26 NOVEMBER 1831, Page 5

Remained on the 10th 36 12 6 New Cases on

the 18th 19th 8 6 7 14 S 3

20'h

4 5 3 21st 9 4 2

22nd 0 .. .

6

7

23rd ...... .... 0 5 . . 3

Tr.tal cases since last week's report.71 ..

46 31 Recoveries on the 10th 19th 10 6 2 12 ..... .. 5 0 20th 10 .. . .. 3 0 21st

7

3 0 22nd ......

.... 0 ........

5 0 23rd 0 4 0

Total Recoveries 39 26 2 Deaths on the 18th 19th

5

1 20th 1 I 2 21st 0 2 4 22nd.. 0 0 2 23rd . . 0 1 4

— — — Total Deaths 2 4 IS Total Recoveries................ 39 26 2

— — — Deduct from total cases . 41 30 20 Remained on the 25th

30

16 11

Dr. Dann observes, on the 22nd, that three cases of death had oc- curred, which had not been reported ; these, we presume, are in- cluded in the report of the 23rd. He also states, that from the 21st he had resolved to discontinue the reports of Diarrhoea cases. From the above tables, which we have compiled with the minuteness and care which the importance of the subject requires, it will be seen that the average cases during the week have been 5, and the average deaths 3 per diem ; and that the proportion of the latter to the recoveries has been as 9 to 1, and to the whole cases as 9 to 15. Little dependence can, however, be placed on these proportions, until we, or the doctors for us, arrive at some less doubtful means of distinguishing Common Cholera from Malignant, and both from ordinary and cognate diseases. The correspondent of the Times (whom we put down as a confirmed Contagionist, anxious to prop up a theory which he has carried down cut and dry with his pencils to Sunderland—and this chiefly from his setting out with so earnest professions of impartiality, while as yet no one had dreamt of questioning his opinions, or had expressed the slightest concern about them) details a case of what he calls Cholera, which sets the con- fusion that attends the reports on the state of the disease in a striking light. A Mrs. Tutty, an old woman, died the other day of what is called by the Sunderland medical men Diarrhoea; under which name, Dr. Dann has more than insinuated, cases of Cholera are not 'infre- quently concealed. She was seized a short time after attending the funeral of a person who was said to have died of cholera. Mrs. Tutty recovered ; and a Mrs. Nell, who waited on her, was seized with a simi- lar affection. While Mrs. Nell lay ill, her son, a boatman, came home from Seaham, wet, weary, and exhausted with hunger. " Scarcely two hours," says the reporter, " had elapsed from the hour of his waiting upon his sick mother, before he was himself attacked with dreadful cramps, and other severe symptoms of cholera ; and in ten hours he was a corpse. I saw his remains stretched upon the bed which had at my previous visit to the house contained Mrs. Tutty." The sliding steps of the process in this induction, and the bound to the conclusion, are equally amusing. Mrs. Tutty catches diarrhoea,—that is the name by which it is known to the gods, men call it belly-ache,— by standing, in the damp, cold month of November, for some half hour, in a damp, cold churchyard ; one of the commonest accidents in life. Mrs. Nell, an old and poor female, waits on her poor neighbour ; and in sitting up with her of a night, catches a cold, which displays itself, as colds are wont to do, by disordered bowels. Mrs. Nell's son, after toiling in his boat, exposed to wind and weather for a number of hours, comes home, wet, weary, worn-out with toil and hunger ; sits down in his drip-. ping clothes ; is seized with cramp in the stomach, and dies. All this is in the course of ordinary occurrence ; and none but a red-hot Conta- gionist would ever dream of any but the common and obvious causes in accounting for it ! but the imagination of such a one is ever subject to some aerial current or other, under whose influences the vanes of plain men's minds remain unmoved. The insinuated reasoning in the above cases of the impartial reporter of our contemporary is this—Mrs. Tatty caught her disease, not from the damp of the churchyard, but from the effluence of the dead body whose interment she was attending; Mrs. Nell, again, was not affected by watching and cold, but by the infectious presence of Mrs. Tutty ; and lastly, Mrs. Neil's son might have been yet rowing his boat in perfect health, if he had not adventured into the bed-room of his complaining mother ;—in other words, the cholera of Sun- derland is a highly infectious disease ; and the diarrhoea of Sunderland, whatever the local medical authorities say to the contrary, is neither

more nor less than cholera!

