Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1885 — The Cholera in a Romantic Town. [ARTICLE]

The Cholera in a Romantic Town.

No one bias written about Spain without describing Toledo. The model of an old {London street dating before the plague, and constructed to convey a sanitary moral to the visitors of last year’s health exhibition, possesses its counterpart at Toledo in the real everyday life of the city. Instead of the plague we have the cholera; the architecture of the houses is Moorish rather than Gothic, but the streets are equally narrow, badly ventilated, but completely shaded from the sun. Many streets are not six feet wide, and it is easy to shake, hands from a third floor window with the neighbor opposite. In these little streets there are little sewers. Nobody seems to know exactly when or how they were built; but everybody is under the impression that they are badly built, and not the slightest doubt is entertained as to their leaking and infecting the surrounding surface soil. At Toledo, as in Madrid, the drainage is all direct to the sewer, and there are no cesspools. The sewers may, therefore, become a factor in spreading infection, particularly as the necessary precautions for excluding sewer gas are not understood. The ventilation of the houses is principally derived from the Oriental patio, or square yard which is in the center of each building, covered over with an awning or ornamented with a few plants and perhaps a small fountaip. In the center of the patio there is generally a suspicious-looking, untrapped drain; on the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the hills are so numerous, the gradients so steep, that, however badly built, the sewers are readily cleansed. AlsoJ at a very slight distance below the surface soil we reach the solid rock. If. instead of only a few, all the communications with the sewers were promptly trapped, Toledo, on account of its elevated position, the constant winds which sweep and purify its streets, its stone foundation, and easy natural drainage, might be considered an especially favored town. How, then did the cholera climb up the steep rocks that protect this antique city and fortrpss ? The first cause still remains unexplained. It occurred as far back as the 7'th of September, 1884. High on the crest of a suburb cliff, commanding the Tagus, swept by every wind, stand the palace and fortress of the Alcazar. It seemed to me the purest spot in Toledo. There I thought to escape the damp heat of the lower streets, the relaxing air with its malarial germs which follow the current of the Tagus, and enjoy a bracing breeze that recalled more wholesome northern climates. Yet it was on this choice spot that a soldier was taken suddenly ill. When the pat ent partially recovered he was isolated, but he had first contaminated the dormitory in which he slept, ahd especially endangered the two soldiers nearest him. Nevertheless no evil consequences ensued. Two months elapsed. There may have been one or two cases of c holera in the interval, but, if so, they were carefully concealed, and there is no official record of them. At last, on the 3d of November, ' an old pauper in the poorhodse suddenly died of cholera, and the sister who nursed him was immediately after a victim to her devotion. The cholera subsequently attacked the mad asylum, and thus making the round of the official institutions and then spreading it over the town.— Cor. London Times.