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esteem the Great Fire of London a cheap equivalent
for their arrest; looking to that eventful
conflagration of the metropolis with gratitude,
rather than horror, because of the mightier evils
that were extinguished with its flames.
To so frightful a development as this, Cholera,
by many degrees, has not attained: but, ignorant
as we are of its laws and resources, we dare not
surmise, at any renewed invasion, what increment
of severity it may have won. In the simple fact,
that our country has again become subject to
pestilential epidemics, there lies an amount of
threat only to be measured by those who are conversant,
by history or experience, with the possible
developments of such disease.
Therefore, gentlemen, having the deepest assurance
that these unexplored possibilities of evil may
be foreclosed by appropriate means, I should ill
deserve your confidence if I shrank from setting
before you—however ungracious the task, my
deliberate estimate of the peril.
It pertains to my local office to tell you of local
cures; and this I have sought to do. I have
suggested that, by active superintendence of all
houses within your jurisdiction, there may be suppressed
in detail those several causes of the disease
which arise in individual neglect; that, by elaborate
care as to the cleanliness of pavements, markets,
docks and sewers, something may be done towards
the mitigation of more general causes; that, by a