any distance from the surface.* Then how is it that ships afford a particularly good nidus for cholera? In them at least there can be no question about subsoil-water. Cholera can germinate in a ship, and it is believed may be conveyed by clothing: in either case it is preserved and ready to germinate without a porous soil. It would be well, however, to inquire into the subject of the subsoil-water, and it is very desirable to have more information as to soil, and still more respecting water, contaminated with choleraic excretions, -as sources of disease. The Conference have received it as an established fact, that the germs of cholera are present in the excretions, and the common theory of the day, first clearly put forth by an officer of Indian experience, Orton, in 1832-first, certainly, of English writers-is that they are the channel through which, in one way or other, the disease passes from man to man. It is usual to hold that in their recent state they do not propagate the disease, that they have first to go through a process of fermentation. We apprehend that it would be easy to adduce evidence of the same class as that on which it is believed that the germs are contained only in the fermented excreta, to prove that they are equally present in the recent. The positive evidence that this is the main channel by which the disease is transmitted appears to us to be still defective, and the very last experiments made in Berlin, in attempting to communicate it thus to the lower animals, have, like former ones, yielded purely negative results.† Those who hold these views look on tainted water as a direct means of propagating the disease, and thus the RegistrarGeneral has gone so far as to make the announcement, dated November 20: 'Dr. Frankland has investigated some of the physical properties of cholera-stuff (cholerine), and has shown * Water is got in Calcutta in the dry weather at 9 to 12 feet from the surface, in Dinapore at 30, in Benares at 45, in Allahabad at 65, in Cawnpore at 70, in Agra at 65, in Meerut at 18, in Lahore at 40. In all these places there have been many outbreaks of cholera. At Bellary, 1600 feet above the sea-level, it is said that water can hardly be got at any depth. At Murree, 7500 feet above the sea. 'The rainfall and surface-water are speedily drained off, owing to the declivity of the hill-sides. There is no higher ground, the drainage of which could pass into the subsoil of the stratum.' † Some recent experiments, however, conducted under the direction of the very able Medical Officer of the Privy Council, are understood to have proved the communicability of the disease to mice. The question whether cholera really attacks the lower animals is a very curious one. The accounts, often circumstantial enough, of fowls, dogs, cats, oxen, and horses having suffered during cholera epidemics, are not all to be received; but some instances are undoubted: M. Lisson saw it in an ape at Amboyna; and Mr. Taylor, formerly of Dacca, informs us that a gibbon he kept in his verandah died of undoubted cholera at the same time as one of his servants. that that it passes through filtering paper, and that water containing one five-hundredth part of the matter is not entirely purified by transmission through animal charcoal.' If, indeed, we had got the length of isolating the cholera poison, we should have made an immense stride in our knowledge of the disease. But we have not space to enter on the complex, but very interesting question of the effects of water supply in London, and elsewhere. Although, however, we do not fully adopt many views which are thought to be established, but regard them rather as convenient hypotheses, we are far from doubting their value as helping to extend our knowledge, for the truth can best be arrived at in the end by closely testing the different hypotheses as they are put forward in succession; and we cannot escape the use of hypothetical language. It seems nevertheless to us that the cholera problem is a less simple one than those who run into special lines of investigation are inclined to believe. But turning from the subjects on which it would be desirable to obtain more information in India, we have next to consider the positive recommendations of the Conference for diminishing the prevalence of cholera in India, and for preventing its exportation by sea. The Conference have adopted in full the opinion that the disease is contagious, a view which was strongly insisted on in these pages in 1831-that it is transmitted from man to man, especially through the medium of the excretions and of articles of clothing contaminated by them. 6 Their scheme may be summed up as an application to India of extended hygienic measures, in fact, a development of the action already adopted there by the new Sanitary Commissions. The first class of measures has been thus curtly described in a recent publication of Messrs. Pirondi and Fabre of Marseilles: We should attack the evil at its source, by transforming the pernicious delta of the Ganges by culture, drainage, and all the resources of modern hygiène.' The Conference are not so impulsive and sanguine as these gentlemen; but they think, and we agree with them, that much may in time be done by greater attention to drainage, sewerage, water-supply, and overcrowding in our Indian cities. It would be impossible for us, within the limits of this paper, to go into these subjects in detail; but we may say a few words on a question which had attracted of late the attention of the Indian government, and on which the Conference insist strongly-we mean regulations respecting pilgrims proceeding to Indian shrines, or bent on the distant journey to Mecca. The bodies of pauper pilgrims who go from great distances to be massed together during the Hindoo festivals are un doubtedly doubtedly great carriers of cholera. If they do not pick it up on their journey to the shrine, they are very likely to get it during the festival, and then to disseminate it on their way back to their homes. The government of India, with overscrupulous care not to interfere with the feelings and usages of the people, have hitherto placed no bar on the pilgrims. Any one may start without check. We have heard of the case of a gardener, who earned, perhaps, two shillings a-week. He was a man over sixty years of age, and had just come back to his home near Benares, from a journey to the holy shrine of Ramisheram, at Adam's Bridge, near Ceylon. He had trudged the whole way there and back, about 4000 miles, lost his wife on the road, but had made up his mind to start again on a fresh pilgrimage when he had saved a few rupees. Yet this man was respectable both in means and in position, as compared with the professional beggars and devotees who crowd along the lines of pilgrimage. It would only be exercising a paternal care if Government were to prevent those from starting who could not show that they had some means of supporting themselves on the way. Care will, however, have to be taken that native officials do not make this a