course between Sunderland and all parts of the kingdom, is wholly inexplicable on the principle of contagion. And is not the fact of the appearance of the Cholera in Paris still stronger against this doctrine? Here is a city, situated nearly one hundred and fifty miles from the sea-coast, and about two hundred and fifty from any place where the disease had existed, suddenly becoming affected with it. It is not pretended that the first victims of it had in any way been exposed, nor that any persons laboring under the disease had arrived there. Where then could they have become infected?

It is well known that a quarantine has been established throughout France, and any one at all acquainted with the keen vigilance of the Paris police-officers will hardly believe it possible they could have been deceived. To us the true explanation appears to be, that in the course which this wonderful epidemic is appointed to run, it had arrived at Paris, and suddenly seized on those, the state of whose systems rendered them peculiarly pre-disposed to it. This number at the present moment is greater than usual, from the embarrassment and interruption of the ordinary business of the city, and the consequent want of employment, with its attendant evils, of many of the laboring class. This will account for the fact that so many have already been destroyed by it there, and that its ravages have been chiefly among the lower orders of the people.

Having considered the principal reasons that have been urged in favor of the contagious character of Cholera, and attempted to show that the course of the disease, from its commencement to the present time, does not warrant the belief that it has been propagated by contagion, we shall present some positive evidence that it is completely a non-contagious disease.

1. The sudden disappearance of the disease in places which it has attacked, when a very small part of the population has been affected, and at a moment when great numbers are sick, and when free intercourse has been allowed with them, are facts hardly compatible with the doctrine of contagion. Two examples will be enough to illustrate this. In Moscow, with a population of between 200 and 300,000, only 8,000 were attacked, and in St. Petersburgh, containing more than 300,000 inhabitants, something less than 8,000 had the disease, and it suddenly ceased at a time when a large number were sick.

2. In almost all places from which we have a right to expect authentic accounts in Europe, we find that the Cholera

has been preceded by a great tendency to derangement of the stomach and bowels among the population generally, showing that there is, what Sydenham called an epidemic constitution of the air. This was noticed in many places in Russia, Germany and Great Britain. We refer for information on this subject to the very excellent letter of Dr. Brown, of Sunderland, from which we have already quoted.

3. During the prevalence of the Cholera in a place, the brute animals have frequently been sick, and many of them have died. This is spoken of by Jameson, in the Bengal Report, as having been the case in the East Indies, and it has also been noticed in Russia, Germany and Great Britain.

4. The exemption from the disease of places in the neighborhood of those affected by it, and between which constant and unrestrained intercourse has been kept up, is another consideration of some importance in favor of non-contagion. The following extract of a letter from the British Consul at Cronstadt, furnishes a strong example of this kind.

'The small village of Tolbuhin, containing a population of about one hundred and fifty inhabitants, and in daily communication with this place, as it supplies the town with milk and vegetables, has escaped the visitation entirely, and not one being to this day has fallen a sacrifice to the complaint, or had an attack; therefore, to them it has been neither epidemical nor infectious, though their manner of life is not in any way different from that of the inhabitants of this place.'

5. In numerous instances, persons have gone out of infected places and become sick with the disease at a distance, without communicating it to any one else. In the twelfth volume of the London Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, may be found a letter from Mr. Cormick, an English surgeon, dated Tabriz, in Persia, Oct. 1822, mentioning that the Prince of Persia left the city as the disease began to abate, yet from four to six of those who went with him were attacked daily for several days with Cholera, ' although not a single person of the villages through which they passed, or where they slept, took the disease.'

In the report of Dr. Albers to the Prussian Government, from which we have before quoted, it is stated that during the epidemic, it is certain that about forty thousand inhabitants quitted Moscow, of whom a large number never performed quarantine. Notwithstanding this fact, no case is on record of the Cholera having been transferred from Moscow to other places, and

it is equally certain that in no situation appointed for quarantine has any case of Cholera occurred.

6. Its appearance on board ships at anchor, when there is no Cholera on the neighboring shores, is strong presumptive evidence against contagion. Mr. Nathaniel Grant, late surgeon in the East India Company's service, relates a case of this kind in the London Medical and Physical Journal, for October, 1831. It occurred on board the Sir David Grant, lying at anchor off Sauger Island, Bengal, in July, 1822, at a time when there was no Cholera at Calcutta, nor any where in our neighborhood.' It proved fatal to several of the crew.

7. The great degree of immunity from the disease enjoyed by the attendants on the sick, both in Asia and Europe, can hardly be explained on the doctrine of contagion. Mr. Jameson, in the Bengal Report, states, that from a medical list consisting of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred individuals, most of whom saw the disease largely, only three persons were attacked, and one death only occurred.'

