Observations on the Pathology and Treatment of Cholera

In offering this paper for the perusal of my Medical brethren I will frankly state, at the outset, that I have no new or startling theory to propound, nor have I any infallible plan of treatment to recommend. My object is solely an endeavour to establish the pathology of cholera on a correct basis, believing that, until this is done, the treatment of the disease will never be satisfactorily reduced to plain rules; for, I grieve to say, empiric remedies suggested by men outside our profession?and who can have no possible knowledge either of the disease they profess to cure or the frame which is the subject of that disease?too often find support from the public, until sad experience has taught them the wortlilessness of what common sense in the beginning would have equally shown. Some years ago, a very eminent and learned clergyman of a mathematical turn of mind took to think-