Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1892 — TO KEEP CHOLERA OUT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TO KEEP CHOLERA OUT.

HOW NEW YORK RESISTED THB PLAGUE. Methods of Quarantine Employed at the Culef Seaport of Dletributlon of Persons Arriving on Inleoted Ships—Hoffman and Swlnbnrne Islands. Fighting Death. New York Correspondence: Hamburg, Antwerp, and Havre were three cities from ’which America had most to fear during the late cholera scare. AU three are famous seaport towns, Hamburg the greatest in Germany and the fourth in importance in the world. It is yearly visited by more than 9,000 vessels, and steamship and packet lines send the wares of its merchants to all parts of the globe. Its capacious and picturesque harbor is always crowded with shipping. Hamburg lies on the lower Elbe and has a population of 360,000. It was long a member of the Hanseatic league, and a free city until it became an integral part of the German empire four or five years ago. Since 1870 the bulk of the

foreign commerce of Germany has passed through Hamburg, audits growth and prosperity have in many ways been phenomenal. The improvement of her docks and harbors has been conducted on a princely scale and are subjects of pride to every Hamburger, but in the matter of an effective health organization, good drainage, a wholesome water supply, and a clean population Hamburg is centuries behind the times, and has

paled a heavy and deadly price for its thoughtlessness and shortcomings. New York receives 90 per cent, of the European immigration to the United States, and the greater part of this mighty stream comes through Hamburg. The immigrants who sail from Hamburg are in the main Germans and Russians and Polish Jews. Cholera has been present in Russia for two years past, and the famine that has prevailed there during that time has only served to

strengthen its foothold. In August a number of Russian Jews, driven from home by the relentless persecutions of the Czar’s government, arrived at Hamburg to take passage for America. They brought tfce cholera with them, and were Isolated in a camp above the olty and on the banks of the Elbe. The drainage of the oamo emptied into the Elbe, from which Hamburg draws its water supply, and before the people of the endangered city knew even of its presence the cholera was epidemic among them. Hup-.pared to Bsatot It. The coming of the plague found the municipal authorities of Hamburg wholly unprepared to stay Its progress. There were, says a correspondent, no hospitals, no medical service, no ambulances, no nurses, no dead houses, no facilities for burying the dead, and the grisly and repellant scenes since enacted there beggar description. In six weeks fully 15,000 people fell victims to the plague in Hamburg. Of this number nearly half died. Froju Hamburg the cholera spread to Antwerp, Havre, Paris, Bremen, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Rotterdam and gained a firm foothold in each of the cities named, but Antwerp and Havre are the ones which, after Hamburg, presented the gravest menace to the welfare of the United States. Antand in Its harbor are alwaystoto found vessels !rom every country on the globe. Its streets, however, are nar-

row and dirty, its system of drainage, If it can with truth be called a system, Is wholly defective, and the city is burdened with a vast pauper population, who live In loathsome squalor and filth on the banks of the Biver Shelde. The

immigrants who sail from Antwerp for America, and they number many thousands yearly, are brought in close contact with this element, among which cholera gains easy access.

Havre, after Marseilles, the greatest seaport of France, is far better prepared than Hamburg and Antwerp to do successful battle with the cholera. The city stretches over a broad territory; its streets pre wide and clean, there is no crowding*of its population into cramped and unwholesome quarters, and its sanitary condition is almost perfect. Havre is in every sense a modern city and one of the cleanest in the world. The cholera was kept well in hand by the medical authorities at Havre. The most serious menace which this city presents to America lies in the fact that it is the seaport of Paris, and that travelers coming from Paris to this country must pass through Havre, and also that the greater part of Havre’s immense trade is with American ports. Cholera in the Harbor. Wednesday, Aug. 31, 1892, the cholera entered New York harbor and knocked loudly for admission. It came by the steamer Moravia of the Hamburg Line, twenty-two of whose steerage passengers died of the plague en route. The coming of the cholera was not unexpected, and it found the health officers of Now York and port fully prepared to cope with its advance. Health Officer Jenkins at once ordered the Moravia to lower quarantine, the President issued a proclamation declaring that all ships sailing from infected ports should be kept in quarantine for twenty days after their arrival in any port in this country, and the New York Board of Health issued rules for the prevention of the cholera. The Moravia was followed in quick succession by the Normannla, the Kugia, the Scandia, and the Bohemia from Hamburg, and the Wyoming from Liverpool, all of which brought the plague with them, and it was seen that only an aggressive and unflagging campaign could prevent the disease from gaining a firm foothold here. Preparations ior such a campaign were at once begun. These pi eparations present de-

