The news from Lisbon is serious. A Board of doctors,
appointed by the Government, has reported that the epidemic now raging there is true cholera-morbus, though of a mild type, imported probably in a merchant vessel from the Cape Verde Islands on the African coast. This report has been endorsed by the eighty doctors of the Medical Society and by Dr. Montaldo, a sanitary officer specially despatched from Spain. The usual efforts are made to deny the accuracy of the report, but the presumption of its truth is strong, and it will be necessary for all sanitary officers in the Mediterranean, France, and England to take the most stringent precautions. The disease has arrived in Europe early in the year, and its mildness means nothing, except that the virus has not yet reached a spot where it can acquire its full power. The most favourable reports from Lisbon admit an outburst of typhoh', and as the sanitary precautions are the same in both cases the tendency "to avoid panic" operates on many physicians.
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