On a post-mortem examination, polypi were found in the ventricles of
the heart, and the cavae were filled with dark blood. Some red patches
were noticed on the mucuous membrane; but the communication forwarded
to me does not specify on what precise part of the stomach or
intestinal canal; and my friend does not appear to attach much
importance to them, from their common occurrence in a variety of other
diseases. It remains to be noticed, that the above man had been at a
fair in the neighbourhood on the 9th (two days preceding his attack),
where, as is stated, he ate freely of fruit, and got intoxicated. On
the 10th he also went to the fair, but was seen to go to bed sober
that night. The disease did not spread to others, either by direct
or indirect contact with this patient.

Now let us be frank, and instead of temporising with the question, take
up in one hand the paper on "cholera spasmodica" just issued, for our
guidance, from the College of Physicians by the London Board of Health,
and in the other, this case of Martin M'Neal (far from being a singular
case this year, in most of the important symptoms),--let the symptoms be
compared by those who are desirous that the truth should be ascertained,
or by those who are not, and if distinctions can be made out, I must
ever after follow the philosophy of the man who doubted his own
existence. The case, as it bears on certain questions connected with
cholera, _is worth volumes of what has been said on the same subject_.
Let it be examined by the most fastidious, and the complete identity
cannot be got rid of, even to the _blue_ skin, the _shrivelled fingers_,
the _cold tongue_, the _change in voice_, and the _suppression of
urine_, considered in some of the descriptions to be found in the
pamphlet issued by the Board of Health, as so characteristic of the
"Indian" cholera; and this, too, under a "constitution of the
atmosphere" so remarkably disposed to favour the production of cholera
of one kind or other, that Dr. Gooch, were he alive, or any close
reasoner like him, must be satisfied, that were this remarkable form of
the disease communicable, no circumstance was absent which can at all
be considered essential to its propagation. As the symptoms in the case
of M'Neal, were, perhaps, more characteristically grouped than in any
other case which has been recorded in this country, so it has also in
all probability occurred, that more individuals had been in contact with