The Cholera has reached England ! A private letter, in
last night's Courier, states that at Sunderland, on Monday and Tues- day, six cases of true Asiatic Cholera had occurred, five of which were fatal. The fact does not rest on private authority ; a repre- sentation has been made to Government on the subject, signed by all the medical gentlemen in Sunderland, touching the nature of the disease and its effects, and touching its identity with Spas- modic Cholera, by the surgeon of the 8'2d Regiment, who has had opportunities of examining the disease in the Isle of France. The Sunderland cases, whatever be the opinion respecting Spasmodic Cholera, or the distinction between it and English Cholera, which the Newcastle case, noticed in another column, proves to be a distinction without a difference—clearly belong to a very deadly disorder. They have been traced to three Hamburg vessels, that were permitted, it appears, to pass above bridge some days ago, and the crews of which, it is said, have been in the habit of land- ing at night and roaming about the town. It is added that the crews were all healthy. We have often had to regret that the rules of common sense, which are allowed a little weight in most cases, are in respect to this celebrated disease so commonly dis- pensed with. The doctrine of contagion assumes the emanation of a certain subtle matter from the bodies of the sick ; but these cases of Sunderland would prove that the subtle matter may equally emanate from the bodies of those that are well. We are thus!placed in a sore strait ; for how can the healthy, according to the injunc- tions of the Privy Council, at one and the same time watch the diseased and one another also ? The Newcastle letter, indeed, states, that a nurse of the Infirmary, who merely carried the body of one of the patients to the dead-room, was almost immediately afterwards seized with the disease ; but it also states, that four people got the disease from the sailors, not one of whom, it ap- pears, ever was affected with it. The fact of the Cholera having broken out at Sunderland, will enable us to prove the value of the Gazette regulations, by the process which the mathematicians call reductio ad absurdum. If there be danger of a disease being carried over from Hamburg in the sleeves or side-pockets of persons in perfect health, there must be a much greater danger of its being car- ried up from Newcastle and Sunderland. If reason called for a quarantine-law for Hamburg steam-boats, a fortiori a quarantine is required for the Tyne colliers. Are we then pre- pared to sit with out fires for the next three weeks ? Or, as the Cholera is said to require above all things heat for its cure, shall we admit the antidote even at the hazard of the bane's accompany- ing it? If we dispense with our rules with respect to one town, with what consistency can we speak of maintaining them in respect to any town ? And if towns go free, why should houses be guarded ? We are strongly persuaded, from all that has appeared, that English Cholera and Indian Cholera differ from each other in degree only ; and, therefore, while we would strongly recommend our readers to use every rational means of escaping an attack, by avoid- ing cold, exposure, dissipation, excess of any kind, depression of mind, if they can,—we most earnestly deprecate all attempts to insure public or individual safety, which are not based on these plain rules.
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