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98
they proved exceedingly valuable, both in pointing out
where cholera had made its appearance, and in convincing
us that throughout the whole period of the prevalence of
cholera, there was never anything that could be regarded
as an epidemic of diarrhoea. There were only two
or three gentlemen's returns indeed which afforded any
evidence at all of unusual prevalence of diarrhoea; and
these were returns from practitioners who were either
Parish Surgeons, or whose Surgeries were advertised
for the gratuitous distribution of medicines, or who
served at the same time in both of those capacities,
and who therefore especially had those additional
cases to deal with, in which the dread of cholera had
rendered persons attentive to slight diarrhoeal affections
which at other times would have been regarded as wholly
unimportant.
It is impossible not to compare the late epidemic of
cholera in London with former epidemics, and to speculate
on the causes which have rendered it so much less fatal
than they were, and which have so much modified the
distribution of its fatal outbreaks.
It has always happened heretofore, as regards London,
that on each occasion when cholera has appeared, there
have been two outbreaks occurring in two successive years:
of which the first outbreak in the epidemic of 1832-33,
the last outbreak in the epidemics of 1848-49 and 1853-54
were the most severe. It has been considered therefore