circulation and influence of that Journal, we have no doubt that the subscribers to that doctrine have been centupled through the country, where written documents were all the evidence on which practitioners could depend; and where the travelling of the disease, by personal communication was made out most luminously. When, however, the evidence of the senses was thrown into the scale, the medical profession began to waver—and now, the advocates of contagion, as an essential character of the epidemic, are very few indeed.

We will allow our opponent on this point of controvery to speak for himself; and give him much credit for the candour with which

he avows a change, or very important modification of his opinions, though some of the reasons for that change are not to us very conclusive.

"In the interval that elapsed between the publication of this article, and the first appearance of the cholera in England, every feature in the disease proclaimed the absolute and direct operation of contagion. With the rapidity of an arrow it crossed by the Spree, and descended the Elbe to Hamburgh. Halting as it were here, it next broke out in one of our maritime ports on the coast opposite to that last infected. Here it dwelt for many days and weeks, and at last, step by step, and with all the characters of a disease still essentially contagious, it reached Newcastle and the adjacent villages, and lurked in them almost with the demeanour of contagious typhus.

Up to this period we maintain that to all reasonable men, the statistical history of the cholera was such as to permit no other rational conclusion than that it had reached

England from the European continent by human intercourse, and had extended itself in England by that channel alone. Had the disease ceased at that time, no other conclusion could have been adopted.

But since that period the statistics of cholera have undergone the most complete alteration. In Great Britain it sprang up in Haddington, in Goole, in Hull, in Ely, in Rickmansworth, and in a dozen other places which have little or no intercourse

with each other, and with the fury of a West Indian hurricane, it has now burst out in Paris, in a few days sweeping off 20,000 victims to its rage. These facts again turned the scale, to shew us the operation of the unknown epidemic influence. They prove that infection is no longer the essential cause, and even tend to indicate that, for a time, its operation may be materially suspended. Such is the sole

inference which an unprejudiced mind, anxious only for the truth, can derive from the contemplation of these events. If the operation of contagion was palpable in the transit of cholera from Berlin to Sunderland, the influence of some other cause is equally proved in the subsequent irruption of the

disorder. The man who makes this inference changes no opinions." Opinions are of a double kind, those founded on facts and reasoning, and those hazarded without a knowledge of either; rational opinions must undergo modification with the facts they flow from.

Even in the localities occupied by the disease, the most rigid scrutiny often fails to trace the operation of infection. In one district of London, thirteen families were, to our own knowledge, infected; but the first case having occurred in each without any appreciable infective cause, the other cases are inconclusive, as they might have originated in the unknown source by which the first was occasioned. This position is as clear as the construction of a common syllogism."

The Reviewer in the Lancet expresses his opinion that "the presence of an epidemic cause is, to a certain extent, a protection against human poison; or, in other words, that it is principally in places free from the epidemic that the disease can, under ordinary exposure, spread from person to person." This is strange reasoning. It amounts to this, that cholera is contagious when sporadic; but when epidemic, it loses that character! Valeat quantum !

The Medical Gazette also has been forced, by public opinion, to modify its doctrines not a little. While clinging to the

doctrine that cholera may be contagious (which few have doubted), the learned Editor acknowledges that his "estimate of the degree of its contagiousness is very much reduced." "We had anticipated (says he) that, when the disease came to this country, the doctrine of contagion would have been extended and confirmed; whereas just the reverse has happened." This is candid, we acknowledge; but why the Editor of the Medical Gazette should lose his temper, and abuse all who held an opinion contrary to that which he is now forced to abandon, is not quite clear. It is certainly very impolitic in him to shew his anger so unequivocally and so frequently. It evinces a losing game.

We have received a letter from Surgeon Martin, of the 73d regiment at Malta, respecting cholera, of which he had ample experience during the years 1818, 19, 20, and 21, in India. The numerous facts and

arguments which he adduces respecting the

non-contagions character of the disease are now somewhat late, and the most strenuous advocates of contagion are now beginning

