THE ARCHIVES OF JAPANESE CARTOON HISTORY		In those days, the level of public understanding about the telephone was low and the number of subscribers did not increase at all. Business world moguls and newsmen were invited to demonstrate the telephone switching to inform the public, but this led to a rumor that if the telephone could transmit a telephone call so quickly and clearly, it must transmit cholera bacteria also. In those days, large cities in Japan were afflicted by cholera several times. With inadequate facilities for water and sewage, it is said that more than one hundred thousand people died throughout the country. Japan at that time was under unequal treaties and did not have seaport quarantine rights to prevent the spread of cholera. It was said that cholera, which plagued more people than those killed in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, was more horrible than war.

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