have
occasion to notice their errors or omissions.

Previous to proceeding to the consideration of other points, it may be
observed, that all doubt is at an end as to the identity of the Indian,
Russian, Prussian, and Austrian epidemic cholera; no greater difference
being observed in the grades of the disease in any two of those
countries, than is to be found at different times, or in different
places, in each of them respectively. At the risk of being considered a
very incompetent judge, if nothing worse, I shall not hesitate to say,
that if the same assemblage, or grouping of symptoms be admitted as
constituting the same disease, it may at any time be established, to the
entire satisfaction of an unprejudiced tribunal, that cases of cholera,
not unfrequently proving fatal, and corresponding in every particular to
the average of cases as they have appeared in the above countries, have
been frequently remarked as occurring in other countries including
England; and yet no cordon or quarantine regulations, on the presumption
of the disease spreading by "contagion." For my own part, without
referring to events out of Europe, I have been long quite familiar, and
I know several others who are equally so, with cholera, in which a
perfect similarity to the symptoms of the Indian or Russian cholera has
existed: the collapse--the deadly coldness with a clammy skin--the
irritability of the stomach, and prodigious discharge from the bowels
of an opaque serous fluid (untinged with bile in the slightest
degree)--with a corresponding shrinking of flesh and integuments--the
pulseless and livid extremities--the ghastly aspect of countenance and
sinking of the eyes--the restlessness so great, that the patient has not
been able to remain for a moment in any one position--yet, with all
this, nobody dreamt of the disease being communicable; no precautions
were taken on those occasions "to prevent the spreading of the disease,"
and no epidemics followed. In the _Glasgow Herald_ of the 5th ult., will
be found a paper by Mr. Marshall, (a gentleman who seems to reason with
great acuteness), which illustrates this part of our subject. This
gentleman appears to have had a good deal of experience in Ceylon when
the disease raged there, and I shall have occasion to refer hereafter to
his statements, which I consider of great value. Nobody can be so absurd
as to expect, that in the instances to which I refer, _all_ the symptoms
which have ever bee