SANITATION AND CHOLERA IN SPAIN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9206, 7 October 1891, Page 4

SANITATION AND CHOLERA IN SPAIN.

The Lancet says : — " The town and province of Valencia, has won an uuenvinhlp notoriety throughout the world. It is cole- • brated as the seat of the most severe of recent cholera outbreaks. What, we should like to know, has been done to prevent the. cholera returning to the town? Unlike many Continental towns, Valencia drains direct into sewers. There are hardly any cesspools. The lewers, in gome instances, date back to the time of the Moorish ocou- 1 pation. There are great underground passages some 16 feet broad, and in sevetal instances the fall is only equal to three in 1,000. Of course it is impossible to efficiently flush such sewers ; water, in ' a hot, dry climate is not plentiful. Even the newest sewers have been built on the old, bad principle, and are not self-cleansing. Some soil pipes are trapped. Have they all now been put in order ? During the cholera ' epidemio houses and apartments were allowed to be inhabited though many of the bedrooms had no light, no windows, no air except what they borrowed from other rooms. It wan in these unventilated rooms that by far the larger proportion of cases of cholera broke out. Have these rooms been closed and declared unfit for habitation by the authorities? In many houses the closets were situated in dark cupboards, having no windows or ventilators leading to tbs outside. Do such closets still' exist? In other houses, even in some of the very best houses, the closet was placed in the middle of the kitchen, right away from the window, ventilating, therefore, into' the very place where the food of the family was cooked atyd prepared. Has all triis beert ' altered ? A Bureau of Hygiene was appointed to watqh over the health of the town ; what has this Bureau done? This is a question, we urge, ire have every right to put, because it is a matter of international concern. The groli neglect of the most elementary sanitaiy laws has rendered cholera possible, h^s helped its development to such an extent as to not merely bring disaster upon Spain, but to jeopardise the interests and security of many other States.