The New York Herald

The Cholera.

Report of the Committee of the Board of Health—At a meeting of the Sanitary Committee of the Board of Health, held at the Mayor's office, May 19, 1849, Dr. Geer, Resident Physician, reports that no case of cholera has occurred within the limits of the city during the last forty-eight hours. The Sanitary Committee, in communicating the above to the public, would assure their fellow citizens that every precautionary measure has been adopted to purify the city, and to prevent, if possible, the spread of disease.

JAMES KELLY
ROBERT T. HAWES.
ALEXANDER H. SCHULTZ
CHARLES WEBB
Committee.

EDWIN D. MORGAN,
ROBERT A. SANDS.
JACOB F. OAKLEY.
SETH GEER, Resident Physician.

(And signed by the members of the Medical Council.)

The above is the first report made by the Board of Health, showing positively that no case of cholera had occurred within the limits of the city for forty-eight hours, but is not explicit with regard to any case of real Asiatic cholera having occurred at all. It is the opinion of one of the most experienced physicians in the city, and one who attended several hundred cases of cholera in 1832, that there has been no such disease in the city during this spring. The disease supposed to be cholera was of a sporadic character, and the effect of the filthy condition of the house where it originated. From the first report, we were satisfied that it was a false alarm, and gave the reasons why; and the report of the Sanitary Committee goes very far in confirmation of those reasons. If the cholera had made its appearance, its source would have been very easily traced, and the means by which it was brought to the city. The disease is a foreign one, and was never known in the country except when brought from some foreign port. True, during the whole winter, it has made its ravages at the South, and the West has been sorely visited by it during the spring, but no case has been known east of Cincinnati. When the cholera made its appearance in 1832, it was not confined to any particular locality, though in some of the more filthy and poverty stricken sections, it was more fatal than in others; but like every other epidemic, it embraced the whole extent of the city. The disease which has lately appeared, has been confined entirely to the locality where it originated, and none have been attacked except such as were given up to debauchery and wallowing in filth. That fact alone is sufficient to satisfy the most incredulous, that no great danger was to be apprehended. Be it what it may, it seems now to have disappeared, and it is to be hoped no further alarm of cholera will be raised until it really comes, and not create excitement because a few of the miserable dwellers on the Five Points may die suddenly of rum, filth, and starvation.