I speak of course with particular reference to the metropolis. In remote rural districts it may often be desirable that discreet and intelligent persons--the Clergy, for instance, should obtain from their medical neighbours some astringent preparation to which--in the very rare event of real emergency, temporary recourse might be had: but--for so hazardous a condition of disease, I must repeat as a general rule, that no nostrum, even in the best-intentioned hands of ignorance, can supply the place of medical discrimination. During the acute prevalence of the epidemic in any particular locality, it becomes of great importance to bring the uneducated classes of society, as far as possible, under systematic medical care; in the absence of which they are likely to neglect all premonitions of the disease, and thus to incur much unnecessary danger. To fulfil this object as regards the poor, express provision has been made by the Law: and it might be well for other classes, under similar exposure to attack, to consider how far they could arrange for their households a similar plan of protection. Under any Order in Council which brings into action the extraordinary powers of the Nuisances Removal Act, the General Board of Health has authority to enjoin on all Boards of Guardians throughout the country, that they provide, for ‘persons afflicted by or threatened with’ the disease, such medical aid as may be required: and the actual working of this has been that, on all occasions of epidemic Cholera prevailing in particular localities, the General Board of Health has called on the local Boards of Guardians to establish systematic house-to-house visitation, for discovering and treating among the poor all premonitory symptoms of the disease. In the too probable event of its becoming necessary next year to establish this system of medical organisation in parts of the metropolis, I have no reason to doubt that a requisition to the above effect will be addressed to the Guardians of the City poor; and, in this anticipation, I think it desirable to bring, in conclusion, one more point under notice of your Hon. Court. During the former invasion, the Guardians within the City of London resisted the requisitions of the General Board of Health; and the first fourteen weeks of the epidemic consequently passed without the establishment of any visitational system for arresting its progress. In the fifteenth week, however, the Corporation of the City undertook the unperformed duty, not legally devolving on them, and requested me to make arrangements for the purpose of its execution. With the assistance of the several Medical Officers of the City Unions, I immediately organised the requisite staff, and from that moment to the close of the epidemic there continued under my superintendence a systematic visitation of the poor, with beneficial, though tardy and imperfect, results.