Saprewsen is proverbially the unhealth-jest and most trying month of the year in Shanghai. The weather is nearly always enpricious and ancertai Close, muggy heat alternates with sudden whifis of chill air; a powerfal sun "makes white clothes sheer necessity, while constant and unexpected changes in the temperature render their ase a dangerous and insidious Inxury. It is not wonderfal that there should be a more than usual amount of illness among both foreigners and Chinese, and the present season is by no means an exception to the general rule, It would be a mistake, however, to take too gloomy a view of the recent appearance in our midst of what is, and always has been, a disease endemic to Shanghai. That there Lave been a few cases of cholera, and cholera of a very malignant type, is not to be denied. But anything like a scare' about it would be entirely uncalled-for. In the Girst place, the disease has only shown itself among persons whose habits and surroundings are such as to Iny them peculiarly open to whatever fection there may be floating in the air. Secondly, a large proportion of the few cases of so-called cholera that have occurred were not cholera at all, some having been pernicious malarious fever and others nervous depression. Thirdly, cholera in one form or another appears every year in Shanghai, among the natives and lower-class foreign population, and there is no greater danger that it will sprend now than there was in former seasons. According to the theory uow generally accepted among scientific meu, the disease is produced from germs, or seeds, which are conveyed into the system by the medium of certain conductors; and it would appear that its outbreak in the autumn is more or less analogous to the yearly ripening of harvests, the same season bringing to maturity the seeds of cholera as well as the seeds of corn, The principal conductors of these cholera-seeds, or germs, are three: air, water, and milk, As regards the necessity of preserving the parity of air at a Ligh standeed, it is not incumbent on us to say much, Some ver valuable suggestions have been laid before the Municipal Council in yenrs past by Dr. Henderson, the Health Officer, among which he recommended the mixture of disinfecting fluid with the water used in watering the streets, and the tige rons examination of the back premises of our houses, occupied by native servants, As regards water, the only method by which perfect safety may be ensured is to enforce its being thoroughly well boiled before brought to table or used in any way for cookery. This simple regulation is not carried out as it should be; and even those who do insist upon it are by no means careful to see that the water in which salads are washed has been subjected to the same important process. The very salads themselves are probably brought fresh from fields manured in the well-known Chinese method, and it would be prudent to abstain from indulgence in this class of diet altogether as long as any suspicion of risk remains. Milk, again, as we have already observed, is only too good a conductor of cholera-germs; and here the insidiousness is greater still. There is reason to suppose that no small amount of milk purveyed by some of the local Chinese dairies has been "toned-up" with water taken from the nearest creek, Indeed it is hardly necessary that such easily-detected adulteration as this should have been practised, for disease to be communicated. An imperfectly-washed bucket will produce the same results. Some years ago, there were -two men in hospital at Shanghai, suffering from different diseases, but both living on a milk diet exclusively. Soon they both developed choleraic symptoms and for some time it seemed impossible to trace the cause, the milk having been purveyed by a dairyman to whose carefulness the doctors themselves bore witness, It was eventually discovered that the fault lay in the bottles, which had contained impure water and had nob been properly rinsed. It is therefore of the greatest importance that attention should be paid to th purity and freshness of everything we eat or drink, Uncooked fruit and vegetables, for instance, are proverbially to be avoided; @ fortiori, any food which shows the slightest signs of staleness. Nor should water be too recklessly indulged in. We would even go so far us to suggest that, if there be any officer in the hierarchy of Good Templarism analogous to a Pope, Superior, Grand Muster or Dictator-General, ho should at once issue a dispensation to the members of the order, temporarily absolving them, on hygienic grounds, from their vow to confine themselves exclusively to water, Wo believe it is most advisable, under present circumstances, that all should take a certain amount of wine, or even spirit, for their stomachs' sake, and rheic possible future infirmities, We are led to offer these remarks to ensure as far as may be the adoption of every possible precaution by our readers and the public generally, and also to draw attention to the fet that, given scrupulous observance of all the points we have referred to, there is no ground whatever for alarm. Cholera endemic disease in this part of his none of us can help. Bat there is no reason why it should become epidemic. On the contrary, everything points to an opposite con clusion, There has been a distinct improvement in the public health, with regard to the disease in question, during the last twenty years. The last considerable outbreak of cholera took place in 1864, A slight epidemic occurred in 1865, nnd a still more limited one in 1867. In the former year, there were twenty-two admissions at the General Hospital, and thirteen deaths; in the latter, fifteen admissions, of which eleven terminated fatally. Since then, there has been no epidemic of any kind, though isolated cases of what is known as simple English cholera are still of occasional occurrence.
A fresh, cool, dry temperature will soon purge the settlement of any tendency there may be to choleraic
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.