But one more short quotation from Dr. Lefevre, a gentleman certainly not among the number of those who stand denounced before the professional world as unworthy of belief. He says:--"As for many reports which have been circulated, and which, _prima facie_, seem to militate against the statement [communication to attendants, &c.]. I have endeavoured to pay the most impartial attention to them; but I have never found, upon thorough investigation, that their correctness could be relied upon: and in many instances I have ascertained them to be designedly false."--DESIGNEDLY FALSE! Alas! _toute ca on trouve dans l'article_ HOMME; and any body who chooses to investigate, as I have done, the history of epidemics, will find that falsehoods foul have been resorted to--shamelessly resorted to--by persons having a direct interest in maintaining certain views. Enough, then, has been said to put Boards of Health, &c. on their guard against admitting _facts_ for their guidance from any quarter whatever, if the purity of the source be not right well established. There is too much at stake just now to permit of our yielding with ill-timed complaisance to _any authority_ without observing this very necessary preliminary. One word, and with all due respect, before closing, on the subject of Dr. James Johnson's "_contingent_ contagion," which, though occurring in some diseases, and extremely _feasible_ in regard to others, will, if he goes over the evidence again, I am sure, be shown not to apply to cholera, which is strictly a disease of _places_, not persons, and can no more be generated by individuals than ague itself can. I can only say of it, with the philosophic poet, that-- --------------------"A secret venom oft Corrupts the air, the water, and the land." Mr. Searle, an English gentleman, well known for his work on cholera, has just returned from Warsaw, where he had the charge of the principal cholera hospital during the epidemic. The statements of this gentleman respecting contagion, being now published, I am induced from their high interest to give them here:--