48
CHOISY-LE-ROI — CHOLERA his death. He died in London on 15th February 1899, obscurity. At an important discussion on the subject, held after a very short illness, originating in an attack of the at the International Hygienic Congress in 1894, Professor Gruber of Vienna declared that the deeper investigators went prevailing epidemic of influenza. Many legal contemporaries of Sir Joseph Chitty had the more difficult the problem became, while M. Metschnibeen distinguished athletes while young. Lord Esher, koff of the Pasteur Institute made a similar admission. M.R., Lord Justice A. L. Smith, Mr Justice Denman, The difficulty lies chiefly in the variable characters assumed and Lord Macnaghten may be mentioned as instances of by the organism and the variable effects produced by it. university oars who were on the bench while he was a The type reached by cultivation through a few generations judge, while Sir Richard Webster (afterwards Lord Alver- may differ so widely from the original in appearance and stone,’ L.C.J.) and Sir R. T. Reid, both law officers of the behaviour as to be hardly recognizable, while, on the other Crown, had been “blues” for running and cricket re- hand, of two organisms apparently indistinguishable one spectively. During four seasons Chitty kept wicket for may be innocuous and the other give rise to the most the Eton eleven, of which he was captain in 1847 (he was violent cholera. This variability offers a possible explanaafterwards held to be the best amateur wicket-keeper in tion of the frequent failure to trace the origin of epidemic England), and in those four years Eton won seven matches outbreaks in isolated places. It is commonly assumed out of the eight played against Harrow and Winchester. that the micro-organism is of a specific character, and At Oxford he played at cricket against Cambridge in always introduced from without, when cholera appears in 1848 and 1849, and won still greater fame on the river. countries or places where it is not endemic. In some He rowed 2 in the Oxford eight in the inter-university cases such introduction can be proved, and in others it boat-race of March 1849, and 4 in the second of the two can be inferred with a high degree of probability, but races rowed in that year. No inter-university race as sometimes it is impossible to trace the origin to any such took place in 1850 or 1851, but in the latter year possible channel of communication. A remarkable case of Oxford with Chitty stroke won the Grand Challenge Cup this kind occurred at the Nietleben Lunatic Asylum near at Henley, Cambridge being a competitor; and in 1852 Halle, in 1893, in the shape of a sudden, explosive, and the inter-university race was again held, and Chitty isolated outbreak of true Asiatic cholera. It was entirely stroked a strong Oxford crew to victory. In after life confined to the institution, and the peculiar circumstances he acted as umpire in the inter-university boat-race for enabled a very exact investigation to be made. The facts twenty-four years, ceasing to do so in 1881, and he was led Professor Arndt, of Greifswald, to propound a novel an active member of the Inns of Court Rifle Volunteers and interesting theory. No cholera existed in the sur(the Devil’s Own), holding a major’s commission from rounding district and no introduction could be traced, but 1869 to 1877, having been one of those who organized it for several months in the previous autumn diarrhoea had in 1860, and having then been given a commission as a prevailed in the asylum. The sewage from the establishcaptain. In a profession largely filled by university men ment was disposed of on a farm, and the effluent passed such a record was not likely to be forgotten. Sir Joseph into the river Saale above the intake of the water-supply Chitty married in 1858 Clara Jessie, daughter of Chief for the asylum. Thus a circulation of morbid material Baron Pollock, and left children who can thus claim through the persons of the inmates was established. Dr descent from two of the best-known legal families of the Arndt’s theory was that by virtue of this circulation cholera was gradually developed from previously existing 19th century. Authorities.—The Times, 16th February 1899.—Law Jour- intestinal disease of an allied but milder type. The outnal, 18th February 1899.—Xaw Times, 18th February 1899. break occurred in winter, and coincided with the freezing of —Law Quarterly, vol. xv. p. 128.—.Lau? Magazine, vol. xxv: the filter-beds at the water-works. The theory is worth p. 257. (e. A. Ar.) notice, because a similar relation between the drainage and the water-supply frequently exists in places severely Choisy-le-Roi, a town in the arrondissement of attacked by cholera, and it has repeatedly been observed Sceaux, department of Seine, France, 4 miles in direct that the latter is preceded by the prevalence of a milder line S.E. of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine and on form of intestinal disease. The inference is not that the railway to Orleans. A monument was erected in cholera can be developed de novo, but that the type is 1882 to Rouget de 1’Isle, author of the “Marseillaise,” who and that a virulent form may be evolved under died here 1836. It has manufactures of cloth, felt, gloves, unstable, earthenware, porcelain, and glass, and considerable river favourable conditions from another so mild as to be unrecognized, and consequently undetected in its origin or trade. Population (1881), 6700; (1901), 11,287. introduction. This is quite in keeping with the observed Cholera..—Much light has been thrown upon Asiatic variability of the micro-organism, and with the trend of cholera since 1880. Western experience has been enlarged modern research with regard to the relations between by several epidemic outbreaks in different countries, and other pathogenic germs and the multifarious gradations of by one pandemic visitation of great violence; and the type assumed by other zymotic diseases. The same thing study of the disease by modern methods has resulted in has been suggested of diphtheria. Cholera is endemic in the East over a wide area, important additions to our previous knowledge of its nature, causation, mode of dissemination, and prevention. ranging from Bombay to Southern China, but its chief The cause is a micro-organism identified by Koch in home is British India. It principally affects the Epldemm P 1883. An account of it will be found under Pathology alluvial soil near the mouths of the great rivers, ic ity {Parasitic Diseases). For some years it was and more particularly the delta of the Ganges. Causation. cape(j tpe << comma bacillus,” from its supposed Lower Bengal is pre-eminently the standing focus and resemblance in shape to a comma, but it was subsequently centre of diffusion. In some years it is quiescent, found to be a vibrio or spirillum, not a bacillus. The dis- though never absent; in others it becomes diffused, for ' covery was received with much scepticism in some quarters, reasons of which nothing is known, and its diffusive and the claim of Koch’s vibrio to be the true cause of cholera activity varies greatly from equally inscrutable causes. Avas long disputed, but is now universally acknowledged. At irregular intervals this property becomes so heightened Few micro-organisms have been more elaborately in- that the disease passes its natural boundaries and is vestigated, but very little is known of its natural history, carried east, north, and west, it may be to Europe or and its epidemiological behaviour is still surrounded by beyond to the American continent. We must assume
