ar clothes which they wore during the disease--even furs--without
having them purified, and they have had no relapse. At the opening of
bodies of persons who had died of cholera, to the minute inspection of
which four or five hours a day for nearly a month were devoted, neither
those who attended at their operations, nor any of the assisting
physicians, nor any of the attendants, caught the infection, although,
with the exception of the first day, scarcely any precautions were used.
But what appears still more conclusive, a physician who had received
several wounds in separating the flesh, continued his operations, having
only touched the injured parts with caustic. A drunken invalid having
also wounded himself, had an abscess, which doubtless showed the
pernicious action of the dead flesh, but the cholera morbus did not
attack him. In fine, foreign _Savans_, such as Moreau de Jonnes and
Gravier, who have recognized, in various relations, the contagious nature
of the cholera morbus, do not admit its propagation by means of goods and
merchandise." (_Parl. Papers on Chol._ p. 13.) With the above documents
the Council transmitted to the College a short description of the process
of cleaning hemp in the Russian ports; and, lastly, the copy of a
letter to the clerk of the Council from our ever-vigilant, though
never-sufficiently-to-be-remunerated, head guardian of the quarantine
department, who, taking the alarm, very properly recommends, as in duty
bound, that a stir be forthwith made in all the pools, and creeks, and
bays, &c., of the united kingdom, in order that all those notoriously
"susceptible" old offenders, skins, hemp, flax, rags, &c., may be
prevented from carrying into execution their felonious intention of
covering the landing of a dire enemy. In truth, from the grave as well
as from the sublime, there often seems to be "but a step;" and in
reading over this gentleman's suggestions about _susceptibles_ and
_non-susceptibles_, one may fancy himself, instead of being in the
land of thinking people, to be in the land of Egypt, where, as we are
informed (Madden, 1825), the sage matrons discuss the point, whether a
cat be not a better vehicle for contagion than a dog:--a horse may be
trusted, they say, but as to an ass, he is the most incorrigible of
contagion smugglers;--of fresh bread we never need be afraid, but the
susceptibility of butcher's meat is quite an established thing:--or we
might fancy ourselves transpor