The pestilence was not only carried north from New Orleans but also south to plantations in Louisiana, in the majority of which cases the conveyance of the infection could be distinctly traced. In January, 1849, it was carried to Mobile, with only 149 deaths, as that city generally escapes lightly, owing, it is said, to the pure drinking water with which the city is supplied.

It was also taken to Texas from New Orleans by the 8th United States Infantry. General Worth died of it at San Antonio on May 7. It was diffused through Texas by the movements of troops and emigrants and carried into Mexico by refugees from Texas. The Mexicans had a lively recollection of the cholera of 1833, and most of them fled.

The emigration to the gold fields was so great that New Orleans was fed with constant arrivals from Europe, and again sent cholera up the Mississippi and beyond in 1850 and 1851. Eight or ten cholera-laden steamboats arrived at St. Louis and aroused the disease afresh, and seventeen of her physicians died. On April 20th the Illinois and Michigan canal was opened to Chicago, and on the 29th the John Drew arrived from St. Louis with passengers and emigrants directly from New Orleans, followed by 314 deaths. On April 21st the Sacramento arrived at St. Joseph, Missouri, with a large number of California emigrants, and then the Mary with over 50 deaths. These emigrants carried the disease over the river Platte route and finally brought it to Sacramento, in October, 1850, at almost the same time that it reached San Francisco by the steamship Caroline, from Panama, to which it had been brought also by steamships from New York. The Platte Indians contracted the disease, and committed daily murders on the unoffending whites whom they supposed had secretly poisoned them. By July, 1849, it commenced to arrive at Buffalo, Chicago, and the west from New York.

Louisville, Kentucky, as usual, escaped with slight outbreaks; for it seems, like Lyons in France and Wurtzburg in Germany and Mobile in this country, a city of refuge from the disease, although it occasionally has severe, but circumscribed outbreaks. In July, August and September, 1849, there were only five deaths in New Orleans, but on Oct. 15 the Cromwell from Havre arrived with 204 steerage passengers, of which twelve had died of cholera. She was ordered to the opposite side of the river and her passengers were forwarded to St. Louis the next day. On Oct. 15 the steamboat General Lane and others brought it down the river. Oct. 23 the Berlin from Liverpool arrived with 206 Scotch and English emigrants, with 40 deaths, and her passengers were also at once sent up the river. Of course during November cholera prevailed to an alarming extent, and on the 26th the Gypsy from Liverpool, where the disease prevailed, arrived with 322 emigrants and 19 deaths. On the 27th came the Fingal, with 322 passengers and 37 deaths. Hence the disease lasted over till 1850 in New Orleans. Then the Falcon arrived from Panama, Chagres and Havana with 25 deaths, the disease being epidemic in all these places. The pestilence did not extend east of the Alleghany mountains. Prior to May, 1850, St. Louis had 953 deaths; Cincinnati had 1,400; Sandusky lost 18 per cent of her population. Whole parties of miners and emigrants were decimated on the great western plains.

From New Orleans it was also carried back to Cuba and the Isthmus of Panama. And thus the pestilence went to and fro as travel predominated. No East, West, North or South was exempt from it. San Francisco only lost 250; Sacramento suffered far more heavily, for out of 8,090 inhabitants, 4,000 fled, and of the remainder 1,000 died.

In 1848 there were no less than 1,616 deaths from cholera in New Orleans; in 1849, 3,176; in 1850, 1,448; in 1851, 430; in 1852, 1,320; in 1853, 585; none in 1854; 883 in 1855; 43 in 1856; 24 in 1857; 26 in 1858; 27 in 1859; 30 in 1860; 12 in 1861; none in 1862; 4 in 1863; 5 in 1864; 9 in 1865; 1,294 in 1866.

CHOLERA IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, 1848-1853.

