nformation since accumulated by our Army
Medical Department, been consulted, all which are highly creditable to
those concerned in drawing them up, and contain incomparably better
evidence, that is, evidence more to be relied on, than any which can be
procured from Russia or any other part of the world--had these sources
of information been consulted, as many think they should in all fairness
have been, the College would probably have spoken more doubtingly as
to cholera, in any form, possessing the property of propagating itself
from person to person. Much of what passes current in favour of the
communication of cholera rests, I perceive, on statements the most
vague, assertions in a general way, as to the security of those who shut
themselves up, &c. To show how little reliance is to be placed on such
statements, even when they come from what ought to be good authority,
let us take an instance which happened in the case of yellow fever.
Doctor, now Sir William Pym, superintendent of the quarantine
department, published a book on this disease in 1815, in which he
stated, that the people shut up in a dock-yard, during the epidemic of
1814, in Gibraltar, escaped the disease, and Mr. William Fraser, also of
the quarantine, and who was on the spot, made a similar statement. Now,
we all believed this in England for several years, when a publication
appeared from Dr. O'Halloran, of the medical department of Gibraltar
garrison, in which he stated that he had made inquiries from the
authorities at that place, and that he discovered the whole statement to
have been without the smallest foundation, and furnishes the particulars
of cases which occurred in the dock-yard, among which were some deaths;
this has never since been replied to--so much as a caution in the
selection of proofs.

To show, further, how absurdly statements respecting the efficacy of
cordons will sometimes be made, it may be mentioned that M. D'Argout,
French minister of public works, standing up in his place in the
chamber, _on the 3rd instant_ (_Septr._), and producing his estimates
for additional cordons, &c., stated, by way of proving the efficacy of
such establishments, that in Prussia, where, according to him, cordon
precautions had been pre-eminently rigorous, and where "_le territoire
a ete defendu pied a pied_," such special enforcement of the regulations
was attended with "_assez de succes_:" in the meantime the next mail
brings us the official annou