of the papers except what strengthens the evidence for the intimate relation which all previous experience has shown to exist between the intensity and fatality of cholera in any locality and the sanitary condition of the population inhabiting it."[106] The origin of cholera is now said to be a micro-organism identified by Koch, but the laws of its movement and activity remain inscrutable. Meanwhile, all subsequent experience has confirmed the doctrine which Miss Nightingale continually preached, that the one protection against cholera consists in a standing condition of good sanitation. [106] Blue-book, 1870-71, p. 5; and see Bibliography A, No. 127. IV At the very time when Dr. Sutherland was hard at work upon the Cholera Instructions, Miss Nightingale heard a report (on good authority) which filled her with anger and consternation. Mr. Gladstone was engaged in cutting down the Army Estimates; the Army Medical Service was believed to be marked for retrenchment, and the War Office Sanitary Commission for destruction. When she told this to Dr. Sutherland, he took the matter with nonchalance and said (as men are sometimes apt to say in such cases, especially if there is a woman to rely upon) that he did not see that anything could be done. Very different was the view taken by Miss Nightingale, when she contemplated, not merely the interruption of Dr. Sutherland's useful work,[107] but the possibility of all Sidney Herbert's work being undermined. Nothing to be done indeed! There was everything to be done! She could write to the Prime Minister himself. She could write to Lord de Grey (Lord President). She could get this friend to approach one Minister, and that friend to approach another. She could even claim a slight acquaintance, and write to Mr. Cardwell (Secretary for War). She could write to all her friends among the Opposition and give them timely notice of the wicked things intended by their adversaries. She ultimately wrote to Lord de Grey, enclosing a letter which he was to hand or not, at his discretion, to Mr. Cardwell. The intervention was successful, and Lord de Grey asked her for Memoranda to "post him up" in the work of the Army Sanitary Commission and in the Sanitary Progress in India. Lord de Grey interceded with Mr. Cardwell also on behalf of the Army Medical School and it was spared. The Army Sanitary Committee was not touched, and for nearly twenty years more (till 1888) Dr. Sutherland continued his work upon it. Miss Nightingale's reports submitted to Lord de Grey are summarized in a letter to M. Mohl (Nov. 21, 1869):--"I am all in the arithmetical line now. Lately I have been making up our Returns in a popular form for one of the Cabinet Ministers (we are obliged to be very 'popular' for them--but hush! my abject respect for Cabinet Ministers prevails). I find that every year, taken upon the last four years for which we have