THE CATTLE DISEASE AND CHOLERA.

Colonist, Volume IX, Issue 877, 27 March 1866, Page 3

THE CATTLE DISEASE AND CHOLERA.

SANITARY CONDITION OF SYDNEY,

The following Letter, from Mr. J. E. Skin, ncr, Armedale, has. been published in the Sydney Morning Herald: — Those who have attentively followed the ac ciiunlH of tlie development of these diseases in Great Britain and on ihe Continent, will have found that choleia has heen invariably pieeeded by a dis"Hse called " rinderpest " amongst cattle, which is of a deadly infectious and con'agious character, and has swept away thousands of herds hi England. Tlit-disease comes from the East, and ?o does cholera. Both are disseminated, according to recent hypotheses, by infinitesimal molecules, or microscropic cells, imperceptible lo the senses, laden with concentrated essence of poison floating in the air, and it niriy be also in the water. The clioleia sweeps over a wide raiue, and may take llie circuit of the globe. There are no physical causes to prevent its appearing: in Australia. Is the cattle disease which we call " pleuropneumonia" thoroughly understood, and may it not he in some instances similar in character to that which is now devastating Europe? In New England an epidemical disease has been prevalent amongst the people, said by some medical men to be propagated by the present low state of the water in the wells, not altogether unlike a species of cholera. The same thing may have occurred in other parts of the colony where I here has been an unprecedented amount ofsickness. Has the attention of the colonists ever reverted to the possibility of a visitation of that mys'erious and terrible disease which has hitherto b.-.ffled all medical science? And in Sydney parfieulaily, whaU provision has been made lor the possible calamity ? Personal and social cleanliness is the principal preventive, of contagious diseases. What is the san taiy condition of Sydney? What its system of di(linage? Li-t one instance among mmiy answer the questions." In the heat of the city, on the Ultimo Estate, close to the Glebe, there is an open drain oi black ' stagnant foe id water composed of the sewage of thi-ciiy, mid there is a foot biidge sarcastically yclept " Bergamot B. i(!i>e,''over which hundreds of people puss daily, and immediately conu'mious ! tv >t there is a thick clus er Of houses, and the i effluvia conveyed on the pestilence-laden air is well j kuownfn thiisewliii iiave passed (lie spot at any time of the day or night If cholera or ai y other pested'Htial disease should visit our shores, woe betide the inhabiian s of Sydney. litre is a hot-bed ready for breaking and propogaiiny; miasma and disease, and waiting pestilence and death all over the city. I am no alarmist, but there is some force in those homily tmisms " to be forewarned is to be foreaimed," —"prevention is better than cure.' Let the medical faculty anil the Town Corporation of Sydney look in to the matter if they think it worih while.