the Foot Guards,
had been proclaimed, and treated as a contagion? The poor fellow was
promptly surrounded by his fearless comrades, who with their kind hands
recalled and preserved the vital heat on the surface, by persevering in
the affectionate duty of rubbing him for many hours; but had the Medical
Staff of the regiment been true contagionists, they must, as in duty
bound, have commanded, and compelled every one of them to fly the
infection. It depended upon them, to have spread around a far wilder
and more dangerous contagion than that of Cholera Morbus, or any other
disease,--the contagion of fear--and from what occurred at Cadiz, as
above related, it is to be hoped our medical men will now see how much
they will have it in their power, when Cholera comes, to pronounce, or
to withhold sentence of desolation upon a community. The word Contagion
will be the word of doom, for then the healthy will fly their homes,
and the sick be deserted; but a countenance and bearing, devoid of that
groundless fear, will at once command the aid, and inspire the hopes
that are powerful to save in the most desperate diseases.

It is stated, in a Scotch newspaper, that two poor travellers, passing
from Kirkintulloch to Falkirk, ran the risque of being stoned to death
by the populace of the latter place, and were saved from the immolation
only by escaping into a house; and in an Irish one, that some
shipwrecked sailors incurred a similar danger. Such barbarities
must, in the nature of things, be practised every where under a reign
of terror, however humane or christianized the people may be--even the
fatalism of the Turk would not be proof against it. In Spain they have
been enacted in all their horrors (thanks to the quarantine laws) upon
the unfortunate victims of yellow fever;[33] and we shall soon see them
repeated amongst ourselves, unless the plain truth be promulgated by
authority to the people. Let them be told if such be the pleasure of
our rulers, (for it is not worth while disputing the point), that
Cholera Morbus is a contagion, but of so safe a nature in regard to
communicability, that not one in a hundred, or even a thousand, take
the disease,--that in this country, besides being a transient passing
disease, which according to certain laws and peculiarities of its own,
will assuredly take its departure in no long time; it is limited almost
always to particular spots and localities--that it is in their own
power, while it