of Deputies to
inquire into the questions connected with voting an additional sum to
meet cordon and quarantine expenses, in the event of the cholera making
its appearance in or near France, have made their report to the Chamber.
They declare that in India the cholera was proved not to have been
transmissible; and that in regard to Russia, it was not introduced, as
always contended for by some persons:--they refer to the city of Thorn
as exempt from the disease, though free from cordons, and in the midst
of a country where it prevails, while the disease appeared in St.
Petersburg and Moscow, notwithstanding their cordons, and even in
Prussia, where sanatory laws where executed "_avec une punctualite et
une rigeur ailleurs inconnues_." The money is nevertheless granted;
it is always a good thing to have, but they have set one curious
_condition_ upon its being granted, which displays consummate tact,
for it is to be employed solely in disbursements of a particular nature
(_depenses materielles_), including, it may be presumed, temporary
hospitals, &c.; and that it is by no means ("_nullement_") to go into
the pockets of individuals.

The other circumstance to which I allude is that, like Russia and
Austria, Prussia has found that quarantines and cordons do not check
the progress of cholera. The king declares that the appearance of the
disease in his provinces, has thrown _new light_ on the question; he
specifies certain restrictions as to intercourse, which were forthwith
to be removed, and declares his intention to modify the whole. In
short, it is quite plain that, as Dr. Johnson has it in his last
journal,--those regulations will, "_in more countries than Russia,
be useless to all but those employed in executing them_."

LETTER IV.

It need scarcely be said how much it behooves all medical men to keep
in view the subject of the wide-spreading cholera, and not to suffer
themselves to be led from an attentive consideration of all that
appertains to it, by the great political questions which at present
convulse the whole kingdom.

I totally disagree with Dr. Macmichael, as I believe most people will,
that the notion of _contagion_ in many diseases is "far from being
natural and obvious to the mind;" for, since the time that contagious
properties have been generally allowed to belong to certain diseases,
there has been a strong disposition to consider this as the most natural
and obvious mode of explaining th