Preventing cholera Water of the Ganges Speaking the obvious Commentary

Ernest Hanbury Hankin medicine

Preventing cholera

• Ernest Hanbury Hankin worked under Louis Pasteur in Paris
• and under Robert Koch in Berlin.
• He studied malaria and cholera in India
• and challenged the persistent view that miasmas cause disease.
• He did more than anyone before him to call for sanitation,
• saying that boiling water could protect against cholera.

Water of the Ganges

• For centuries the people of India fervently believed
• the waters of the Ganges were sacred and incorruptible.
• Hankin noted that waters of the Ganges and Yamuna
• included an anti-bacterial agent against vibrio cholerae.
• Hankin’s paper on this was among the first
• observations of what were later called bacteriophages.

Speaking the obvious

• Others before Hankin had tried to make clear, the obvious;
• but it takes more than trying to penetrate traditional belief.
• It takes more than trying to spell relief. The last I checked,
• no one was listening. They were thinking about the game,
• or the sound of rain dripping off the eaves reminded them
• of a place they had left behind, where they couldn’t return.
• If it’s possible, nobody wants to be told again the obvious;
• if it’s impossible, maybe then they will pay a little attention.