Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1892 — THE SCOURGE ARRIVES [ARTICLE]

THE SCOURGE ARRIVES

AN INCOMING STEAMER REPORTS MANY DEATHS. The Officer* 'of the Moravia Declare the Disease to Be Cholerine—Health Inspectors Order the Vessel to Be Rigidly Quarantined. Died on the Way. New York special: The scourge has reached New York. Quarantine officials discovered that the steamship Moravia, from Hamburg, had a great deal of sickness on board and that twenty-two persons had died on the trip over. The ship’s physicians told the health officers that some of thq passongers on the ship were suffering from cholerine, but that it was not genuine Asiatic cholera. An immediate inspection of the passengers was made, and as a result the vessel was ordered to the lower bay. Thirteen of the persons who died on the way over were Polanders. Twenty of them were children. All the dead were buried at sea on the days that they died. As soon as the discovery was made that so many persons had died and that there was a great deal of sickness on board the quarantine offioers refused to permit a person to leave the ship, ordered it to weigh anchor and proceed to the island selected for cholera patients. It was discovered by the officers who made the examination of the steerage passengers that there were three cases of measles on board. The health officials refused to permit anyone to board the vessel or allow anyone to leave. The news of the discovery was brought to quarantine station by the health boat. They Call It “Cholerine.” Dr. Jenkins, the Health Officer, received the report of the officials who boarded the vessel, and gave orders to isolate the steamer completely. He said that from the casual investigation made he thought the disease was, as stated by the ship’s surgeon, cholerine, but that the persons who had died came from the infected provinces of Germany and Russia. As far as he had been informed there was little sickness on the vessel. When she dropped anchor at quarantine he had not time to make a thorough examination of the cause of the deaths and sickness on board, but will do so this afternoon. Some of the passengers on board of the Moravia did not know of the existence of the disease on board. Ship’s Officers Suppressed the Ndws. It is said that when the health officers first boarded the Moravia the ship’s officers told them that there was no sickness onjboard other than the measles, and exhibited a clean bill of health from the health officers at Hamburg. The ship’s officers appeared reticent, and the presence of cholerine or Asiatic cnolera, as it might turn out to be, was not discovered until the officers had nearly completed their examination.