of the
favorite myths of Munich is that of an enormous dragon which lived in
the ground beneath the city and poisoned all the wells with his
venomous breath, until, being at last lured to the surface by seeing
his reflection in a mirror held above a certain spring, a brave
knight slew him and saved the people from further destruction. The
former imminence of danger from pestilence is shown also in the songs
of the night-watchmen, who every hour exhorted to prayer for exemption
from the plague, as well as from the terrors of fire, sword and
famine.

And this evil fame still clings to Munich, in spite of all that has
been done to improve its condition, and of all that has been written
to purge it of its contempt. Efforts of the latter kind have indeed
been prodigious, increasing with the growing importance of the place
as a centre of education in science and art. Local medical authorities
issue from time to time ingenious pamphlets on hygienic
investigations, with particular application to the suspicion under
which their city labors in this regard; the newspapers keep up the
whitewashing process with diligence, not forgetting to hold up
frequently before their readers the sanitary shortcomings of Vienna
and Berlin; nay, the traveler is met at the very threshold of his
hotel by a tiny tract containing not only a list of the principal
sights, but also a comforting assurance that the climate is not so bad
as has been represented, and that by wearing sufficient wrappings and
avoiding the ordinary drinking water, strangers may hope to accomplish
their visit and escape unharmed. Surely no other city takes such
benevolent pains to reassure its inhabitants and instruct and warn its
stranger-guests: perhaps it is because deeds have not kept pace with
words that assertion and argument have hitherto failed of the desired
effect. The protracted, repeated cholera epidemic of 1873-74 may well
challenge a close observation of the situation, surroundings and
sanitary condition of Munich as a means of ascertaining the causes of
this exceptional visitation, as well as of the continual existence of
an indigenous disease which, more than almost any other, is dependent
upon circumstances within the power of man to control.

Instead, therefore, of constructing the cholera and the typhus out of
our "inner consciousness," as certain of the physicians and hygienists
of Munich, in true German fashion, appear disposed to do, let us look
at some