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Epidemics examined and explained.
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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Epidemics Examined and Explained: or,
Living Germs Proved by Analogy to be a Source of Disease, by John Grove
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Epidemics Examined and Explained: or, Living Germs Proved by Analogy to be a Source of Disease
Author: John Grove
Release Date: December 9, 2010 [EBook #34603]
Language: English
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Transcriber's note:
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A few typographical errors have been corrected. They
appear in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the
explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
passage.<br /><br />
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<h1>EPIDEMICS</h1>
<h3>EXAMINED AND EXPLAINED:</h3>
<p class="cenhead">OR,</p>
<h2>LIVING GERMS</h2>
<p class="cenhead">PROVED BY ANALOGY TO BE</p>
<h2>A SOURCE OF DISEASE.</h2>
<p class="cenhead">BY</p>
<h2>JOHN GROVE, M.R.C.S.L.</h2>
<p class="cenhead">AUTHOR OF "SULPHUR AS A REMEDY IN EPIDEMIC CHOLERA."</p>
<h3>LONDON:</h3>
<h3>JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY.</h3>
<h3>MDCCCL.</h3>
<hr class="full" />
<blockquote class="b1n">
<p>"The tendencies of the mind, the turn of thought of whole ages, have
frequently depended on prevailing diseases; for nothing exercises a more
potent influence over man, either in disposing him to calmness and
submission, or in kindling in him the wildest passions, than the
proximity of inevitable and universal danger."—<i>Hecker's
Epidemics of the Middle Ages.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="b1n">
<p>"The grand field of investigation lies immediately before us; we are
trampling every hour upon things which to the ignorant seem nothing but
dirt, but to the curious are precious as gold."—<i>Sewell on the
Cultivation of the Intellect.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="full" />
<h3>TO</h3>
<h2>BENJAMIN GUY BABINGTON, F.R.S., M.D.,</h2>
<h3>PHYSICIAN TO GUY'S HOSPITAL,</h3>
<p class="cenhead">AND</p>
<h3>PRESIDENT OF THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SOCIETY,</h3>
<p class="cenhead">ETC. ETC.</p>
<h3>THESE PAGES ARE, BY HIS KIND PERMISSION,</h3>
<h2>Respectfully Dedicated,</h2>
<h3>BY HIS OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,</h3>
<h2>THE AUTHOR.</h2>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page v --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagev"></a>{v}</span></p>
<h3>PREFACE.</h3>
<p>The following pages have been written with a view to render some aid
in establishing a sound and firm basis for future research, on that
absorbing topic, the Causes and Nature of Epidemic Diseases.</p>
<p>The amount of information already published on Fevers, on the
Exanthemata, and on the Plague, is truly astonishing, and the more so
when it is considered, that at present no rational account or explanation
is given of the causes of these affections.</p>
<p>It appears to me but reasonable to suppose that as every thing on this
earth has been created on a wise and unerring principle, Epidemic and
Infectious Diseases are only indicative of some serious errors in our
social arrangements and habits. The dangers and misery brought upon us by
disease, may, as shewn by Dr. Spurzheim and Mr. Combe, be warnings
against the infringement of the natural laws.</p>
<p>Indeed, what is more rational than to suppose that the Seeds of
Disease are coeval with the fall of man. His first disobedience <!-- Page
vi --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevi"></a>{vi}</span>brought
death:—that his subsequent errors should hasten its approaches is
not to be marvelled at. The undetected murderer, though he may escape the
punishment human justice would inflict upon him for his delinquency,
suffers a penalty in the tortures of conscience, infinitely more
horrifying than the most ignominious death. The law of nature is
triumphant.</p>
<p>No less certain, though after a different manner, are the consequences
of minor forms of disobedience. It is so ordained, that certain diseases
shall arise, under peculiar conditions, which may have been brought about
by a train of causes, easily imagined, and difficult to be explained, but
all having their origin in the vices and errors of man in his moral and
social relations.</p>
<p>If man neglects the cultivation of the ground; with rank vegetation,
the germs of fever will invisibly grow and multiply; if he harbours that
which is rotten and corrupt, he is himself consumed by those agents
destined to remove the rottenness and corruption; it is a part of the law
of nature that there should be active and energetic agents for this
purpose. The seeds of disease, like the seeds of plants, may be shewn to
have <!-- Page vii --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="pagevii"></a>{vii}</span>their indigenous localities; like them
they may be spread and multiplied; like them they may lie dormant, and
after awhile spring as it were into active existence; like them, when the
soil and other conditions favour, they are ever ready to make their
appearance. And this is the law, the germs of all disease exist, and have
existed. Despise the dictates of nature, be careless of yourself and
those around you, neglect to use the means which a noble intelligence has
placed at your command, and above all, transgress the laws of God, then
will disease pursue and attend you, as the conscience of the murderer
pursues and attends him until he is finally cut off.</p>
<p>His wants and necessities, his sufferings and privations, are the
basis of the intellectual progress of man. The wonders of Omnipotence are
revealed through the whirlwind, the storm, the pestilence, and the
famine.</p>
<p>The constructive and perceptive faculties of man have been developed
by the necessity of protecting himself from injury by winds and rains;
his intellectual faculties have been cultivated, by the sufferings of
disease having led him to the study of <!-- Page viii --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="pageviii"></a>{viii}</span>organization and
life, to discover the cause,—and to chemistry, and other sciences
for the cure of his ailments.</p>
<p>Famine and distress have aroused his emotions, and softened down his
asperities, so that what appears at first to be the infliction of a Curse
without Pity, is in reality a Judgment with Mercy.</p>
<p>It occurred to me, that on the formation of the Epidemiological
Society, the first question for consideration should be, What is the
nature of those agents, which induce Epidemic Diseases? are they composed
of animate or inanimate matter? In other words, do the manifestations of
these diseases exhibit the operations of living or of chemical
forces.</p>
<p>Having, in my study, dwelt on the subject with an earnest desire to
find the truth, I put the suggestion, with my ideas, before the public to
reject or receive them. If they be rejected, I can but think a full
discussion of the enquiry will lead to the most important results. If
they be received with favour, I doubt not others, with more ability, will
