the persons
employed in removing the dead bodies (which is done without any
precaution) has been taken ill. _The statement of fifteen labourers
being attacked, while opening a pack of hemp, is a notorious falsehood._
Some physicians incline to the opinion, that the disease may sometimes
be caught by infection, where the habit of body of the individual is
predisposed to receive it; the majority of the faculty, however,
maintain a contrary doctrine, and the result of the hospital practice
is in their favour. There are 78 persons employed in the principal
hospital here; of these only two have been attacked, one of whom was an
'_Inspecteur de Salle_,' and not in immediate attendance upon the sick.
I am assured that the other hospitals offer the same results, but as I
cannot obtain equally authentic information respecting them, I confine
myself to this statement, on which you may rely. On the other hand, in
private families, several instances have occurred where the illness of
one individual has been followed by that of others: but, generally, only
where the first case has proved fatal, and the survivors have given way
to grief and alarm. Mercenary attendants have seldom been attacked,
and, as mental agitation is proved to be one of the principal agents
in propagating or generating the disease, these isolated cases are
attributed to that cause rather than infection.

"It is impossible to trace the origin of the disease to the barks;
indeed it had not manifested itself at the place whence they come till
after it had broken out here. The nearest point infected was Schowlen
(at a distance of 200 wersts), and it appeared simultaneously in three
different places at Riga, without touching the interjacent country. The
first cases were two stone-masons, working in the Petersburg suburbs, a
person in the citadel, and a lady resident in the town. None of these
persons had had the slightest communication with the crews of barks, or
other strangers, and the quarter inhabited by people of that description
was later attacked, though it has ultimately suffered most.

"None of the medical men entertain the slightest doubt of the action of
atmospheric influence--so many undeniable instances of the spontaneous
generation of the disease having occurred. Half the town has been
visited by diarrhoea, and the slightest deviation from the regimen now
prescribed (consisting principally in abstinence from acids, fruit,
beer, &c.) invariably produce