The doctor who said a person dy
ing of small-pox these days commits
suicide is perfectly right if suicide
can be termed a sin of omission as
well as commission. The rarity of the
disease contributes more to tho ter
ror in which it is held than its in
trinsic danger to human life. Prob
ably diphtheria is more to bo feared
than small-pox, although a case of
tho former occasions almost no dis
quietude, while the appearance of
tho latter causes a panic. If all con
tagious and infectious plagues were
as readily controlled as small-pox
there would be fewer deaths from
those causes.
The outbreak of cholera in Portu
gal reminds the world again that
eternal vigilance is tho price of ex
emption from this plague. Especial
ly to the New* World, toward which
emigration flows, is the news of a
cholera epidemic in Lisbon unwel
come. For Innately, less danger
threatens the United States from
Portugal, perhaps, than from any
other part of Southwestern Europe,
and the experience of Hamburg in
tho summer of 1892 will lead to the
adoption of extraordinary, precau
tions in all European cities. On this
side of the water, therefore, we have
less occasion for alarm than was tho
case two years ago.
