An influential gentleman there wrote to me on the subject, to the following effect:— I dare say you have heard that the cholera has unhappily appeared among us, owing to the widow of Taylor and her child, having emigrated last night from Underwood to Plympton, and slept at the house of her brother, in consequence of her having no other abode . . . It is requisite that you should be aided by the practical co-operation of others, and particularly that you should be empowered, by the vote of the parish, to enforce in your overseers the full and immediate performance of their duty . . . If the poor of Plympton St. Mary are driven from their houses by accident or pestilence, they are equally entitled to be taken care of by the parish officers, and it is their bounden duty instantly to provide them with some other habitation. Had that been attended to yesterday, we should (at least in the present case) have been exempt from the pestilence to-day. Dated August 11th, 1832. {50} I received the following letter, in consequence of some difficulty that had arisen respecting the power of our present Board of Health to make any order for assistance from the parish; the parish officers having hitherto taken no steps for that purpose:— Rose Cottage, Ridgeway, August 11, 1832. My dear Sir, As the dread malady with which this neighbourhood is unhappily afflicted does not appear to have yet run its course (neither Ridgeway nor Colebrook having been much affected), and as it is utterly impossible that one medical man, however active and zealous, can attend on half the cases; nor is it possible that you should be able to continue your exertions as you have done, unless the patients are more concentrated: under these considerations, I beg to suggest the propriety of calling a meeting to-morrow, to consider the expediency of appointing some place to receive the poor people that may be attacked, and also to depute some one to act as assistant overseer; as the overseer resides so far off, a deputy is absolutely necessary. I remain, my dear Sir, Yours, &c. B. CROCKER. {52} Carbonate of soda, one drachm; muriate of soda (or common salt, now chloride of sodium), one drachm; oxymuriate of potash (now chlorate of potash), six grains; mixed in a quart of water, heated exactly 110 degrees by a thermometer. In cases where this remedy was resorted to, from four to seven quarts were injected.