290 NATURE AND LIFE. 
and travelers occasionally met some of them carrying one 
or two hundred dead bodies. It is needless to say how 
greatly these moving charnel-houses, by infecting the at- 
mosphere, must have increased the energy of epidemic 
manifestations. The International Conference urged upon 
the Persian Government to prevent the extension of the 
cholera-poison throughout its own territory by all possible 
means. It insisted on effecting the suppression of customs 
and practices which could only keep up the unhealthy state 
of the country ; it demanded the formation of councils of 
health commissioned to secure the carrying out of regula- 
tions admitted to be indispensable to protect Persia itself, 
and consequently to shield Europe against the attacks of 
the scourge. Similar wishes had already been many times 
expressed to the Shah of Persia by his physician, Tholozan. 
In 1867 a formal edict of the prince forbade everywhere 
transportation of bodies; at the same time other sanitary 
reforms were planned. The suggestions of the Conference, 
therefore, could not have been otherwise than generally 
well received by the government of Teheran ; but, if it made 
no opposition itself, it has not been and it is not yet easy 
for it to overcome that of the inhabitants. Not in a day, 
especially among Eastern populations, can the suppression 
of ancient customs be brought about, when they are bound 
up with religious prejudices. The members of the Con- 
ference seem not to have always given sufficient heed to 
the difficulties of such an undertaking, and Tholozan urged 
with much wisdom the need of using caution and modera- 
tion. However that may be, Proust, physician of the Paris 
hospitals, who was charged in 1869 with a mission to Rus- 
sia and Persia, for the study of preventive measures against 
cholera, could ascertain for himself the excellent inclina- 
tion of the Persian administration. ‘“ Most of the measures 
which the French Government would urge to have put in 
practice,” says Proust, “ have already been begun upon by 
