The cholera panic increases in South Europe. The disease is
now admitted to be the Asiatic variety, Dr. Koch, the German specialist, in particular announcing, as the result of his autopsies, that there can be no doubt; and the deaths have• risen in Marseilles to fifty-nine on Thursday, the " day " including the whole twenty-four hours. Twenty thousara people are said to have quitted Marseilles, and it is with difficulty that even the police are retained at their posts. All railway travellers are fumigated with acrid vapours, a proceeding which Dr. Koch ridicules, and declares to be a " Chinoiserie," but which French doctors approve. The Spaniards are so wild with alarm that they have ordered all visitors from France to be stripped and sponged with disin- fectants—a ridiculous proceeding, unless all linen is burned— and the Italian Municipalities direct that every patient shall be taken at once to a lazaretto, and that the house he has left, with all the people in it, shall be strictly sealed up for fifteen days, which, considering that the " sealing " has no effect on the drains, is simply a cruel absurdity. It should be observed that although the disease is undoubtedly Asiatic, and the victims are beyond measure alarmed, the proportion of recoveries to seizures remains large.
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