This city was the most interesting and important receiving and distributing point of cholera in 1849 and the subsequent years. Its full history has been written only quite lately by Dr. Robert Moore, C. E. We have seen that cholera was brought to New Orleans early and late in December, 1848. During the last week of this month several steamboats came to St. Louis from New Orleans with the disease on board. The first was the Amaranth, Dec. 28th, with 30 cases. On Jan. 2, 1849, the steamboats Aleck, with 36 cases, the Scott and St. Paul with 26 cases, arrived; on Jan. 7th the Gen. Jessup with many cases and six deaths. All these boats brought many infected emigrants, who with all their infected baggage were landed and scattered through the city without the slightest delay or hinderance; hence on the 9th several cases were reported, which were said to be sporadic, and caused by cabbage. The pestilence was now fairly planted, and for the next four years was never wholly absent from St. Louis. In Jan. 1849, there were 36 deaths; in February only 21; in March, 78; in April, 126. On April 12 the steamboat Iowa came from New Orleans with 451 Mormon deck passengers, and 9 deaths from cholera, and in the first week in May there were 78 deaths. St. Louis now became alarmed and used chloride of lime in the back yards and dirty places. On May 9th there were 24 new cases, and the steamboat America arrived_with 22 deaths on board, and by May 14th there were 26 deaths in St. Louis per day. On the night of May 17th the great fire occurred which burnt 26 steamboats and many blocks of buildings, but the pestilence was only slightly checked thereby, there being 20 deaths a day for several weeks after, but on June 9th there were 37, and in the week ending June 17th, 402 deaths, or 57 per day. On June 17 the Sultana came with nearly 400 more immigrants, 25 deaths, and 6 bodies on board. For the week ending June 24 there were 601 deaths, or 86 per day. On the 25th a mass meeting was held, and the mayor, common council and health officers deposed, and ward committees of public health appointed with absolute powers. Block inspectors were selected for each block of houses, and some of the best and wealthiest citizens served upon them without pay. All disobedience of orders was punished by fines of $500 or less and imprisonment. School-houses were seized for hospitals, and district physicians appointed. The city was thoroughly cleansed and the streets and yards by the block inspectors. Coal, sulphur and tar were burnt in every street, and a day of fasting and prayer ordained. But the committee of safety continued to work without regard to the day of fasting, and determined to fast from cholera and not from food or work, and took that day to establish a quarantine and stop all infected boats, which they did; and also kept the fires going and the sulphur and tar smoke, which filled the whole city. spite of all this, on July 10th the deaths reached 184, but then the pestilence rapidly declined, and on July 31st there were only three deaths from cholera. The committee had only spent $16,000 out of an appropriation of $50,000, so generous and earnest were the citizens. The total mortality was 4,555.

St. Louis depended entirely upon surface wells for drinking water, and had numberless outdoor privy pits, which contaminated them. If tar or carbolic acid could have been thrown into the worst wells, and the privies could have been thoroughly disinfected with sulphuric acid, the epidemic would have soon been over. Burning tar, sulphur and coal to purify the air, when the disease was in the wells and privies, would be amusing at the present day, if it had not been done lately in Toulon and Marseilles.

During the next year, 1850, there were deaths from cholera in every month, the total being 883, of which 458 occurred in July. In 1851, there were 845 deaths, of which 505 happened in June. February, October and December were the only months exempt. In 1852 there were deaths again in every month; the total for the year being 802. During

these four years no less than 6,847 persons had died of cholera in St. Louis.

In 1853 the pestilence was wholly absent for the first time since 1848; but in 1854 it appeared again with renewed vigor, and killed 1,534 persons. Then it died out till 1866.

The great dispute has always been how the cholera came from Havre in 1848 to New York and New Orleans, while Havre gave clean bills of health. It was common then for German emigrants to go from Hamburg and Bremen to Havre to ship for the United States, and it is possible that there was no cholera at Havre except among them, which was not counted. It broke out in Paris in March, 1849, which is about the time it takes to come from Havre. It always prevails slightly for several weeks or months until the cases can no longer be concealed from their numbers. By the end of June, 1849, Paris had had 33,274 cases and 15,667 deaths, when it gradually declined and ceased altogether in October. It reached Marseilles from Paris in August, and soon after Toulon, from whence it was carried east to Nice, Genoa, Leghorn and Naples, just as it had been in 1834. It killed 53,293 persons in England in 1849; and out of 119 places, in no less than 73 it was distinctly traced to new arrivals. In others it was impossible to trace its importation, as all the diarrhoeal cases were overlooked, and soiled clothing was not thought of.

CHAPTER VI.

CHOLERA IN INDIA, ASIA, EUROPE, AND THE UNITED STATES, FROM 1848 TO 1854.

WHILE cholera was progressing and staying in Europe and the United States it was again coming up from India. In 1847 Hindostan was comparatively free. In 1848 there was a great deal, especially at Juggernaut. In 1849 it had progressed to the northwest provinces, and also over to Bombay, although rain fell at the rate of 13 inches a day and a southwest monsoon was blowing at an average pressure of 3 to 5 lbs. per square foot and pushing along at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour against the advancing cholera.

It was very prevalent in 1850. Thus there were only 69 deaths in Bombay in 1848; 2,269 in 1849, 4,729 in 1850; 4,020 in 1851; 1,555 in 1852, and 1,339 in 1853. In 1851 it got out from Bombay into the Persian Gulf, arrived at Bassorah June 10th, committing great ravages, and went up the river Tigris to Bagdad by Sept. 18th, killing 1,847 persons in fifty days and then disappearing Nov. 17. This epidemic was connected with the great Persian pilgrimages to Kerbela, and Meschid Hossein and Meschid Ali, just below Bagdad.

