In the autumn of 1833, Beith, a considerable town in the north of Ayrshire, was suddenly affected by cholera, which, in a few days extended to many persons, and in a few weeks cut off a large proportion of its inhabitants. About the time that the disease broke out, a poor family had arrived from Glasgow, where cholera still lingered, where it had existed more than twelve months, and where during the previous year it had been prevalent and destructive. The poor family that went thence to Beith were not affected by cholera, nor was it shown that they had been in communication with choleral patients in Glasgow. All that was proved against them was the fact that they had lived in that city, and yet on them was charged the introduction of cholera into Beith, and indirectly the mortality which followed. It is worthy of remark, in illustration, with many such cases, of the mysterious movements of the cause of cholera, that Beith in the preceding year had wholly escaped its power, while adjacent towns and villages with which it had constant intercourse were suffering severely from it. That Beith should evade the contagious power of cholera in 1832, when the disease was rife in its near neighbourhood, and fall under it in 1833, when there is no evidence of its being nearer than Glasgow in mitigated force and occurring rarely, is, to say the least, difficult to understand. In the spring of this year a custom house officer who had been on board a foreign vessel in the Thames, in which were cases of cholera, was soon after attacked by the disease, and died at Gravesend. A little later, a nurse who had attended a choleral patient in the Dreadnought Hospital ship was attacked by the disease and died. {19}