THE CHOLERA SCARE.

Evening Star, Issue 6711, 1 October 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE CHOLERA SCARE.

AN INTREPID JOURNALIST.

[From the 'Pall Mall Gazette.']

Mr Harold Frederic, the London correspondent of the 'New York Times,' returned a few days ago from Toulon and Marseilles, where he spent tke greater part of a week in making a tour of the cholera hospitals, the cemeterie?, etc,, and investigating, so far as time allowed, the causes of the epidemic now raging. He was kind enough to receive one of our representatives, who sends us the following account of his interview:— Mr Frederic looks none the worse for his plucky adventure, although he evidently neither spared himself nor bestowed much thought upon the risks that he ran. "I am surprised," he remarked, " that no English newspaper las thought it worth while to send a commissioner down to the infected cholera districts and make a thorough report. I was desired by my chief in New York to despatch a man at once and give them a long ' cable.' Men are not always to be found, especially for such an undertaking. I went myself, taking with me a conrier who could speak several languages. Besides, you know, in this case, although I never felt the least bit nervous, it was just as well to have company in case of need. In my hotel at Marseilles my courier and myself were the only two guests, although there was accommodation for a hundred or more in the great building. Signs that table d'hCtc was suspended were hung up everywhere in the house, but enough citizens whose families are out of town get their meals there to make it worth while to keep the kitchen running. But the prices—well, I didn't fall on my host's neck when I left. But he's right, after all. Including the journeys, the work took me a week, during which I worked like a horse, getting up early and going to bed late, eating well, drinking in nr.deration, and smoking a great deal. I smoke eight cigars a-day in my normal condition ; there I smoked ten. I abstained from fruit, though my courier—who declined laughingly always to be on dress parade—took some pears. It was not wise, but luckily he came to no harm."

EVERY-DAY LIFE IN MARSEILLES. "The fashionable streets of Marseilles give no sign that cholera is stalking in their midst. Une does notice a larger number of people in mourning; perhaps one does not see so many nurses and children; but; for the rest, Marseilles was in its usual state. Take the principal streets-the Canebiero and the Rue St. Ferr6ol. In one only nine, in the other only four shops were closed. The cafes are doing a good trade ; the bands play, the people amuse themselves and try to forget the cholera. The Prado, tbc fashionable drive and promenade of Marseilles, was as animated aa usual; as many equipages, as many people, as at any time. One does not miss the 75,000 who have fled, for nearly 300,000 remain. Business is at a standstill, though the banks and offices are open. The harbor is full of shipping, but there is no sound of cranes—none of the bustle of loading and unloaling. Every one is idle; the crews perhaps down below or some of them away drinking, or others sprawling about the docks in the shade lazily enjoying th9ir enforced holiday. In the cathedral I saw some 400 women praying, with never a man among them."

IN THE SLUJIS. " But go into the low quarters, then you will notice the difference. At least a third of the shops are shut—some because their owners have taken to their heels, and others have fallen victims to the plague, while some have found that it is immaterial whether their shops are open or shut. Among the worst quarters of Marseilles are the streets, wide and shadeless, on which the sun beats down with relentless fierceness, in the quartiers known as the Menpenti and Capelette, once, to judge from the houses, the residence of respectable people, but now the home of the scum and the filth of the city. The villainous-looking cafiJs are doing a good trade, for everyone drinks, not from thirst but from fear. The shops have a poverty-stricken air about them, Many of them are devoted to the sale of rags, and the sweepings of a city, bones, junk—a collection of pestilence-breeding filth. I put my head into more than one of these wretched hovels. What interiors they were ! There four or five Equalid wretches, sweltering in the close, ftutid atmosphere, would be squatting among all this pestilential garbage. Who can wonder that in these two quarters half the fatal cases have occurred ? Then, again, there is a quarter of which La Caisscrie is the artery, a nest of tenment houses, intersected by tortuous alleys and stench-laden courts, into which the day's garbage was faithfully emptied."

even in the main streets. Words cannot describe the exhalations; I leave them to your imagination. The harbor is landlocked by the mole which was built, so it is in as bad case as Marseilles nay, even worse, for the war ships and training ships which are always stationed there add their by no means small quota to the contributions of the water's filth. •

