No. 2.
Mr. Hanna to
Mr. Bayard.
Buenos Ayres, December 3, 1886. (Received January 17, 1887.)
Sir: Your cable message of the 30th ultimo, in which you instruct me to “report particulars of cholera in the Argentine Republic,” was duly received. I have had some doubts whether or not you desired me to make such report by wire, but as the situation is not alarming at present, send you the following report through the mails, with the assurance that if any serious emergency suddenly arises I will communicate it by cable.
There is no room for doubts as to the existence of Asiatic cholera here. It made its first appearance about five weeks ago, and was imported by the Italian ship Persco plying between Genoa and Buenos Ayres. * * * * The testimony of passengers shows conclusively there was nearly a score of burials at sea of those who died of cholera on the voyage.
The Argentine Government instituted prompt investigation of the matter, * * * and turned its entire care to its arrest and confinement within its present limits. Dr. Wilde, the minister of the interior, and as such prime minister of the Government, from whose department the national board of health derives all its powers and efficiency, is himself a physician of much distinction, and has labored with heroic devotion in the employment of every agency tending to the rapid and complete accomplishment of his sanitary measures. He has at his disposal money, physicians, and police powers almost without limit, and is employing them all with great spirit and ability.
The exercise of sanitary measures has been so prompt and efficient, and the use of disinfectants and enforced cleanliness so widespread and rational, we venture to hope the disease will disappear before as suming an epidemical character. The people generally fully sympathize with the good intentions of the Government, and instead of interposing hinderances in the way of its sanitary plans help them on in every possible way.
For the month of November, just closed, the official reports of the cholera hospital in Buenos Ayres show there were 200 patients entered; 93 deaths, 34 cured, with 73 still under treatment.
Remembering the population of Buenos Ayres is fully 400,000, you will agree the showing thus far is not discouraging. And with the exercise of a little scrutiny even this exhibit may be much relieved of alarm, for of the 200 patients above enumerated, 130 were from the male and female lunatic asylums and 12 from the prisons, where people are greatly huddled together and hygienic conditions anything but favorable. This then leaves but 58 cases outside for an entire month.
The greater part of the cases have originated in the “Boca,” where the infected ship Perseo landed, which is a scooped-out place, so deepened below the level of the River Plate that ships may enter and discharge. It is therefore, necessarily, a vast receptacle of filth, and there being no current to carry out its accumulations into the river beyond the sluggish action of the tide, it remains there a perpetual cess-pool. * * * The Government, however, is already busy at work there with an immense force, devising means to clear its waters by the use of powerful pumps and dredges.
The disease is most fatal at Rosario, a city of much commercial importance on the Paraná River, 200 miles away, where the most of the [Page 5] Perseo’s passengers and cargo were discharged. The reports from that locality are truly distressing. In a population of about 50,000 souls they are now having from 35 to 50 deaths per day. In their cholera hospital alone there were over 200 patients in November, of which more than one-half died; but there the disease has invaded the homes of the best and most prudent families of the city. Cordoba and other inland cities are also becoming infected.
The result of all this is, we are nearly cut off entirely from the commercial world. Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, the most of the European ports are quarantined against us, which fact has greatly disturbed the movement of the mails, and almost entirely suspended business. We have recently had some very cool weather, which has been favorable to us.
Nineteen years ago yesterday the first case of the great cholera epidemic of 1887–’68 was reported. Then the plague was mainly confined to the city and neighboring county of Buenos Ayres. It was very destructive, and did not die out until near the close of March, on the advent of winter.
Of course we are still in a state of anxious suspense, for if the hygienic expedients now in a rapid course of development do not eradicate the dreaded microbes of the plague, the hot season already upon us and to endure yet so long may plunge us into very serious disaster.
Business is virtually suspended in Buenos Ayres, and vast numbers of people have gone out into the country.
I have, etc.,