Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/39

Rh —the hospital on the left bank of the Isar, in Lindwurmstrasse, and that on the right bank of the river in Ismaningenstrasse, and the military hospital in Oberwiesenfeld. Cholera behaved in each hospital just as it behaved in the houses in their immediate neighborhood. Cases of cholera appeared in all three hospitals. In that on the left bank of the Isar there was rejoicing on account of the supposed success of isolation and disinfection until August 10th, when the summer epidemic reached its height; then an epidemic suddenly broke out. This was at the time that the epidemic developed in Lindwurmstrasse, in which the hospital was situate, and the epidemic in the hospital subsided as the epidemic in the street gave way. In the hospital on the right bank of the Isar the rejoicings lasted longer. The Ismaningenstrasse took no part in the summer epidemic, and neither did the residents of the hospital. But in the winter epidemic the same course of affairs took place as had occurred on the left bank of the river. The military hospital escaped all along. Of the seven barracks in Munich any cases or suspected cases of cholera were immediately sent to the military hospital. Now and again a surgical patient or a patient suffering from other illness than cholera was put among other patients, and later on suffered from cholera. Such cases were of course removed to the cholera division as soon as the stools betrayed the case. At times the cholera division was very full, and many nurses were employed therein; but none of these fell ill or gave the least indication of cholera, though many of them must have come in very close relation with the cholera stools. In the military hospital in Müllerstrasse the same facts were observed as were met with in the case of the other hospitals. Seeing how little contagious cholera is among the nurses, it appears very remarkable that the washers of cholera-linen should suffer so much. I think I hear a contagionist say that why nurses of cholera-patients in hospitals are not infected may be easily explained when it is borne in mind that great cleanliness exists, that there is much washing of hands, that they do not eat with unwashed hands, and that whatever spurts on their clothes is rapidly dried, and dryness kills the bacillus. On the contrary, among the washers of cholera-linen it is easy to imagine that drops may be spurted into the mouth, or that infective material may be conveyed on wet fingers to the lips, and if a solitary bacillus gets into the intestines cholera may occur. How can this be seriously discussed? Can it be supposed that the nurses wash their hands only in certain hospitals, and during certain times, and that the chances of taking in the bacilli are less during the cleansing and attention to a patient than in washing the clothes? Do such nurses never put the moistened fingers to their lips? Do their noses never itch? The explanation of the contagionists appears to me to be very comical. And yet there are cases in which the infection must have been derived from the linen soiled by cholera-stools. A very interesting case came under my observation at Lyons in the washing-village