Concerning the prescription used during this epidemic, Dr. House published a report of his experiments, while in America in 1865, when there was prospect of an outbreak of Asiatic cholera in the United States. At first he began with the common prescription of the medical books of that date; then he turned to the use of calomel in very large doses, with better results; later he says that he hit upon the use of a mixture of spirits of camphor and water taken every few minutes and found this to be a specific for the disease, losing no patients under this treatment provided the attack was taken in time. In general, however, he was handicapped by two difficulties. The disease made its attack so suddenly and developed so rapidly that unless remedies were applied at the earliest possible moment the end was fatal; but to many of the cases to which he came, the summons of the physician had been delayed until there was no hope of saving life. The other difficulty was equally fatal; utter heedlessness to the directions. No amount of caution seemed sufficient to secure the imperative attention to the prescription. One patient, with a mild attack, he found to be dying when he called later; and upon investigation found that she had taken the medicine once when she should have taken it twenty times, but in the meantime had resorted to the powders of a native doctor. But in spite of these obstacles, Dr. House reported that of eight or ten really severe cases in the households of the missionaries, none died, and that he had records of seventy or more cures of persons elsewhere dangerously attacked. The mortality of this plague of ’49 was frightful. During the climax of the epidemic deaths were occurring at the rate of fifteen hundred a day in Bangkok. The river was thick with floating bodies, and vessels coming in reported that they had counted hundreds of corpses floated by the tide seven days out to sea. When the plague had at last abated the official estimate of the number of deaths in Bangkok and vicinity during the seven months was not fewer than forty thousand. A CURIOUS MARK OF ROYAL GRATITUDE The episode of the plague had rather a curious conclusion. When the pestilence had spent its force, King Phra Chao Pravat Thong decided that he would perform an “act of merit” in honour of Buddha for the cessation of the epidemic. Since the religion of Buddha requires great veneration for the life of animals one of the surest means to merit is to grant freedom to animals that are in captivity. Accordingly a levy was made upon every citizen to bring to the palace ground a stated number of animals or birds during a fixed period, and upon a given day these were all to be liberated at the king’s command. To the surprise of the foreigners residing in Bangkok, they in common with the citizens received a demand for a gift of pigs and fowls and ducks in varying numbers and assortments.