of observation, that all those who stand up
for contagion, _have not witnessed_ the cholera, which is, therefore,
especially objected to their opinion by their opponents." He closes by
the observation, "The result of my own daily experience, therefore,
perfectly agrees with the above-stated principle, namely, notwithstanding
all my inquiries, I _have met with no instance which could render it at
all probable that the cholera is disseminated by inanimate objects_." The
words in italics are as in the Parliamentary papers on Cholera, pp. 8 and
9. Here is something to help to guide people in forming opinions, and to
help governments on quarantine questions; but owing to a portion of the
"perverseness" which Dr. Macmichael in anger talks about, Dr. Albers
still _speculates_ upon cholera being contagious, and the College, it
would seem, take up his speculations and sink his very important facts.
Sir William Creighton's Report gives what puports to be an extract from
a memorial of his on cholera, given in to the St. Petersburg Medical
Council, tending to establish the contagious character of the disease;
and with this a report by the extraordinary committee appointed by the
Emperor to inquire into the Moscow epidemic. The disease had not appeared
at St. Petersburg when he drew up his Memorial, and it does not appear
from any-thing which can be seen in the extracts he furnishes, that he
had personal knowledge of any part of what he relates. He gives the
reported progress of the disease on the Volga and the Don, but is
extremely deficient exactly where one might have expected that, from the
greater efficiency of police authorities, &c., his information on
contagion would have been more precise, viz., the introduction of the
disease into Moscow, which could not, it would seem have been by material
objects, for, according to the Committee, composed "of the most eminent
public officers,"--"the opinion of those who do not admit the possibility
of contagion by means of material objects, has for its support both the
majority of voices, and the scrupulous observance of facts. The members
of the Medical Council have been convinced by their own experience, as
also by the reports of the physicians of the hospitals, that, after
having been in frequent and even habitual communication with the sick,
their own clothes have never communicated the disease to any one, even
without employing means of purification. Convalescents have continued to
we