A great deal of alarm has been caused on the
Continent by a severe outbreak of cholera at Hamburg. It is officially stated that there were 414 cases of cholera between August 18th and 24th, and of these 119 were fatal,—the patients in some cases dying, it is said, within an hour from the time of seizure. This fact alone would show that the authorities are right in declaring the disease to be Asiatic cholera. Great precautions are being taken at the English ports which trade largely with Hamburg, and throughout England the sanitary authorities are getting ready to deal with any cases that may occur. The chief point of danger is Grimsby, since six hundred emigrants, chiefly Russian Jews, pass through Grimsby weekly, many of them having been shipped from Hamburg. There have, of course, been the usual warnings against panic, but we do not believe that there is much danger of that. Except the lowest class, the English people rather enjoy taking precautions and scattering disinfectants, and cholera is one of the diseases in which precautions really pay. In
any case, the season is too far advanced for the epidemic, if it comes, to prove a very bad one. If it were June instead of the last days of August, matters would have been far more serious.
