him during his illness and after his death, as the facility in obtaining
persons to attend the sick, rub their bodies, &c., must be vastly
greater in the army than in ordinary life; so that in such cases it is
not a question of one or two escaping, but of _many_, which is always
the great test.

Of the College of Physicians we are all bound to speak with every
feeling of respect, but had the document transmitted by that learned
body to our government, on the 9th of June last, expressed only a
"philosophic doubt," instead of making an assertion, the question
relative to the contagion or non-contagion of the disease, now making
ravages in various parts of Europe, would be less shackled among us.
People are naturally little disposed to place themselves, with the
knowledge they may have obtained from experience and other sources, in
opposition to such a body as the College: but as, in their letter to
government of the 18th of June, they profess their readiness, should it
be necessary, to "re-consider" their opinion, we, who see reason to
differ from them, may be excused for publishing our remarks. It seems
surprising enough that, in their letter to government of the 9th of
June, the College should have given as a reason for their decision
as to the disease being infectious (meaning, evidently, what some call
contagious, or transmissible from _persons_)--"having no other means of
judging of the nature and symptoms of the cholera than those furnished
by the documents submitted to us." Now, according to the printed
parliamentary papers, among the documents here referred to as having
been sent by the Council to the College, was one from Sir William
Crichton, Physician in Ordinary to the Emperor of Russia, in which a
clear account is given of the symptoms as they presented themselves in
that country; and, if the College had previously doubted of the identity
of the Russian and Indian cholera, a comparison of the symptoms, as they
were detailed by Sir William, with those described in various places in
the _three volumes_ of printed Reports on the cholera of India, in the
college library, must at once have established the point in the
affirmative. In fact, we know, that the evidence of Dr. Russell, given
before the College, when he heard Sir William's description of the
disease read, fully proved this identity to the satisfaction of the
College. Had the vast mass of information contained in the India
Reports, together with the i