; to wash their fundaments after stool; to wash their
whole persons and clothing every day; and, finally, also to rinse their
mouths with water, and this they often do after washing in foul tanks, or
still fouler pools of water. On steamships, where tubs of water were
provided for washing their fundaments after defecation, Surgeon-General De
Renzy saw many Hindoos rinse their mouth with the same water.

9. The population of Hindostan is nearly three hundred millions, and at
least one hundred million pounds of faecal matter is deposited on the open
ground everyday, and has been for centuries.

10. Much of this foul matter is washed by rains into their tanks and pools
of water, which they use indiscriminately for washing, cooking, and
drinking purposes.

11. The poison of cholera has repeatedly been carried in soiled clothing
packed in trunks and boxes, and conveyed to great distances.

12. Articles of food, even bread and cake, as well as apples, plums, and
other fruit, handled by persons in the incipient stages of cholera, have
been known to convey the disease.

13. The number of epidemics produced by cholera discharges getting into
drinking water are almost innumerable, and those from contaminated milk
are not few.

14. The first case of cholera is generally counted from the first fatal
one, whereas this is almost always preceded by non-fatal ones, which have
escaped notice. And each subsequent fatal case is interwoven by one, or
several, or even many, non-fatal causes. If the string of a row of beads
is broken, and the beads scattered everywhere, it would be just as
improper to say that they had never been upon a string as to say that,
because all the fatal cases of cholera cannot be traced to equally fatal
ones, no connection ever existed between them.

These points are necessarily stated categorically, but every one can be
proved, if proof is called for. The numerous and very large pilgrimages of
the Hindoos must not be forgotten.

John C. Peters, M.D.

83 Madison Avenue.

* * * * *

DR. KOCH ON THE CHOLERA.

An important and influential conference[1] upon cholera was opened in
Berlin at the Imperial Board of Health on the evening of July 26. There
were present Drs. v. Bergmann, Coler, Eulenbrg, B. Fraenkel, Gaffky,
Hirsch, Koch, Leyden, S. Neumann, Pistor, Schubert, Skreczka, Struck,
Virchow, and Wollfhuegel. The conference had been called at the instance of
the