THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 263

of Her Majesty's Government, is empowered to
exercise control. The authorities in question are
elective bodies, chosen as their constituencies will;
and each constituency, in exercising its electoral right,
has, in effect, the means for deciding for itself whether
the district which it inhabits shall be wholesomely or
unwholesomely kept. The Lords of the Council have
no other function appointed for them in this matter
than to inquire, and afterwards report to Parliament,
what, so far as the public health is concerned, is the
working of that system of administration. Incident-
ally to the performance of that function, their Lord-
ships have before them the result of much former
experience, in this country and elsewhere, as to the
circumstances by which the spread of cholera is
determined; and having this experience, their Lord-
ships have seen fit that its more important conclusions
should be so set forth as to give to the nuisance
authorities the best assistance which this department
can supply towards the task of locally dealing with
the removable causes of the disease. But here their
Lordships' power terminates. Their Lordships can
only hope that nuisance authorities, having undivided
and sole responsibility in the matter, will justify that
very ample trust which the Legislature has seen fit
to repose in them. And for the inhabitants of places
where the nuisance authorities do not take proper
measures for the protection of the public health, the
Lords of the Council, in the present state of the law,
can only suggest that voluntary associations should
as far as practicable, endeavour to supply the defect.
Where nuisances on private premises require to be
summarily dealt with, complaint may be laid by any
inhabitant of the parish or place before any Justice
of the Peace having jurisdiction there; but complaints
addressed to this or any other Government office
cannot lead to coercive interference, and may involve
loss of valuable time. Of course, too, it must be
remembered that, however active may be the authority
or any committee acting in its stead, every householder
ought at least to be vigilant as to the state of his own
premises and water supply.

7. Personal precautions against cholera consist
   essentially in avoiding the unwholesome circumstances
   which have been described; and where that avoidance
   can be secured, there need not be further thought on
   the subject. Even where cholera seems imminent,
   the danger is quite conspicuously one which ought
   not to give occasion to panic. Intelligence and cool
   decision are wanted against it. The case is no longer
   that of a mysterious pestilence coming (like the
   plagues of past centuries) on ignorant and but half-
   socialized populations; it is the case of a distinct and
   measurable attack against which definite precautions
   can be taken with success; and power to enforce
   those precautions is in the hands of local authorities
   throughout the country. But individual security
   cannot be promised apart from the security of
   districts; and for selfish safety, no less than for the
   general good, it is expedient that every man should
   do his utmost to promote where he dwells a vigorous
   sanitary administration over the largest possible area.
   Those who know that such an administration is at
   work around them need have but little apprehension
   as to the result.

8. As to personal precautions, in a narrower sense
   of the words, only one general rule can be laid down:
   a rule, however, which is most important for persons
   who unfortunately find themselves in the midst of
   local outbreaks of cholera, and which each individual
   must apply according to his experience of his own
   bodily habits: the rule of living as strictly as
   possible on that system which commonly agrees best
   with the health; to guard, as far as practicable,
   against all exhausting influences of privation, fatigue,
   exposure, and the like; and, as regards diet,
   especially to avoid all acts of intemperance, and all
   such eating and drinking as are likely to disturb the
   stomach or bowels.* But while faults of the latter
   kind are peculiarly apt to be hurtful, it must not
   therefore be supposed that the customary healthful
   habits need be changed. For instance, there is no
   reason to suppose that fruits and vegetables, of such
   kinds and in such states as would be wholesome in
   ordinary seasons, are unwholesome when cholera is
   present; nor (subject to what will directly be said
   about premonitory diarrhea) is there any reason to
   believe that persons in good health ought in cholera
   times, with a notion of fortifying themselves against
   the disease, to take drugs or drams which they
   would not take in ordinary times. Anything to be
   wisely done in this direction ought to be done under
   the advice of skilled medical practitioners, and except
   with such advice, people ought to be most chary both
   of drugging themselves and of taking such pretended
   preservatives as are extensively offered for sale.

9. In places where cholera is present or threaten-
   ing, one particular bodily ailment requires excep-
   tional vigilance. The ailment is diarrhea. For the
   most part, in this country, cholera begins somewhat
   gradually; so that for some hours, or even days,
   before the symptoms become alarming, a so-called
   "premonitory diarrhea" may be observed. Where
   cholera is tending to be epidemic, there always
   exists, side by side with it in the district, a large
   amount of epidemic diarrhea, representing in part
   the earlier stages, in other part the slighter degrees
   of the same insidious and infectious malady. The
   diarrhea (painless and apparently trivial though it
   be) may in any case suddenly convert itself into
   cholera; and, apart from the very serious significance
   of the symptom as regards the patient himself, it
   must be remembered that every such diarrhœal
   patient may be a well-spring of infection to others.
   It also seems probable that accidental diarrhea,
   originally independent of the epidemic influence, is,
   of all known personal conditions, the one on which
   the cholera infection can most easily fix itself. And
   thus on all accounts it is of the most essential
   importance that no looseness of bowels should be
   neglected in places where cholera exists. A very
   important part of their Lordships' "Medical Relief
   Regulations" enjoins the making of local arrange-
   ments by which this object shall be secured for all
   the poorer inhabitants of infected districts; and
   other classes of the population are warned to be also
   vigilant for themselves. In any infected district,
   every looseness of bowels, or sickness of stomach,
   ought, as quickly as possible, to be brought under
   skilled medical treatment: and if the symptoms begin
   at all sharply, or if they (however mild) do not very
   promptly yield to treatment, the patient ought
   invariably to remain in bed.

• Precautions against causing such disturbance to oneself by
  errors of diet will vary somewhat with different individuals.
  Every person of ordinary discretion knows the habits of his
  own body, and can be tolerably confident, within certain limits
  of food, that he gives himself no occasion of such illness.
  Apart from personal peculiarities (where each man must judge
  for himself), the chief dangers of diet appear to lie as follows:
  first, in those mere excesses of diet which (especially under
  circumstances of fatigue) occasion sickness to the stomach, or
  an increased labour of digestion; secondly, in taking food, solid
  or fluid, which is midway in some process of chemical
  transition-half-fermented beer and wine, water containing
  organic impurities, meat and game and venison no longer fresh
  or not completely cooked, fish and shell-fish in any state but
  the most perfect freshness, fruit and vegetables long-gathered or
  badly kept, and the like; thirdly, in the excessive or
  unseasonable use of refrigerant drinks or ice; fourthly, in
  partaking largely of those articles of diet which habitually, or
  by reason of imperfect cooking, pass unchanged through the
  intestinal canal; and fifthly, in the indiscreet use of purgative
  medicines, or in taking any article of diet which is likely to
  produce the same effect.