THROUGH THE HOSPITAL WARDS. "When the cholera broke out at Marseilles, the palace which was tail* for Napoleon 111., forfeited to the Republic, handed over to the Empress after some litigation, and returned by her to the authorities, was turned into an hospital. It commands a splendid view of the harbor, occupies a fine position, and the wards are spacious and commodious. The staff consists of two chiefs, four internes (who are not permitted to go beyond the gates), two chemists, ten sisters, and a number of servants. My guide was one of the internes —a young English doctor named Bossano, who bravely volunteered for the work for the sake of acquiring experience in his profession. The greatest number of patients in the hospital at one time was 110, but there were only eighty-four beds occupied on the day of my visit. The recoveries have averaged a third, the deaths two thirds, for the past month, but this excessive mortality is due to the fact that most of the patients are very ill indeed before they reach the hospital. Taken in a mass, much less than one-half those who are stricken by cholera die. As we passed from room to room I glanced at the poor creaturcß. Some were delirious, gabbling incessantly ; others lay still, with closed eyes, but conscious enough and apparently painless; the fa-.es of others, again, were distorted with agony. In one ward there lay twelve children. Near the door one of the nuns was nursing a child of eighteeu months old. 'lt has but a few hours to live,'said my guide. Close by three beds were occupied by three sisters of the babe, from six to eleven years old. ' They have but a few hours to live,' I heard my guide whisper again. Their father and mother went in one day. Children have but a slender" chance of recovery. The doctors took no special precautions. I was offered camphor, but followed the advice of an old sea captain, who said 'Chew tobacco.' I chewed tobacco going through the wards and in the coffinroom. Nino hours is the average length of the attack. The patient dies in an extremity of cold, After death the temperature of the body rises to l'iOdeg or 125deg. This excessive heat; causes the limbs to move as if the patient were alive. Iu about three hours the body gradually stiffens and becomes cold again. It is then buried in the trenches. I made many i nquiries, lufc the doctors keep their theories to themselves. Dr Koch, I heard, scarcely spoke a word during his visits. They said he kept his mouth ehut to keep out the microbes. When the patients are convalescent and fit to be discharged, they receivo the clothes which thoy brought with them, they are well fumigated, and the doctor tells them they are free."

TOULON AND ITS STREETS. " Now, Toulon is famous for epidemics of typhoid and smallpox, and the last epidemic of smallpox carried off many more victims than the present one of cholera. Ths normal death-rate is, so far as I remember, eighty in 1,000, or 8 per cent., with a population of about 70,000. In London the death-rate is, say, twenty-three in 1,000. To the outward eye Toulon is strikingly picturesque, with its shady streets overhung by soft maples, oleanders, and semi-tropical foliage. But its beauty is but a snare. The whole town is a death-trap. At least two-thirdß of the population have departed, In the Place d'Armes you meet but fifty people at noon, when in ordinary times tnei*e would be ten times as many. You stroll along the silent quays, which stretch along as far as from Charing Cross to Temple Bar, the sun beating down with intense heat; at least half the shops are closed, and the other half doing but little business. In four streets close to the station I did not see a single soul. Ordinarily some 12,000 marines are stationed at Toulon, besides sailors and regulars. Some of the troops are, I believe, camping outside the town, but the greater proportion of the forces remain, by the way, altogether twenty-nine of the vil'ages lying round Marseilles and Toulon have cholera in their midst, and in each of them there has been one or more deaths."

THE DRAINAGE OF TUB TWO TOW2CS. "The harbor of Marseilles is landlocked. The drainage deposits date from the time of Julius Ciesar. Can you wonder that an epidemic occasionally calls the fact to mind ? The Mediterranean is tideless, the water in the harbor never changes, and the result is a vast stagnant, stinking pool. I can call it nothing else. The great advantage that the town has over Toulon is in its bountiful supply of fresh water, brought from a distance of fifty-four miles, and discharged from a height of 480 ft. There are no open drains, and at present gutters are converted into torrents which run in volumes big enough to exhaust the Alps. But what of it ? The deposit finds its way into the harbor, and there it stops festering in the sun. On both sides of La Caisserie, at Marseilles, the water comes down in two streams, carrying past the doors of the housc-s an ever-accumulating collection of filth, which is dammed up at intervals of every few rods. In these streams the children love to dabble. Now, Toulon is infamous. It ließ as flat as a pancake; there is no water supply; the drains are opeD,

