can
only be that on which truth lies (for then the people will know
_what_ to do in the event of an epidemic), openly favour the side of
_communicability_, contrary to their inward conviction; while the good
people of the quarantine have been stoutly at work in making out that
precautions are as necessary in the cholera as in plague. Meantime our
merchants, and indeed the whole nation, are filled with astonishment,
on discovering that neighbouring states enforce a quarantine against
ships from the British dominions, when those states find that cases of
disease are reported to them as occurring among us, resembling more
or less those which we have so loudly, and I must add prematurely,
declared to be transmissible. It is quite true that, however decidedly
the question may be set at rest in this country, our commerce, should
we act upon the principle, of the disease not being transmissible,
would be subject to vexatious measures, at least for a time, on the
part of other states; but let England take the lead in instituting a
full inquiry into the whole subject, by a Committee of the House of
Commons; and if the question be decided against quarantines and
cordons by that body, other countries will quickly follow the example,
and explode them as being much worse than useless, as far as their
application to cholera may be concerned. It is very remarkable how, in
these matters, one country shapes its course by what seems to be the
rule in others; and, as far as the point merely affects commerce,
without regard to ulterior considerations, it is not very surprising
that this should be the case; but it is not till an epidemic shall
have actually made its appearance among us, that the consequences of
the temporising, or the precipitation, of medical men can appear in
all their horrors. Let no man hesitate to retract an opinion already
declared, on a question of the highest importance to society, if he
should see good reason for doing so, after a patient and unbiassed
reconsideration of all the facts. We are bound, in every way, to act
with good faith towards the public, and erroneous views, in which
that public is concerned, ought to be declared as soon as discovered.
To show how erroneous some of the data are from which people are
likely to have drawn conclusions, is the main cause of my wish to
occupy the attention of the public; and in doing this, it is certainly
not my wish to give offence to respectable persons, though I may