The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-04 00:00:00

the city of Prince WORONZOW—of the uncle of a
late Cabinet Minister and leading member of the
Peelite party—will be dealt with as an enemy's
possession ! We still wage a rose-water war, and
will not grapple with the stern realities of our
position. Sebastopol will be captured, and the
effect of its loss tried on Russia, before we pro-
ceed to the next step to punish her contumacy
and perverse obstinacy. It ought not to be so,
nor would it, if the Government were less under
the influence of Germanism and Coburgism.
But, unfortunately, we must deal with the
materials on hand, and base our calcula-
tions on the existing elements. Besides,
the coast from Odessa to Perekop, and the rivers
Dneister, Boug, and Dnieper, will be work for
the smaller steamers and boats. The first-rates
cannot be occupied thereon.

The Danube has also been mentioned ; but
beside that it would, like the other rivers, be
merely work for pigmies, which giants could not
be called on to perform, it appears that the indis-
pensable operations in that site are provided for
from another source. The Courrier de Marseilles
positively affirms, and with much apparent truth,
that the purchase of the fleet of steamers plying
on the Rhone hasbeen concluded, for the purpose
of removing the Russian power on the Danube.
There are in all 97 boats in this fleet, which will
be adequate for all the river work, the necessity
whereof was so strangely disregarded by England
up to this time. Our faithful Ally well merits
the honour of this important movement, which
will unquestionably be productive of the
most startling results, and convince Russia,
aye, and Austria, that we are really in
earnest ; but it proves also that the efforts at
Kamiesch cannot be intended for the Danube,
and leaves Sebastopol as the sole quarter against
which it can possibly be directed. We rejoice at
this, for we have no doubt that the result of the
combined attack will be such as we long since
indicated, and which we pointed out as the best
course even last year, before the land defences on
the south side had been so powerfully strengthened
by the engineering efforts of General TODLEBEN
and his staff. What we then explained is even
at this moment no less feasible, and affords the
most auspicious auguries for the success of the
Allied arms.

There is reason to believe that the importance
of scientific research is not, generally speaking,
adequately appreciated. The public are wont
to look upon science as something too abstract and
recondite to warrant sympathy with its disciples,
and it is only when the application of its resources
has results as_patent as propulsion by steam or
communication by electricity that their apprecia-
tion verges towards the mark.

There is, notwithstanding, reason to be grateful
that the researches of men of science in the
laboratory of Nature have been rewarded, and
will, doubtless, continue to be so by discoveries of
the greatest value to mankind discoveries
tending materially to ameliorate their con-
dition, and particularly by the prevention
and cure of many destructive forms of
disease. Striking illustrations of this have
been presented in our fleets in the Baltic and the
Black Sea, where, by the judicious application of
Sir WILLIAM BußNErr's disinfecting fluid, pesti-
lence has in numerous instances been stayed, and
a wholesome atmosphere secured, under the most
unfavourable circumstances with the most satis-
factory results. In one case, that of H.M.
troop-ship Timandra, at Scutari, where the two
assistant-surgeons in charge had not only to
render their professional services to 200 sick men
unable to go on deck, and constantly using the
bed-pans with not a soul to empty them, but had
also to discharge the offices of nurse, they were
enabled by attention and the free use of the dis-
infecting fluid to keep the place sweet and whole-
some, so that no casual visitor could have de-
tected the preceding fact, the result being that
even the most offensive cases of gangrene were
treated with success. In H.M. ship the Prince
Regent, the surgeon was induced to use it after a
case of cholera and several of diarrhcea had
occurred, and he was rewarded by an entire
cessation of attacks. In H.M. ship the James
Watt, which lost two men by cholera at
Bomarsund, the employment of the disinfecting
fluid was followed by the same results, and to
the use of this preventive the exemption from
disease of her Majesty's ships Bulldog, Arrogant,
Gorgon, Dragon, Driver, and half-a-dozen others,
is confidently ascribed. The crowded state of
ships of war, and the facilities there unavoidably
offered for the spread of disease in its most viru-
lent types, have only to be considered to cause us
to feel grateful that such an agent was in these
instances forthcoming. At the present time it is
not too much to say no household should be with-
out it, and it should be immediately employed
when the existence of any offensive smell is ascer-
tained. Life is sweet ; and, thanks to science,
by the use of the disinfecting fluid, the ravages
of cholera, and other forms of zymotic disease,
may be averted.