British Association for the Advancement of Science. 49 
ed it certain, in his opinion, that these nations were connected by 
blood, and rendered it probable that the northern race, being 
driven from their country by the ancestors of the existing race 
of North American Indians, retreated, after a long resistance, to 
South America, and gave origin to one of the nations which 
founded the Peruvian empire. Anatomy, also, he observed, show- 
ed that there was much resemblance between the crania spoken 
of and those of the modern Hindoos; and instruments, orna- 
ments, and utensils have been discovered in the mounds, which 
bear a great resemblance to articles of the same description seen 
in Hindostan. The facts stated above lead him to the following 
inferences :—1. The race whose remains are discovered in the 
mounds were different from the existing North American Indian. 
. The ancient race of the mounds is identical with the ancient 
Desssiets To these conclusions might be added others tending 
to support existing opinions, but which are hypothetical :—1. 
That the ancient North American and the Peruvian nations were 
derived from the southern part of Asia. 2. That America was 
peopled from at least two different paris of Asia, the ancient 
Americans having been derived from the south, and the existing 
Indian race from the northern part of the same continent. 
Cholera.—Dr. Mackintosh then addressed the Section on chol- 
era. He would state only facts, and show them, supported by a 
great number of preparations of parts taken from cholera patients 
soon after their death, mostly in the second stage,—collapse. He 
then spoke in favor of pursuing pathology, with a view of eluci- 
dating disease ; but pathology, in combination with causes, symp- 
toms, and treatment. He who did not pursue this method, was 
not a pathologist, but a mere morbid anatomist. He had dis- 
sected three hundred cases of cholera, in the first year of its ap- 
pearance in a malignant form; two hundred and eighty of these 
died in the collapsed stage. It was a popular error to say, as 
many frequently do, that medical men know nothing of cholera. 
In every respect their knowledge on this subject is vast, and mi- 
nute, and scientific, and practical. Their knowledge exceeds 
that on scarlatina, or measles, with which popular opinion thinks 
them well acquainted. In India the opinion is, that in cholera 
there is lost balance of the circulation: it was not so; there is no 
rigor, and never was a rigor, which there would have been, if the 
India opinion was true. There was a giving off of serum, and 
Vou. XXAXIV.—No. 1. 
