292 NATURE AND LIFE. 
tween Russia and Persia on which Russia has established 
quarantines and stations of Cossacks, believes that an active 
enough watchfulness to defeat the entrance of cholera on 
that side may be exerted over that region. Yet he con- 
fesses that it is not easy to interfere with the movements 
of smugglers at several points. As concerns its introduc- 
tion through the Caspian Sea, the question is less simple. 
All vessels sailing from the Persian shore of that great lake 
take for their point of arrival on the Russian side a certain 
number of ports, the chief of which are Bakou, Derbent, 
and Astrakhan. Some of these ports have lazarettos; oth- 
ers, as Astrakhan, have no sanitary establishments. The 
number of officials seems to be too small also; nowhere are 
the examination and questioning of passengers rigorously 
attended to. At least, this is what Proust observed. This 
physician was urgent with the governments of Russia and 
the Caucasus to obtain more rigorous and efficient oversight. 
He demanded especially the establishment of vigilance 
stations along the coast so as to prevent, in case of need, 
the landing of vessels intending to break the prescribed 
regulations. Nothing could be easier, since there are none 
but Russian ships on the Caspian Sea. Proust’s observa- 
tions, moreover, came the more seasonably, because the 
quarantine establishments, erected at an earlier period for 
protection against the plague, are in process of alteration. 
He engaged the attention of several high Russian function- 
aries in these important interests; he expressed his ideas 
at length on these subjects before the Medical Society at 
Tiflis, and came away with the conviction that if the plans 
suggested by him are carried out carefully, as he hopes, 
upon the shores of the Caspian Sea, any new introduction 
of disease from Persia into Russia will become very difficult ; 
but that remains to be seen in the future. 
Let us now pass over to the boundaries of Persia and 
of Turkey in Asia, Along the whole extent of the frontier 