source of extortion. Then the absolute necessity for Government interference at the places of assemblage is apparent; and the results obtained at Conjeveram, near Madras, and at some places of pilgrimage in the Bombay presidency, where sanitary measures have been adopted, provision made to guard against crowding, to enforce cleanliness, and supply good drinking water, have already been most encouraging. Not only cholera, but outbreaks of fever, dysentery, and smallpox, so common where there are large assemblages of men, may be made much less frequent. The class of Mussulman pilgrims who resort to Mecca is generally superior to that of the Hindoos. They must at least have means of paying their passage on board ship; but they are often old and feeble, and quite unfit for the discomforts of the voyage. An English officer once attempted to dissuade an old Mussulman gentleman, who was nearly blind, and so helpless that he had to be carried about by two servants, from undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca; but in vain. There is no question that it would be right for the Indian government to ascertain that every pilgrim has means of supporting himself, and has made provision for the support of his family, during his absence. This, the Conference tell us, is done by the Dutch government in Java. again, in spite of a late Act of the government of India for the protection of native passengers, a great deal of additional supervision of pilgrim ships is required. The cupidity of shipVol. 122.-No. 243. E Then masters masters and of ship-owners constantly throws aside all hygienic considerations. Much is still required to improve the arrangements for coolie emigration, although it has been for many years under Government superintendence. How much more must be required for pilgrim ships, which have practically been under no control. The greatest amount of care has not hitherto made it possible to prevent frequent outbreaks of cholera in ships going down the river from Calcutta, nor even occasional outbreaks as long as a fortnight after their leaving the river; but the Conference does not seem to have had before it any positive case of an Indian pilgrim ship arriving at Jeddah with cholera on board-that is to say, a ship coming direct, and that had not touched at some other port on the coast of Arabia, where cholera might have been acquired; and they have attached too much importance to the port of Singapore as a source of dissemination. Though cholera is occasionally epidemic in China and Java, yet it is by no means frequent at Singapore. However, without entering further into these questions, there is no doubt whatever that much may be done to improve the condition of Indian pilgrims on board ship, and to ensure their landing in a better condition in Jeddah than is frequently the case. And to this the attention of the government of India cannot be too soon directed. We now proceed to review another portion of the labours of the Conference, which, to our minds, is less satisfactory. Without entering on the question how far it is possible to make quarantines, especially in the East, practically, whether or not they should be theoretically, effective, we cannot help thinking that they have hit on an entirely impracticable scheme for preventing cholera reaching Egypt, which was the channel through which it reached Europe on the last occasion. They have devised an elaborate set of strategic arrangements to baffle the enemy, which, if they may look ingenious on paper, are far too complicated for practical application. Starting from the sound enough principle that cholera when attacked at a distance can have its course more readily stayed than when it has approached nearer us, they have devised a scheme of international co-operation for excluding cholera from the Red Sea. It is proposed to have a cruising-station at the Straits of Babelmandeb, which is to overhaul every vessel entering the Red Sea. An island in the neighbourhood suited in all respects for performing quarantine in, has not yet been discovered. With the quantity of native craft constantly creeping along the coast, we believe that no efficient inspection would ever be kept up. It would be extremely disliked by the people of the neighbourhood, and would be very costly, while its advantages would be be very doubtful. With cholera once established, as it has often been at Mokalla, or other ports along the coast of Arabia, no quarantine at the Straits of Babelmandeb could prevent its spreading along the coast. They next propose a regular organization of Boards of Health and of sanitary officers along the Red Sea, and they examine in detail the towns along both the Egyptian and the Arabian coasts, less with reference to their being places of trade than as places of embarkation or disembarkation of pilgrims. On the African side they consider Kosseir only fit for a place of observation. Souakim is not a fit place for a quarantine station, and Massowah is considered an important port, but then pilgrims do not land at it. On the Arabian side they recommend that there should be a health officer at Jeddah, and another at Yembo. El Wersh they select as a place for pilgrims to undergo quarantine in before they are allowed to embark; and they have selected Tor as a place of quarantine for ships going to Suez-it is on the sterile coast under Mount Sinai, and we believe the choice is very distasteful to the Egyptian Government. They lay down an elaborate scheme for lazarettos, and they appear to have made out the interesting fact that lazarettos have not usually led to the spreading of cholera among their inmates; but, unless great precautions are used, that they are apt to be a source of cholera to the neighbourhood. They propose a period of ten days' quarantine for ships and eight days' for land travellers, counting from the last occurrence of choleraic disorder. The eminent German professors, the title of whose useful brochure of good advice on the means of fighting against cholera will be found above, are not, however, satisfied with less than four weeks' quarantine. Surely something less complicated than all this might be devised. Efficient examination of pilgrims before they were allowed to land at Jeddah, provision for their comfort and cleanliness on the route to Mecca and after arriving there, a suitable inspection before they were allowed to re-embark; in short, a more extended series of measures of the same kind as have been lately put in practical operation. Here, still more than in India, pilgrims, unless much care is taken, will suffer from the tyranny of the officials. There seem already to be signs of this. The selection of a suitable place of quarantine for Egypt, and other details of arrangement, would better be left to persons having more local knowledge than the Conference, as a body, appeared to possess. Engaging next in an elaborate examination of the routes by which cholera has reached Europe by land, they seem to dread most the line of importation from the Punjab, and through Cabul E 2 and |