The Epidemiological Society held a meeting at the rooms of
the Social Science Association, to consider the best means of impeding the spread of cholera. A long paper was read by Dr. Headlam Greenhow, showing that the disease always fell most severely upon the classes most predisposed to its ravages by poverty, bad air, and want of cleanliness ; that though London had been improved there were still 1,000 miles of sewers of deposit, that 60,000 cess- pools were still retained underneath the houses, and that 20 per cent. of all deaths were still due to zymotic disease. The meeting resolved therefore that the cholera would come, and that it would probably be severe, that it would strike the same classes and places as it always has struck, and that all clergymen, public associations, and medical officers be invited to co-operate with the Social Science Association in their efforts to teach the people what to do. A little healthy despotism would, we fear, have done more good than all this talk, but it is not too late to warn the Guardians that they must provide more and better accommodation for cholera patients, and if necessary secure additional medical aid. If not, their hospitals will be crowded till they will become of themselves centres of infection.
