Before I have done, I feel called upon to say a few words upon the efficacy of fumigation as a preservative against Cholera Morbus and other infectious diseases. In regard to the first the question is settled. In Russia, throughout Germany, and I believe everywhere else in Europe, they were productive of no good, they did mischief, and were therefore discontinued. This has been verified by reports from the seats of the disease everywhere. In regard to other contagions I can speak, not without knowledge, at least not without experience, for it was the business and the duty of my military life, during a long course of years, to see them practised in ships, barracks, hospitals, and cantonements, and I can truly declare I never saw contagion in the smallest degree arrested by them, and that disease never failed to spread, and follow its course unobstructed, and unimpeded by their use. In the well-conditioned houses of the affluent where ventilation and cleanliness are matters of habit and domestic discipline, they may be a harmless plaything during the prevalence of scarlet fever and such like infections, or even do a little good by inspiring the attendants with confidence, however false, as a preservative against contagion; but in the confined dwellings of the poor they are positively mischievous, because they cannot be used without shutting out the wholesome atmospheric air, and substituting for it a factitious gas, which for aught we know, or can know of the nature of the contagious vapour, whether acid, alkaline, or anything else, may actually be adding to its deleterious principle instead of neutralising it: but in thus striking away a prop from the confidence of the poor, I thank God I can furnish them with other preservatives and disinfectants, which I take it upon me to say, they will find as simple and practicable as they are infallible. For the first, the liberal use of cold water and observance of free ventilation, with slaked lime to wash the walls, and quick lime when they can get it, to purify their dung heaps and necessaries, are among the best; but when actually infected, then heat is the only purificator yet known of an infected dwelling. Let boiling water be plentifully used to every part of the house and article of furniture to which it can be made applicable. Let portable iron stoves, filled with ignited charcoal only, be placed in the apartment closely shut, and the heat kept up for a few hours to any safe degree of not less than 120 deg. Farenheit, and let foul infected beds and mattresses be placed in a baker's oven heated to the same,[21] and my life for it no infection can after that possibly adhere to houses, clothes, or furniture. The living fountain of infection from the patient himself, constantly giving out the fresh material, cannot of course be so closed, but whether he lives or dies, if the above be observed, he will leave no infection behind him.[22]