25 Ibid., p. 408. For other examples of the spread of cholera by means of drinking-water see Macnamara, p. 149 and seq.
It has already been intimated that the cholera poison may be diffused through the air from either moist or dry sources, and especially from contaminated clothing, and then be taken into the throat and swallowed. Dr. Richardson refers to a local epidemic in England in which "the persons most constantly and fatally attacked were the women who washed the clothes of the sick;" and this circumstance has been largely confirmed by other observers.26 In a village not far from Marseilles, and in an isolated place, a peasant and his wife who had not left the country sickened and died of the disease. The woman, who was a laundress, had received a bundle of linen belonging to a person recently arrived from Egypt, and the husband opened the bundle and unfolded the pieces. During the Crimean War many of the washermen attending to the washing of the French hospitals were attacked by cholera. In the post-office at Marseilles none of the clerks who handled the outgoing mails were attacked, but of those who sorted the mails coming from the East, where the disease prevailed, one after another suffered from cholera.27
26 Trans. Epidem. Soc., ii. 429.
27 Read, Boston, 1866.
The cholera was introduced into Guadaloupe by clothing contained in a trunk belonging to a person who died on the voyage thither from Marseilles, where the cholera then prevailed. The woman who washed the clothing died, with all her family. Attracted by the circumstances of the case, many came to her house, and of these several died. From this point the disease spread over the island.28 A sailor died at some port in Europe of Asiatic cholera in 1832. A chest containing his personal effects, clothing, etc. was sent home to his family, who lived in a small straggling village on the Atlantic coast of the State of Maine. It reached them about Christmas, and was opened on its arrival. The inmates of the house were all immediately and suddenly seized with a disease resembling Asiatic cholera in all its malignity, and died. There had been no cholera in the State. The last case of cholera that occurred in the garrison at Malta in the epidemic of 1865 was that of a woman who had stolen a chemise the property of one who had died of the disease. She put on this fatal garment, probably soiled with cholera discharges, and certainly unwashed, many days after the death of its former possessor; she took the disease and died.29
28 Med. Times and Gaz., April, 1874, p. 387.
29 Lancet, Feb. 17, 1866.
It is sometimes said, and oftentimes repeated, that cholera is not directly contagious—is not communicated by the sick to the well. No statement could be more unfounded. The whole history of cholera proves that the physicians and nurses of cholera patients are often affected by the disease. "In Constantinople no less than twenty-seven physicians and medical assistants were attacked and died during their attendance on cholera patients; and in Paris and Toulon similar results followed. At Halifax, N.S., two of the physicians who volunteered in aid of the steamer England, which put in there disabled by the ravages of cholera among the officers and crew, as well as among the steerage passengers, took the disease, and one died" (Read). In 1832 the cases of cholera in Edinburgh were in the proportion of 1 to every 1200 of the population of the city, while among those in attendance upon the sick the proportion was 1 to 5. In 1848-49 one-fourth of the nurses employed in the cholera hospital took the disease, while in the general hospital, only a few paces distant, where no cholera patients were received, not a single attendant was attacked. In the London Hospital, in 1866, none of the medical officers, volunteer nurses, or sisters were attacked. Of the (regular) nurses five contracted the disease, and of these four died.30 In 1849 a severe and fatal epidemic broke out in the Philadelphia Almshouse. The resident physicians of the hospital were abundantly occupied with the care of the sick of other diseases, and it was thought prudent not to allow any, even an indirect, communication between them and the cholera patients. The latter were therefore removed to an isolated building in the middle of the quadrangle, and attended by physicians from the city who had volunteered their aid. Three or four of these physicians had attacks of cholera, and two of them died.31 At this time there was no cholera at all in the city, and the young physicians could not have become infected outside of the almshouse. They were attacked while attending the sick of cholera, but the regular house-physicians, who seldom visited the cholera patients, escaped altogether.
30 London Hosp. Rep., iii. 439.
31 Philada. Med. Examiner, Nov., 1849.