From W. A. Shephard's book, "From Bombay to Bassorah," we learn that the latter city has many pilgrim boats which are always crowded with the living and dead, going up to Kerbela and the two Meschids. The living cargoes of men, women and children are huddled together like pigs, from 100 to 150 being crowded into a space of 40 feet by 20, with 25 or more dead bodies piled about, which is rather close packing in the warm months. As these pilgrim boats went to windward, the scent was anything but pleasant, and it was difficult to say whether the living or dead were most disagreeably fragrant. Then the Arabs, living along the shores, not only stop the boats and rob the living, but also seize the dead bodies and hold them in pawn until the ransom set upon them is paid by the sorrowing relatives, who believe that the souls of their defunct friends will never reach Paradise unless their bodies are buried at the tomb of Hossein and Ali, or at Kerbela.

Dr. Boutolette says, in 1849 to 1850 there passed near Kerbela no less than 52,053 pilgrims with 64,138 beasts of burden, 4,504 muleteers and 2,837 loads of human corpses, which with three to a load made no less than 5,674 dead human bodies going to Kerbela, or Nedjed, near Bagdad.

From Bagdad cholera passed up the old route to Tabreez, killing 12,000 people, and up between the Black and Caspian seas to southern Russia, and from thence to northern Europe, Denmark, Norway, and in 1853 to numerous towns in north Prussia and Holland, and soon was in London and Newcastle.

In short, in 1851, 1852 and 1853, cholera again was brought to Europe, especially Russia, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Sweden, Norway, England, etc. From July to December, 1853, London had 1,265 cases; Liverpool and Manchester were severely attacked; Copenhagen had 7,200 cases; France had 125,725 deaths in fourteen months. Spain and Italy were also involved; Genoa had 5,318 cases; Sardinia 45,000, Naples 12,600, Messina 20,000. Munich had a long epidemic lasting from July through the whole winter to the next April, with 4,800 cases.

It is also a matter of doubt if the United States was entirely free from 1848 to 1854. Chicago had 630 deaths in 1852. It also persisted in St. Louis and various other places. Early in 1854 no less than 28 infected vessels sailed for the United States from England, Holland, France, Hamburg and Bremen with 1,141 deaths on their voyages; but it was not in New York, or even at the Staten Island quarantine that the disease first showed itself. The initial New York case dates June 14th, 1854. It is well known that cholera ships arrived in New Orleans in the last months of 1853 and early in 1854; but no epidemic arose till May, when 200 died in one week. It remained until its records were lost in those of the yellow fever of that year. It was at Memphis, from New Orleans, by June 3d, at Nashville, June 20. But long before this, it had been sent up from New Orleans directly to St. Louis. In December, 1853, there were a few But in January and February, 1854, when crowds of emigrants began to pour into the city, the epidemic commenced and persisted during the year, being most severe in April and June, and St. Louis again suffered more heavily than any city in the United States, losing 3,547 The emigrants from New Orleans were again loaded at once on river steamboats without stopping in the city, and thus the pestilence went up to the head waters of the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers. In April it commenced in Chicago and lasted through November, with 1,404 deaths. On May 19th it was at Detroit, either from St. Louis, Chicago or New York, or all three. In June it was at Ann Arbor, Michigan, with two cases from Chicago and two from New York.

cases.

cases.

Dr. Alonzo Clark puts more blame than this upon New York, and perhaps justly. Cholera ships arrived there in November, and forwarded almost all their passengers west, and he thinks they carried the disease in their baggage. On May 16th the North America came from Liverpool with 768 passengers and 17 deaths; and 120 more were attacked at the Staten Island quarantine with 70 deaths. Then came the Progress, from Liverpool, May 18, with 715 passengers and 44 deaths. Next the Charles Crocker with 414 emigrants, June 3d, and 36 deaths.

As before stated, the first death reported in 1854 in New York city was June 14th, and as early as June 2 it was at Buffalo, most probably from New Orleans and St. Louis. July 18 it was at the Suspension Bridge, Niagara Falls. By June 17 it was sent from New York to Philadelphia. Canada also competed with New York and New Orleans. The Glenmanna came to Quebec, from Liverpool, June 15, after having thrown forty-five dead of cholera overboard. It soon became epidemic.

The Niagara Falls outbreak is very interesting. The disease was at Buffalo and Detroit, west of Niagara, first; whether from New Orleans and St. Louis or from New York or Canada no one knows. From Buffalo it was sent to Niagara Falls, where the Suspension Bridge was being built and many laborers were encamped on low marshy ground, with the usual carelessness about privy pits and still more recklessness about water sup