In the Madras Report, it is stated, that out of one hundred and one attendants at the Hospital, of the Royals, one only was attacked with the disease.

At Bombay, all the attendants of the Hospital escaped, though they were with the sick, by day and night.*

While the disease prevailed at Orenburg, two hundred and ninety-nine patients were admitted with it into the military hospital, and not one of the twenty-seven attendants took the disease. Some of the hospital servants were obliged to perform bloodlettings, apply leeches, poultices, and frictions, and administer baths, so that they were compelled to be constantly breathing the exhalations from the bodies and clothes of the sick, as well as to touch and handle them; and yet not one of them had the Cholera. Even the washerwomen of the Hospital escaped. The editors of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, who are believers in contagion, remark with great candor upon this statement, that the immunity enjoyed by the officers and servants of the military hospital of Orenburg, is surely sufficient to prove, that at this period of the epidemic, the disease could not propagate itself from the sick to the healthy.'

The same immunity has been witnessed at other places, particularly at Moscow, as may be seen in Dr. Albers's Report. But it is needless to multiply instances of this kind.

* Kennedy, page 57.

What will be the future course of this pestilence, and whether it will probably reach our country, it is impossible to conjecture. Something may be hoped, from the wide-spread ocean over which it must pass, and which may possess the power to disarm it of its virulence; but we should rely with greater confidence on the superior comfort enjoyed by the great mass of our citizens, when compared with those of the other quarters of the globe, the abundance of wholesome food within their reach, the superior convenience and cleanliness of the dwellings of the poor, and generally the absence of what have elsewhere been found the pre-disposing causes. Some consolation, too, may be derived from the fact, that though the number of deaths in proportion to the number attacked has been greater in Europe than in the East, the number attacked in proportion to the whole population has been comparatively small. This is of course owing to the fact, that there is a less number of persons pre-disposed to it there, than in the countries which it visited in Asia, and the number here would no doubt be still less.

We have taken some pains to satisfy our readers of the noncontagious character of Cholera, because we think it a question of great importance, and one which it is very desirable to have correctly settled. We do not allude to quarantines and all the vexatious, expensive and harassing embarrassments, that grow out of them; we waive all considerations of a pecuniary nature, though they are by no means trifling. Restrictions on commerce, infinitely more severe than any that have ever been imposed, would be quietly submitted to, if the disease could be introduced by sea. But we refer to the distress that would be produced, should the Cholera appear among us, if a belief in its contagious character were general.

The sick would be abandoned by all in their hour of distress. So strong is the law of self-preservation in the human breast, that but few, if any, would encounter the danger of administering to the wants of the dying. We fervently hope that the experiment is not to be tried upon us, and that Heaven will avert this calamity from our shores. But should it arrive, we feel confident, that, however the mass of the community may be influenced in their treatment of the sick by the views they have taken of its contagion, the practitioners of the healing art will be true to the sacred cause of science and humanity, to which they have devoted their lives, and that whatever difference there may be in their opinions on some points connected with

the disease, they will all agree in laboring to mitigate its violence. If not operated on by higher motives, they should all bear in mind the immunity of those, who have in other places faithfully watched over the dying, and recollect that the moral courage, which prompts to this, is one of the greatest safeguards against the disease. They should devote themselves without fear to aid and comfort them in the hour of peril; confident, that if their turn come next, it can never come at a better period than when they are engaged with zeal and fidelity in the discharge of their duty.

ART. VII.-American Colonization Society.

B.B. Thatcher.

1. Fifteenth Report of the American Colonization Society. Washington. 1832.

2. Letters on the Colonization Society; with a View of its Probable Results; addressed to the Hon. C. F. MERCER. By M. CAREY. 1832.

The two pamphlets, of which the titles are given above, will be found to contain a mass of valuable information respecting subjects of great interest to the whole American people, and of immediate importance to more classes than one. Mr. Carey has confined himself almost exclusively to facts. One letter he devotes to the origin of the Society; a second to the state of our colored population; others to the Slave-Trade, the manumission of slaves in this country, the declarations of Legislatures in favor of the Society, and the situation, character, and prospects of the Colony they have founded on the African Coast. It is not our intention to enter at present into the discussion of more than one or two of these subjects at much length; nor need we undertake any thing like a review of either the Report or the Letters. We have named them rather for the purpose of acknowledging our obligations, and of commending them to the attention of all, who are not yet familiar with their contents.

It has been stated, and is perhaps generally understood, that the operations which gave existence to the American Colonization Society are to be mainly attributed to the Rev. Robert Finley, of New Jersey. Such, however, does not appear to