occur in a

few hours the patient will usually recover. The great object to be attained in the treatment of the disease when it has announced its presence is to gain time. The sufferer should go to bed of once and send for his physician, for every moment is of value, and proper assistance in the first onslaught of the attack will often decide between life and death in the ultimate result.

Whatever opinions physicians may hold regarding the contagious character of various epidemics, all agree that certain conditions are alike favorable to their development and rapid progress as wall as to their fatality. Filthy streets, dirty sewers, exhalations from putrid animal end vegetable substances, are all powerful predisposing causes of the production not only of cholera, but also of typhus and all other diseases of this fever class.

The influence of the foul sir voided from the human body is also exceedingly pernicious to the system, especially in overcrowded, ill-ventilated rooms and buildings; but so great is the infatuation of the majority of men regarding the subject of ventilation that, in spite of the evidence of the nostrils, it is often asserted that there is no difference to be found between pure and foul air; whereas the experiments of Dr. Angus Smith show that if we condense the air of an overcrowded room and allow it to remain for a week or so it forms a glutinous deposit that possesses a strong animal odor, and if examined from time to time by a microscope this deposit shows the appearance of vegetable growths in which hosts of animalcules are rapidly produced, thins demonstrating in the most satisfactory manner the presence of a large amount of organic matter in the air expired from the lungs.

The poisonous character of the organic matter contained in such expired air, and in that exhaled from the skin, is demonstrated by the seine same authority in the statement that a few drops of the liquid matter obtained by the condensation of the foul air of an overcrowded room introduced into the veins of a dog produces death, with the usual phenomena of typhus fever.

In the face of such facts it is folly longer to disregard the important subject of ventilation if we desire to escape the epidemic that now threatens us, an attack of which is now regarded as being even disreputable to the patient, since it involves a gross ignorance of the ordinary laws of hygiene, and a disregard of cleanliness in the personal or household arrangements.

It is of course impossible in an article to indicate the means which families and individuals should employ to protect themselves as far as possible from the invasion of this disease, and since the old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure applies with marvelous force to the cholera, it is the duty of all to observe with care the laws of hygiene as laid down in this works on this subject. An excellent summary of them will he found in a book on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene, recently published by Professor DRAPER, in which the questions of diet, ventilation, bathing, etc., are fully discussed and brought within the reach of all intelligent minds.