e spreading of other diseases. A person
sees evidence of the transmission, _mediate_ as well as _immediate_,
of small-pox, from one person to another; and, in other diseases, the
origin of which may be involved in obscurity, he is greatly prone
to assign a similar cause which may seem to reconcile things so
satisfactorily to his mind. Indeed there seems, in many parts of the
world, a degree of _popularity_ as to quarantine regulations, which
is well understood and turned to proper account by the initiated in
the mysteries of that department:--for what more common than the
expression--"we cannot be too careful in our attempts to _keep out_
such or such a disease?" For my part, I admit that I can more easily
comprehend the propagation of certain epidemics by contagion, than I
can by any other means, _when unaccompanied by sensible atmospheric
changes_; and if I reject contagion in cholera, it is because whatever
we have in the shape of fair evidence, is quite conclusive as to the
non-existence of any such principle. Indeed abundance of evidence now
lies before the public, from various sources, in proof of the saying of
Fontenelle being fully applicable to the question of cholera--"When a
thing is accounted for in two ways, the truth is usually on the side
most opposed to _appearances_." How well mistaken opinions as to
contagion in cholera are illustrated in a pamphlet which has just
appeared from Dr. Zoubkoff of Moscow! This gentleman, it appears, has
been a firm believer in contagion, until the experience afforded him
during the prevalence of the disease in that city proved the contrary.
He tells us (p. 10), that in the hospital (Yakimanka) he saw "_to his
great astonishment_, that all the attendants, all the soldiers, handled
the sick, supported their heads while they vomited, placed them in the
bath, and buried the dead; always without precaution, and always without
being attacked by cholera." He saw that even the breath of cholera
patients was inhaled by others with impunity; he saw, that throughout
the district of which he had charge, the disease did not spread through
the crowded buildings, or in families where some had been attacked, and
that exposure to exciting causes _determined_ the attack in many
instances. He saw all this, gives the public the benefit of the copious
notes which he made of details as to persons, places, &c., and now
ridicules the idea of contagion in cholera. Grant to the advocates of
contagio