from the factitious ones, of our own
creating, and the imaginary or false which often spread epidemically,
(for there may be an epidemic as well as contagious current of
disease)[27] although they possess no contagious property whatever; as
well as the foreign contagions, which if we relax in due precaution,
may, at any time, be introduced amongst us--but the unreasonable length
of this letter, for a newspaper communication, warns me to stop.

[Footnote 27: For as long as men congregate together, and every
supposable degree of communication must of necessity be constantly
taking place amongst them, to distinguish a spreading epidemic from a
contagious disease when it first breaks out, must obviously be a matter
of impossibility; and upon this point the contagionists and their
antagonists may rail for ever,--the one will see nothing but contagion,
whether in the dead or the living body, and the other will refer every
fresh case to atmospheric or terrestrial influence, and both with as
much apparent reason as they possibly could desire: but the candid
impartial investigator, who waits to observe the course of the disease
before coming to a conclusion, and refers to the facts furnished in the
Cholera Hospitals of Warsaw and the sick quarters of Sunderland, will
never be deceived in regard to its real nature, nor propagate the
appalling belief that Cholera Morbus can be made a transportable and
transmissible contagion.]

I have written thus earnestly, because I deeply feel what I have here
put down. It is possible I may have made mistakes, but if I have, they
are not intentional, and I shall be happy to be corrected, for I do
not live at the head quarters of communication, and my broken health
prevents my frequenting in person, the field of investigation. In
candour I ought to declare, that the establishment of quarantine against
this new and hideous pestilence in the first instance, was the most
sacred duty of Government, but now that its true character has been made
known, and the futility of quarantine restrictions demonstrated, I feel
equally bound, as one of the lieges, to enter my humble protest against
their continuance.

Should I write again, I shall still adopt the same popular style,
for no other can be adapted to a newspaper communication, and the
subject-matter is as interesting to the public, and every head of a
family, as it can be to the professional reader; and, in thus making
use of your columns, as I ca