communication of the disease from one individual to another;" and that he had "heard of several instances brought forward in support of the opinion (contagion), but they are not fair ones:" he yet mentions where exceptions seem to have taken place as to hospital attendants not being attacked, but he has neglected to tell us (a very common omission in similar statements), whether or not the hospitals in which attendants were attacked were situated in or near places where the atmosphere seemed equally productive of the disease in those not employed in attending on sick. This clearly makes all the difference, for there is no earthly reason why people about the sick should not be attacked, if they breathe the same atmosphere which would seem to have so particular an effect in producing the disease in others; indeed there are good reasons why, during an epidemic, attendants should be attacked in greater proportion; for the constant fatigue, night-work, &c., must greatly predispose them to disease of any kind, while the great additional number always required on those occasions, precludes the supposition of the majority so employed being seasoned hospital attendants, having constitutions impenetrable to contagion. Those questions are now well understood as to yellow fever, about which so much misconception had once existed. The proofs by disinterested authors (by which I mean those unconnected with quarantine establishments, or who are not governed by the expediency of the case) in the West Indies, America, and other places, show this in a clear light; but the proofs which have for some time past appeared in various journals respecting the occurrences at Gibraltar, during the epidemic of 1828, are particularly illustrative. By the testimony of three or four writers, we find that within certain points, those in attendance on sick, in houses as well as hospitals, were attacked with the fever, in common with those who were not in attendance on sick; but that, where people remained at ever so short a distance beyond

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[Pg 12] those points, during the epidemic influence, not a single instance occurred of their being attacked, though great numbers had been in the closest contact with the sick, and frequently too, it would appear, under circumstances when contagion, had it existed, was not impeded in its usual course by a very free atmosphere:—sick individuals, for instance, lying in a small house, hut, or tent, surrounded, during a longer or shorter space of time, by their relatives, &c. A full exposure of some very curious mis-statements on these points, made by our medical chief of the quarantine, will be found from the pen of the surgeon of the 23d regiment, in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, No. 106.[3] Those who are acquainted with the progress of cholera in India, must be aware how a difference in the height of places, or of a few hundred yards (indeed sometimes of a few yards) distance, has been observed to make all the difference between great suffering and complete immunity:—the printed and manuscript reports from India furnish a vast number of instances of this kind; and, incredible as it may appear, they furnish instances where, notwithstanding the freest intercourse, there has been an abrupt line of demarcation observed, beyond which the disease did not prevail. A most remarkable instance of this occurred in the King's 14th regiment, in 1819, during a cholera epidemic, when the light company of the regiment escaped almost untouched, owing to no other apparent cause than that they occupied the extremity of a range of barrack in which all the other companies were stationed! so that there would truly seem to be more things "on earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy" of contagionists. This seems so remarkable an event, that the circumstance should be more particularly stated:—"The disease commenced in the eastern wing of the barracks, and proceeded in a westerly direction, but suddenly stopped at the 9th company; the light infantry escaping with one or two slight cases only."—(Bengal Rep. 311.) It appears (loc. cit.) that 221 attacks took place in the other nine companies. We find (Bombay Rep. p. 11.) that, from a little difference in situation, two cavalry regiments in a camp were altogether exempt from the disease, while all the other regiments were attacked. Previous to closing these remarks, which seemed to me called for on Dr. Walker's second Report, it is fair to state, that in certain Russian towns which he names, he found that the medical men and others were convinced that the cholera was brought to them "somehow or other," an impression quite common in like cases, as we learn from Humboldt, and less to be wondered at in Russia than most places which could be mentioned.

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[Pg 13] It will not be a misemployment of time to consider now the next document laid before the College, to enable them to form their opinion,—the Report of Dr. Albers, dated in March, and sent from St. Petersburg;—this gentleman, who was at the head of a commission sent by the Prussian government to Moscow, states, that at St. Petersburgh, where the disease did not then reign, the authorities and physicians were contagionists; but at Moscow, where it had committed such ravages, "almost all strenuously maintain that cholera is not contagious." The following extract seems to merit particular attention:—

"When the cholera first reached Moscow, all the physicians of this city were persuaded of its contagious nature, but the experience gained in the course of the epidemic, has produced an entirely opposite conviction. They found that it was impossible for any length of time completely to isolate such a city as Moscow, containing 300,000 inhabitants, and having a circumference of nearly seven miles (versts?), and perceived daily the frequent frustrations of the measures adopted. During the epidemic, it is certain that upwards of 40,000 inhabitants quitted Moscow, of whom a large number never performed quarantine; and notwithstanding this fact, no case is on record of the cholera having been transferred from Moscow to other places, and it is equally certain, that in no situation appointed for quarantine, any case of cholera has occurred. That the distemper is not contagious, has been yet more ascertained by the experience gathered in this city (Moscow). In many houses it happened, that one individual attacked by cholera was attended indiscriminately by all the relatives, and yet did the disease not spread to any of the inmates. It was finally found, that not only the nurses continued free of the distemper, but also that they promiscuously attended the sick chamber, and visited their friends, without in the least communicating the disease. There are even cases fully authenticated, that nurses, to quiet timid females labouring under cholera, have shared their beds during the nights, and that they, notwithstanding, have escaped uninjured in the same manner as physicians in hospitals have, without any bad consequences, made use of warm water used (a moment before) by cholera patients for bathing.