Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/40

28 of Craponne. In the "Gazette Médicale de Lyon" for 1854, page 252, we read from a letter by Dr. Gensoul: "In the month of July, 1854, two fugitives, a man and his wife, from cholera, alighted from Marseilles at the Milanese court. They had hardly arrived before they were attacked by cholera, the germs of which they had brought with them, and both died on July 17th. Some days later the washers of the Gasthof Bouchard in Craponne, a village about twelve kilometres from Lyons, came to fetch the linen for the wash. The soiled clothes and linen of the cases of cholera were given out in a separate bundle, placed in a separate part of the cart, and finally given to a washerwoman to clean. The washer-woman was struck down by a rapidly fatal cholera, and the washer's daughter shared the same fate. No other cases of cholera existed in the district on which the blame could be thrown. Such a choice of victims needs no comment." The cholera was not limited to the two cases. J. Garin ("Gazette Médicale," p. 309) says that eight cases of death followed in Craponne, and among them the washer's wife. From the statistics of Dr. Garin it is gathered that the disease attacked almost exclusively the washing-folk and their children. The population of Craponne numbers about 1,600 inhabitants, several families of which have charge of the washing for the hotels of Lyons. As a later report of Dr. Bouchet showed, there were besides twenty-five other cases of cholera, with fifteen recoveries and ten deaths, which occurred in the course of two months. The year 1854 was that in which the lower-lying parts of Lyons were invaded by an epidemic. It remains a striking fact that in the fair-sized village of Craponne cholera attacked almost exclusively the laundry-workers. With the exception of the washers, Craponne might be regarded as a place free from cholera. In 1855 severe epidemics prevailed in villages near Lyons—e. g., St. Bonnet and St. Laurent de Mure—though the outlying districts always enjoyed immunity from cholera. The same held good of other exempt districts. A very instructive example of this kind is furnished by Stuttgart in 1854, which is usually exempt from cholera. At the time when the severe epidemic prevailed at Munich an inhabitant of Stuttgart left Munich while he was suffering from diarrhœa, and arrived at Stuttgart, where he became worse and died of cholera. A few days later a case occurred in the person of a woman who had never left Stuttgart. She was the nurse of the case which had come from Munich. This case might be quoted as one of direct contagion. Again, after some days, a third case appeared, and this time it was the washer-woman who had cleaned the clothes of the first case. Finally, the washer-woman's husband suffered from cholerine. But no further cases appeared. Such cases are always wrongly interpreted by the contagionists as examples of direct infection, and such, at first sight, appears to be the case. If the case from Munich had infected the three at Stuttgart, how was it that none of the three infected other individuals? For it must be remembered