of

to take rational and moderate views, We shall, however, extract a passage or two from the letter of our zealous correspondent. "Upon the subject of the disease being conveyable from one part of the globe to another by ships, &c. I never but once, during the above period, heard it even suggested. When the disease, of a very malignant character, first appeared at Point Pedro, in the Island of Ceylon, many vessels were daily clearing out for different parts the coast, yet no disease was communicated to any of the ports to which they went-the cholera pursuing its own course uninterrupted along the coast of Jaffnapatam, and thence to Trincomalee, over an immense tract of jungle, where I witnessed its devas. tation, arriving at Ballacolloa, by such regular marches that its daily progress might have been laid down on a map before-hand." "I would ask the contagionists how it was that this deadly disease would make its appearance in a quadrangular fort, or the filthy narrow lane of a bazaar, attacking the occupants of only one face of the fort, or

one side of the bazaar, leaving the remainder of the inhabitants, for that time, in perfect health." "While the 73d Regt. was drawn up one morning on the parade ground at Trincomallee, several men were simultaneously attacked with cholera, and were all dead and buried the sime evening; yet not one of the others were seized with cholera at that time." Unfortunately the active depletory treatment recommended by Mr. Martin has not been found applicable to the epidemic of this country, for the reasons pointed out in our last number, especially the premonitory diarrhoea, by which the patient is too much depleted before that stage of the disease arrives which resembles the Indian cholera.

VII. CHOLERA IN GLASGOW.

THE contagionists are losing ground in every direction where the personal knowledge of cholera obtains. Thus at Glasgow, (as appears by the last number of the Glasgow Journal,) the doctrine of contagion has in an able report from the "Town's Hossustained a signal defeat. Dr. Auchineloss, pital," has clearly shewn that the disease arose spontaneously, not only in different ities of the town, without any positive eviwards of the hospital, but in different localdence of its being propagated from person to person afterwards. It appears that, in Glasgow, as elsewhere, diarrhoea was the Premonitory or rather the primary stage of

cholera.

In the review department the editors have taken the side of non-contagion, and our friend Mr. Moir, of Musselburgh, cuts but a sorry figure when his "proofs of the contagion of malignant cholera," are overhauled by the rigid censors of Glasgow. After citing some of Mr. Moir's "proofs,” the reviewer remarks-" he (Mr. Moir) must presume his readers to be fools, or he intended to gull the contagionists, when he believed that even they would swallow such absurd nonsense."

VIII. PROOFS OF IDENTITY. "THE malady (Cholera in Dublin) has

decidedly altered its type, since first introduced. Not one patient in thirty has it now in the original form. FEVER, with cramps, vomiting, and sometimes purging, is the form which at present is most prevalent, and it generally yields to antiphlogistic treatment."-Medical Gazette.

It will be remembered that the Irish Board of Contagion declared that the disease was not introduced, but occurred spontaneously; yet still the darling doctrine of importation is clung to with as much tenacity as their salaries! But now we find this specific disease which has travelled by means of personal communication from the Jumna to the Liffey, all at once changing its type, and becoming a gastric fever! Truly this is a strong proof of identity!

IX. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE OF CON

TAGION.

Mr. ORTON is labouring hard in his vocation to disprove all he had formerly asserted respecting the non-contagious nature of cholera. We shall here advert to a curious circumstance which has escaped the notice of Mr. Orton's critics. It is well known that Mr. Orton stated in the Westminster Medical Society, that his opinions on the non-contagious nature of cholera were hastily formed, and that it was during leisure reflection afterwards in England he altered his sentiments. This might have been admitted had Mr. Orton cancelled a single leaf of the second edition of his work, which exhibits an exceedingly awkward disclosure. When Mr. O. had got as far as page 165, he refers to his Appendix, where he tells us that the balance of evidence will be found clearly against the infectious nature of cholera. But alas! between page 165 and page 313, certain circumstances occurred, which entirely changed Mr. Orton's creed, and this very Appendix comes upon us crammed with arguments in favour of contagion, Mr. Orton forgetting to cancel page 165, where he refers to the Appendix with a totally different view!! What the reasons were which changed Mr. Orton's creed in the course of a few days, or at most

a few weeks, we are unable to divine. Perhaps the arguments in favour of contagion which emanated from the Board of Health just about that time, may have dazzled our author, and coming from his military superiors may have carried more weight than as emanating from other sources.

Be this as it may, Mr. Orton is now very hard pushed for arguments in favour of contagion, when he has recourse to the effluvia from the feces of those labouring under diarrhoea, as the disseminating cause of cholera. The Parisian cholera is now clearly traced by Mr. Orton to a person with diarrhoea "who sleeps at Calais, infects the atmosphere of at least one public privy there, and perhaps transgresses the prohibition stuck up on the Boulevards, 'ni faire ni deposer ses ordures,' and passes on. The disease immediately afterwards appears there, &c."-risum teneatis amici ?

