ence in leading
the public to believe in the contagion of cholera, might equally apply
to the influenza which this year prevailed in Europe, and last year in
China, &c.; or to the influenza of 1803, which traversed over continents
and oceans, _sometimes in the wind's eye, sometimes not_, as frequently
mentioned by the late Professor Gregory of Edinburgh. Who will now stand
up and try to maintain that the disease in those epidemics was
propagated from person to person? Could more have been made of so bad a
cause as contagion in cholera, few perhaps could have succeeded better
than Dr. Macmichael, and no discourtesy shall be offered him by me,
though he does sometimes loose his temper, and say, among other things
not over civil, nor quite _comme il faut_, from a Fellow of the College,
that all who do not agree with him as to contagion "will fully abandon
all the ordinary maxims of prudence, and remain obstinately blind to the
dictates of common sense!"--_fort, mais peu philosophique Monsieur le
Docteur_. The time has gone by when ingenious men of the profession,
like Dr. Macmichael, might argue common sense out of us; it will not
even serve any purpose now that other names are so studiously introduced
as _entirely coinciding_ with Dr. Macmichael; for, in these days of
reform in every thing, _opinions_, will only be set down at their just
value by those who pay attention to the subject.

[Footnote 2: I presume that I shall not be misunderstood when I say,
_Would that the cholera were contagious_--for then we might have every
reasonable hope of staying the progress of the calamity by those cordon
and quarantine regulations which are now not merely useless, but the
bane of society, when applied to cholera or other non-contagious
diseases.]

Referring once more to the Report of the 9th of June, made by the
College to the Council, and signed by the President as well as by
Dr. Macmichael, the cholera was there pronounced to be a communicable
disease, when they had, as they freely admit, "no other means of judging
of the nature and symptoms of the cholera than those furnished by the
documents submitted to them." The documents submitted were the
following, as appears from the collection of papers published by order
of Parliament:--Two reports made to our government by Dr. Walker, from
Russia; a report from Petersburgh by Dr. Albers, a Prussian physician;
and a report, with inclosures, regarding Russian quarantine regulations,
f