Thee ludicra in seria ductint : the reveries of dreaming speculatists, who, with our reporter, think that the first object of inquiry is, whether the Sunderland epidemic (as he designates a disease which has in the course of four weeks of unrestricted communication affected about 50 persons out of a population of 34,000) corresponds in a number of cases with the Asiatic in its symptoms and severity,—and that medical and sanatory measures are for after consideration,—are acted on by men who have the means of rendering their measures practically injurious.

The quarantine maintained in the Tyne, is likely to affect very deeply the prosperity of the whole of the towns on the river, and in a more especial manner the poor of those towns, for whose safety it is princi- pally meant ; and by way of completing their case in all ways, the Ma- gistrates of the surrounding district are exceedingly desirous to lay a similar interdict on the outlets of Sunderland by land, which the Govern- ment has laid on its harbour. From a communication to the Board of Health in that town by the Bishop of Durham, it appears that the Ma- gistrates of Barnard Castle and other places have issued orders to pre- vent the Sunderland carriers from passing through their respective towns, and that these orders have been approved of by the Bishop. To a Committee that waited on his Lordship, he indeed stated, that he did not intend to originate any measure for shutting up Sunderland by land ; and this we can readily believe, for neither he nor the Privy Council dare attempt such a shutting up. There is r. human

patience which even the most reckless are careful or ' There was a meeting of the Durham Magistrates on Monday, wissis a stormy discussion is said to have ensued, on the question of restrictions or no restrictions. The Marquis of Londonderry, who is from interest, and, we think, from reason and experience, averse from restrictive mea- sures, is understood to have carried with some difficulty a resolution, to the effect that restrictions, wherever they had been tried, had been found

to be injurious. We conclude our notice of Sunderland with the following letters from

Doctors Daun and Gibson, which appeared in the Courier of last night. " Sunderland, 23d November.

" appears necessary to explain the form of the daily report which has been adopted, to communicate to Government and the public at large as correct an account of the number of persons attacked with cholera at Sunderland, as could be obtained.

" On Dr. Daun's arrival here, he found the medical gentlemen of the town divided in opinion as to the existence of any unusual disease. Had the report, therefore, only included a column for Malignant Cholera,' I am persuaded we should have had blank returns sent in by many ; it was therefore necessary to spread a net large enough to catch all the fish ; and the columns for Diarrhcca and Common Cholera were introduced, because those who denied the existence of the malignant form of the disease, were willing to admit the prevalence of the other two. Now, however, Dr. Dann has consented to discontinue the column of Diarrhea, on the express understanding that all cases of death, from whatever disease, are to be re- ported. As Dr. Daun's colleague on this duty, I have thought proper to give this explanation, in reply to various newspaper criticisms, and request you to publish the same.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, JAMES GIBSON, M.D."

" SIR—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, anti in reply have to in- form you, that if an almost perfect similarity of symptoms during life, and of appear- ances after death, be sufficient to establish the identity of the two diseases, that which has recently appeared in Sunderland Is unquestionably the Indian or Spas- modic Cholera. I prefer the name of Malignant Cholera— a designation involving no hypothesis as to its origin—not implying the existence of a symptom which, though generally, is not invariably present, and expressive merely of its fatal cha- racter. I enclose for your satisfaction, a copy of my daily report to Government, by which you will see the number of cases of Malignant Cholera is surprisingly few, when it is considered that it is now above a fortnight since the disease first ap- peared here, where, from the filth, poverty, and density of the pauper popula- tion, in many parts of the town, it might have been expected (considering the rapidity with which the disease spread in every town on the Continent of Europe as well as Asia, after it had appeared in it) that there should have been, by this time, as many hundreds of the inhabitants of Sunderland attacked as there have been individuals. The only sufferers hitherto have been the aged, infirm, and intemperate. " I am, Sir, your most obedient Servant, ROBERT DAUN, suss'

There have been some reports of cholera at Stockton-upon-Tees, but they appear to have been wholly unfounded. In London, a case which was endeavoured to be made something of, occurred in Hanover Street, Hanover Square, the other day ; but, unfor- tunately for the fabricators of paragraphs, the man affected recovered immediately on being carried to the Hospital. It was colic, without the lion's skin.