And is all the beautiful chain of proofs which connected the cholera of Hamburgh with that of Jessore, now vanished into air

the mal-odorous air of privies! The dirty doctrine of diarrhoea is the last stay and hope of the contagionists! But even here, Mr. Orton has evinced his usual shortness of memory. It is not even a second-hand, but a third-hand doctrine. Dr. Whiting maintained it months before Mr. Orton wrote in the Medical Gazette (May 19th) and Dr. Kirk (page 14 of his work on Cholera) distinctly enunciates the doctrine which is claimed with such an air of originality by Mr. Orton. There is no doubt, however, that this stercoraceous hypothesis was hailed with delight in the privy-council of Whitehall.

X. CHOLERA IN CORK.

Dr. D. B. BULLEN has recently published a short, but practical pamphlet on the epidemic, as it has appeared at Cork, of which we can take but a very brief notice. The disease first broke out on the 5th of April, in the person of a youth of eleven years of age, who died in about 13 hours, On the 13th and 14th of the same month, several

well-marked cases occurred, in low, ill-ventilated lakes, among densely crowded inhabitants "living in poverty, wretchedness and filth."

"In some houses, several families were living in actual contact with a mass of putrefying animal and vegetable matter."

"Upon every inquiry, there are no grounds for supposing, that cholera was imported into Cork. A strict quarantine was established upon all vessels arriving in the harbour from suspected ports, and not a single case occurred amongst the shipping, Although the epidemic existed for some weeks in Dublin, before it appeared in Cork, still the persons first attacked in the latter city, could not possibly have had any communication to give reason for suspecting that the disease was produced by infection. It is a singular fact in the propagation of this epidemic, that it should have broken out and spread along the eastern coast of England, whilst so many great towns in the same parallel, upon the western part of the Continent escaped; and that it should have established itself in so extensive and severe a form in Dublin and Cork, upon the eastern and south-eastern coast of Ireland, before any town upon the western coast of England had been attacked."

Dr. Bullen considers the epidemic as a febrile disease presenting three stages, now so well recognized. In the first stage he recommends emetics, followed by calomel and other aperients. In the second stage, or that of congestion, he depends chiefly on calomel. He assures us that "not a single case of cholera has been lost in the North Cholera Hospital, where the constitutional effects of mercury were produced." He placed a scruple of calomel on the tongue, with one grain of opium, and washed it down with some warm brandy and water. If relief was not produced, he repeated the dose every two hours, until three doses were exhibited. In the stage of consecutive fever, the treatment depended on the symptoms, and on the organs chiefly affected. Dr. B. properly deprecates specifics in a disease consisting of distinct periods, each requiring

appropriate treatment. The pamphlet is creditable to the author.

XI. SALINE INJECTIONS IN CHOLERA. WHEN the administration of saline medicines, whether by the mouth or per anum, was proposed for the cure of cholera, we then observed that this practice was surely carrying coals to Newcastle, since the saline ingredients of the blood were drained from the circulation into the alimentary canal, and consequently the addition of other saline medicines in that quarter was superfluous. We find that Dr. Latta of Leith, in his communication to the Central Board of Health, avers that the introduction of saline solutions in the intestines of cholera patients "aggravated the tormina, vomiting, and purging." So much for Dr. Steeven's plan of curing cholera, said to be successful in the hands of one practitioner in London. Of that success we shall here say no more than that any remedy, however inert, or even absurd, may gain great reputation towards the close of an epidemic, when Nature herself is generally equal to the

cure.

But the physical effects, resulting from the injection of aqueous saline fluids into the blood, are of a positive nature, and capable of demonstration. They appear, in the present case, to be very important, and likely to lead to other and more important results. The following extract from Dr. Latta's letter, as published in the Lancet, is deserving of great attention.

"The first subject of experiment was an aged female, on whom all the usual remedies had been fully tried, without producing one good symptom; the disease, uninterrupted, holding steadily on its course. She had apparently reached the last moments of her earthly existence, and now nothing could injure her-indeed, so entirely was she reduced, that I feared I should be unable to get my apparatus ready ere she expired. Having inserted a tube into the basilic vein, cautiously-anxiously, I watched the effects; ounce after ounce was injected, but no visible change was produced. Still perpersevering, I thought she began to breathe