Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

3/4 MILITARY LIFE.
especially in Porto Empedocle, whence, in the month of
March, it spread through the entire province, and from this, in
April, into that of Caltanisetta, and increased most terribly in
both during the month of May, favored by the summer heat,
that made itself
felt a month earlier than usual in consequence
of the long drought. It did not decrease at all during the
month of June, save in the city of Caltanisetta, where it diminished
perceptibly.
In fact, during the first part of that month,
it invaded the provinces of Trapani, Catania, and Syracuse,
and at the beginning of July, Palermo, and at the beginning of
August, Messina. Meanwhile it had spread through almost all
the other provinces of Italy, and particularly in the southern
ones ;
more than all others, in Reggio, where it committed
its last and most frightful ravages at the end of the year.
From the first indications that manifested themselves in the
provinces of Girgenti and Caltanisetta, General Medici, commanding
the division of Palermo, almost foreseeing the terrible
course of the epidemic, put in force all the hygienic precautions
prescribed by the Minister of War in 1865. He divided the
corps into a greater number of detachments, so that no city or
village should be without them. He ordered that military hospitals
for cholera patients, infirmaries for those suspected of
the disease, and houses for the convalescent, should be opened
everywhere in the most remote and healthful localities.
He instituted
a commission for sanitary surveillance in every district,
prescribed most thorough and rigorous cleanliness, together
with frequent disinfections of the barracks ;
he suspended every
movement of the troops from the infected localities to those
that were healthful :
obliged every corps and detachment to
give its assistance in case of any call from the civil authorities