tails that are full of interest. When a European steamer arrives at lower quarantine it is Once boarded by the health

officer or one of his assistants, who has been apprised of its coming by ths watchman at Fire Island light, and every one from the captain down is care-

fully inspected and compelled to show a clean bill of health. Each steerage passenger is critically examined and his or her temperature taken. The State of New York owns two islands in the lower bay, Hoffman and Swinburne, which are used for quarantine purposes. If suspicious symptonjs are developed the patients showing them are at once taken to Hoffman Island, named after the late Gov. Hoffman, covers several acres, and can accommodate about 900 people. It contains several germ-proof disinfecting dormltorities, operated by the suiphui and steam system, and with these the baggage and clothing of infected imimigrants are thoroughly disinfected. The cargo of the steamer by which they arrive is also fumigated with great care. Suspected Immigrants, as soon as they reach Hoffman Island, are carefully washed and scrubbed, and supplied with fresh clothing. The water in which they bathe is disinfected before it is discharged into the bay. All of their food is cooked by steam. The hospital on Swinburne Island contains accommodations for a large number, and its appointments are very complete. The bodies of those who die are at once burned in a crematory that has been built on the island. To accommodate the overflow from Hoffman Island a large quarantine camp was established on the Government reservation at Sandy Hook. This camp was completed in less than a week, and could accommodate 12,000 people. The cabin passengers of vessels arriving from infected ports were detained on the vessels themselves, the old war ship New Hampshire, ana at Fire Island. The New Hampshire, hastily fitted up for the purpose, had accommodations for several hundred people. Fire Island, which is not an island at all, but the end of a long, narrow strip of land between the ocean and the Great South Bay, about forty miles from New contains a large summer hotel and several cottages, with splendid accommodations for several hundred people, and has just been purchased by the State of New York foi the sum of $310,000. Following th« purchase of Fire Island, the baymen who live thereabouts objected to the landing of passengers, on the plea that it would ruin their trade in fish and oysters; the militia were called out to oppose them, and for a time bloodshed was feared, but in the end the laymen ceased their opposition. There is a life-saving station on ths island and a Western Union signal tower, from which the arrival of all European vessels is telegraphed to the city. Our illustrations show a health officer in the act of boarding a newly arrived vessel, the quarantine station at Hoffman Island, and the fleet of quarantined greyhounds lying at anchor in the lower bay. Precautions Within the City. Aside feoni the stringent quarantine maintained in the harbor extra precautions were taken in the city propel against the spread of the cholera. The New York Board of Health exercised all the resources at its command. Suspected cases were taken at once to the Willard Parker Hospital, where they were carefully isolated, while their

homes were quarantined and disinfected without delay. A large floating hospital was also fully equipped and stationed in the East River ready for an emergency. At Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other Atlantic ports a rigid quarantine was instituted, and the same is true of the Pacific coast,, where there was a possibility of the cholera entering the country from Siberia. On both coasts the life-saving crews were instructed to be on the watch, and to report any vessel that attempted to land passengers without a proper permit. In Canada all passengers from infected ports were held at Grosse Island, forty miles from Quebec, for inspection and disinfection, and immigrants coming from Canada into the United States were subjected to a secend inspection at different points on the froifttet. Mexico also declared a quarantine, against vessels from infected European ports, so there was little prospect of the cholera creeping into the United States from that quarter. According to the best authorities the various cities of the country were neyei better equipped to resist an the cholera. The greatest danger bi'a spread of the plague, should it eyeritocceed in securing a footing here, lies, in the foul and overcrowded slums ofOui great cities, where thousands of human beings—ignorant, vicious and depraved —swarm like rats in a hole, and by theil habits and modes of life daily inviti disease. New York City has 300,001 such people, and Boston, Chicago and other large cities have them in equal proportion. They are the darkest and most menacing cloud in a threatening horizon—a cloud that must make evei the most hopeful pause and tremble. Cholera once epidemic among this element, the wisest and most enlightened precaution would not prevent them from dying in swarms, like vermin by thi roadside.

BOARDING AN AFFECTED STEAMER,

HOFFMAN ISLAND, LOWER QUARANTINE.

DR. JENKINS.

QUARANTINE GREYHOUNDS AT ANCHOR.

A JEWISH IMMIGRANT.

TIRE ISLAND LIGHT.