(SMtorid department. 
The Cholera. — The foreign journals teem with statements relative 
to the progress of this fearful epidemic, exposing its ravages from city 
to city, as it involves one nation after another in its dreaded influence, 
without being retarded; apparently, in the slightest degree by the 
strictest quarantine, and only modified in its deadly effects on the 
communities, by the general sanitary measures that may, collectively 
and individually, have been adopted. Whilst Moscow and Constanti- 
nople were being scourged, the press of England was alive to arouse 
the municipal government to the adoption of means of protection or 
amelioration, and the government seems to have seized on the idea. 
as ; by the appointment of a general " Board of Health,"'" consisting of 
Lord Morpeth, Lord Ashley, and Mr. Chadwick. they have opened 
the door to a more extended and thorough sanitary reform. Eminent 
physicians have been consulted, and a pamphlet of directions and ad- 
vice, relative to the precautions to be observed in the removal of all 
causes of miasm, and in the treatment of cholera in its incipient stages, 
when timely interference by even the unprofessional is of great value. 
It is made the duty of the Guardians of the Poor and parochial autho- 
rities to visit the premises in their districts, to see that the measures 
of the Board are carried out. 
They say : £: The chief predisposing causes of every epidemic, and 
especially of cholera, are damp, moisture, filth, animal and vegetable 
matters in a state of decomposition; and. in general, whatever pro- 
duces atmospheric impurity. " ; " Next to the perfect cleansing of the 
premises, dryness ought to be carefully promoted, which will of course 
require the keeping up of sufficient fires, particularly in the damp and 
unhealthy districts, where this means should be resorted to for the sake 
of ventilation as well as of warmth and dryness.'" 7 
After enlarging on these precautionary sanitary measures, they direct 
attention to the importance of combating the first premonitory symp- 
toms of the disease without delay, which are thus described : u This 
premonitory symptom is looseness of the bowels, which there is reason 
to regard as universally preceding the setting in of the more danger- 
ous stage of the disease. Sometimes, indeed, under the circumstances- 