THE TOULON HOSriTALS. •'At Toulon there are two hospitals—the Bon Rencontre and St. Mandrier. I visited only the first of these, which contained thirty-four cases. At St. Mandrier some 115 cases were under treatment, but they were milder in form. The Bon Bfincontte was until April used as a boarding-school. During the holidays the epidemic broke out, and it was fitted up as a cholera hospital. The staff is made up of two chief medical officials, five doctors subordinate to them, four internes, a chemist, five sisters, eleven injirmiers, twelve servants, and some volunteers. One of these, by the way, is famous as having spent much of her life in the service of cholera hospitals, This is Mdme. Lalande Dorvan, who has campaigned against the cholera in Greece, Egypt, Italy, and now in France. I never met such mercurial fellows as four of the doctors who went round the wards with me—lively, chattering, laughing, cracking jokes, in spite of their grim surroundings. The poor cholera-stricken patients lying in their beds were always delighted to see them, and this display of vivacity and exuberance of spirits seemed to throw fresh life into their poor p*in-tortured frames. In the garden which I explored I saw them washing the infected clothes in a tank some 6ft wide, some 4ft deep, and 20ft long, having converted the school bath into a washing-tub. The little chapel attached to the school served as a coffin-room."

THE THRKE STAGES. "You feel a griping one morning. You tell your friend, if you have one. You are taken to the hospital and consigned to the 'observation room,' where you probably find others awaiting anxiously the doctor's diagnosis. After a mauvais quart d'heure you know your fate. It may be diarrhoea, or you may be in one of the trencheß by sunset. There are three stages. One goes in suffering from diarrhaa, gtipings, and vomitings. They administer twenty drops of laudanum, three cr four grammes of ether. If you still vomit they give bits of ice in the mouth, and ply you with cooling drinks—stage number one. Stage r.umber two: The extremities become cold, and colic rends the body to pieces. You receive ten to fifteen grammes of acetate ammoniac, ten to twenty grammes of a'cuhol; morphia is injected twice a day. Probably you cannot breathe. You inhale oxygen. That is the second stage. The third stage is the coliin. Nine hours in the average duration of the attack, but the ca!>es vary. One woman hovered between one stage and the other from July 16 to July 23, and died at last."

BDKYIXG THE DEAD. "As I drove through the poor streets to the cemetery in the dusk the pictures were most striking. At every corner a bonfire was sending up volumes of smoke, which floated slowly up the gloomy bywayß, Round the fires were gathered picturesque groups of brigand-like men, with fierce eyes and brawny chest 3, trying in vain to catch a breath of pure air. Thus every night the process of fumigation goes on. Burial goes on by day and by night. I elected to see the burial by night as being more picturesque and impressive. The burial - grounds in France are leased. If you die your friends lease sufficient ground for a grave, taking it for a term of years—it may be ten, twenty, or 100. When the lease falls in, the ground is leased to another customer, unless the contract is renewed for a fresh term of years. If not, your bones are dug up and put with any others into a common pit. It is curious but interesting. But that by the way. No one portion of the Marseilles cemetery is set aside for the poor. The authorities decreed that the walks should be used, so the grave diggers have made a series of trenches, 20ft long and Sft deep, each large enough to hold iive coffins. During the epidemic trenches have been excavated to hold 2,000 coffins. The night of my visit was very dark, and I shall never forget the effect of the avenues of graves, their positions indicated by the dimly-burning lanternß, the mournful look of the priest on duty as he passed me to do the last offices to the dead, and the sullen faces of the laborers who carried the coffins,"

Just now, when a ray of sunshine seems tcok in the full blast of its strength and to pierce the stormy cholera clouds and virulence. For that purpose is presented a everyone anxiously awaits the news that small cut pointing out the places and dates danger is over, it may be interesting to view where the cholera struck between June 26 the rapid strides which the dread scourge and July 19. This period is taken because

it was the time at which the panic was at its extreme intensity. Time had not then been sufficient to allow of remedial measures, which later on, in a qualified degree, provided for better safety and more complete methods of contending with the dread epidemic. Deaths were occurring at Marseilles at one time amounting to seventythree in one night, and proportionately in Toulon. Unprecedented want and misery had fallen on the residents, in addition to terror and illness. The shops were closing, and no less than 40,000 people had fled from Toulon in panic-Btricken crowdß. Marseilles was likewise depopulated, and flight was universal. Gloomy reports were con-1 tinually arriving. The mayor and deputymayor of Toulon had been stricken down by the Bcourge, and the death-roll was increasing with awful rapidity; every day almost announced the pest in some new spot. Such was the state of affairs between June 26 and July 19, and the above cut Bhows what strides the dread foe was making.—'New York Hera'd.'