The Lancaster Herald, and Town and County Advertiser. — 1831-08-27 (Lancaster, Lancashire, England)

PROGRESS OF CHOLERA.  The accounts from various parts of the Continent, but particularly from Russia, regarding the progress of cholera, are of the most painfully interesting description. Many persons fled from St. Petersburgii to Cronstadt on the first alarm— but they left not the disease behind them; indeed, it is remarkable that an immense proportion, both of the fugitives and of those with whom they took refuge, is ascertained to have perished. At Cronstadt there occurred, within three days. above three hundred cases, and only seven cures ; nearly half having died in the first twenty-four hours, and the rest remaining ill; no British subject had suffered from the disease when the last accounts were dispatched from this place. At St. Petersburgh the evil of this dreadful visitation has been fearfully aggravated by the state of the public mind, by which society was for a time disorganized. The lower class of the people became impressed with an idea that the "foreign doctors" were employed to poison them; nor did this impression originate solely in the great mortality, but was, perhaps, still more the result of some persons, 'strangers in the place, having been found with large quantities of active poisons in their possession, of which they could give no satisfactory account. Two of these men were sacrificed to public vengeance. The fury of the mob was particularly directed against the medical men; one of whom was murdered; two nearly beaten to death; a fourth has destroyed himself; and when we add that not fewer than fifteen physician', attached to public hospitals, have had the cholera, of whom six have died, it will be acknowledged that our professional brethren have had their full share in the public calamity. The medical man who committed suicide was a Jew, entrusted with the examination of those coming to the town by water; and the on die is, that lie suffered infected barges to pass, for a "consideration." These accounts represent the Emperor in a more favourable light than we have been lately accustomed to contemplate him. The manner in which, after the entire discomfiture of the police, he threw himself between the rabble and the objects of their fury—braving at once the excited passions of the people, and the immediate proximity of those affected with the malady, appealing to their reason, and controling their desperation—is said to have been in the highest degree imposing, and forcibly to have shewn his moral influence over his subjects. Our medical commissioners were at first assisted in their pursuits—more lately they have been requested by the authorities to abstain, for the present, from any investigations calculated to interfere with public prejudices. No postmortem examinations are carried on except clandestinely; and, in fact, physicians from foreign countries are obliged, by a respect to their personal safety, to be very guarded in their proceedings. Of the different methods of treatment, that by sub. nitrate of bismuth is regarded at St. Petersburg)) as most successful—if, indeed, success can be spoken of where so few recover, and the Emperor has gone so far as to issue a proclamation, commanding the use of this medicine in preference to others--an edict which, if it appear to us rather arbitrary, will at least have the advantage of deciding the question as to the real power of this remedy over the disease. There is reason to believe from these accounts, that ill-timed blood-letting, and over-doses of powerful medicines, have added to the frightful mortality which has prevailed in the northern capital of Russia. During the prevalence of the disease at St. Petersburg)), the wind has been easterly, and the thermometer about 21°, i. e. 79Q of Fahrenheit.  Our accounts from Dantzic are up to the 2.1-id of July: the disease,- which had considerably abated, was again on the increase; a circumstance which was simultaneous with the setting in of close, damp, hot weather. Of SOS, the total number of cases reported, .584 had died, 1.57 recovered, and 66 remained under treatment. The disease was spreading into the neighbouring districts—the opinion on the spot being that the cordons were quite unavailing. The malady appeared at Konigsberg and Memel about the 2.5 th and 27th of July. By recent accounts from Stockholm, it is stated that no case had occurred either there or at any other part of the Swedish dominions; Norway enjoying a .similar immunity. There are, however, not fewer than two hundred vessels chiefly Dutch, driving about in the Baltic with the disease on board.  It is satisfactory to us to be able to state—and our sources of information are good—that although a few persons of the better classes have been attacked, as yet they have been but very few, and constitute exceptions to the general rule. By the better classes," we mean those who have the means and inclination to use wholesome generous diet, without any approach to intemperance. The death of Marshal Diebitsch, and the Grand Duke Constantine, have been supposed to justify a different conclusion; but keeping in view what we have just said, it is not quite apparent to what class of society these personages ought properly to be referred.—London Medical Gazette, Any. 6.