take up the strain and resolve the discords into harmony.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>J. G.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><i>Wandsworth, September, 1850.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p><!-- Page ix --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageix"></a>{ix}</span></p>
<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
<table class="nobctr" summary="Contents" title="Contents">
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Introduction</span> </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page1">1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> CHAPTER I.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> IS IT PROBABLE THAT EPIDEMIC, ENDEMIC, AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES,<br />
DEPEND UPON VITAL GERMS FOR THEIR MANIFESTATIONS? </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page11">11</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> CHAPTER II.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> THE NUMBER AND VALUE OF FACTS TO SUPPORT
THE PROPOSITION.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section I.</span>—On Reproduction </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page22">22</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section II.</span>—Historical Notice of Epidemic Diseases</td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page34">34</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section III.</span>—The Dispersion of Plants and Diseases</td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page64">64</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section IV.</span>—The Relation between Epidemic and Endemic
Diseases </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page96">96</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> CHAPTER III.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> THE REASONABLENESS OF THE APPLICATION OF
THE FACTS TO THE INFERENCE.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section I.</span>—The Chemical Theory of Epidemics untenable</td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page108">108</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section II.</span>—The Animalcular Theory of Epidemics untenable</td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page128">128</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section III.</span>—Sketch of the Physiology and Pathology of
Plants and Animals </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page138">138</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> CHAPTER IV.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> RESULTS IN PROOF OF THE TENABLENESS OF THE
PROPOSITION.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section I.</span>—Observations on some of the Laws of Epidemic
Diseases </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page155">155</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section II.</span>—What is the nature of those Poisons which most
resemble the Morbid Poisons in their effects on the body?</td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page166">166</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Section III.</span>—What results do we obtain from the effects of
remedial agents, in proof of the hypothesis? </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page176">176</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> <span class="sc">Conclusion</span> </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom"> <a href="#page189">189</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1"></a>{1}</span></p>
<h3>INTRODUCTION.</h3>
<p>It is one thing for a man to convince himself, but a very different
thing to be able to convince others.</p>
<p>I am not now speaking of a conviction arising from the impression made
by a few startling facts, nor of one forced on the mind by early
prejudices, or by the dogmas of the schools, but of a conviction arising
from careful enquiry.</p>
<p>In the course of that enquiry, the collector of facts, sees their
relations to the idea in his mind, in a multiplicity of ways, from their
remaining, each, as one succeeds the other, an appreciable time on the
sensorium, and undergoing a certain process of comparison and relation,
with all other facts and ideas which have been previously stored up. As
the materials for an edifice which have been shaped and prepared in
accordance with the completion of the design, so do the facts and ideas
which are accumulated <!-- Page 2 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page2"></a>{2}</span>in the mind, become shaped and prepared for
the elimination of a truth. The ultimate design of the architect can no
more be conceived by the examination of the framework of a window, or the
capital of a column, than the whole truth of a proposition by the
examination of separate facts; the whole must be conceived and all the
relations of all the parts thoroughly understood, before the architect
can be comprehended or the harmony of his design appreciated.</p>
<p>The process of thought in the minds of the architect, and in the
framer of a proposition, is never exactly the same as in those who
contemplate and examine their completed works. Much may be done, however,
by both to aid others in comprehending them. The more accurately they
keep in view the course their minds have taken, the more readily will
their descriptions be understood.</p>
<p>To simplify the elements of our knowledge is to give others a ready
access to our thoughts.</p>
<p>To arrange the course of our ideas in harmony with the elements of our
knowledge should be the end of all writing, as it is the only means of
multiplying knowledge. <!-- Page 3 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page3"></a>{3}</span></p>
<p>It is not the mere accumulation of facts which constitutes science,
any more than a collection of building materials constitutes a house, it
is the arrangement and adaptation of the means to the end by which the
house becomes built and science cultivated.</p>
<p>These reflections have been suggested by the circumstance that for the
last 3000 years and upwards, Pestilences have at certain intervals done
their work of destruction, and opened the springs of misery to untold
millions, and yet I see not that we are much further advanced as to the
knowledge of the cause of these inflictions than the Jews in the time of
Moses. In the Levitical law, as I shall have occasion more particularly
to shew hereafter, were directions specially given in reference to the
plague of leprosy; what means should be adopted for the cure of the
disease, and for preventing its extension, and moreover pointing very
significantly to certain facts having connexion with the cause of the
affection. Since that time historians generally, and medical writers in
particular, have diligently recorded their observations and accumulated
facts, on the various desolating plagues which <!-- Page 4 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page4"></a>{4}</span>have afflicted mankind.
Some of these men have grappled with the whole subject, and endeavoured
to shew the presumed relation of the supposed causes in all their
intricacies, but it is hardly necessary to say that all have signally
failed in their attempts to furnish us with any practical
information.</p>
<p>Satisfied in my own mind that the whole subject is beyond the labour
of one man, and impressed with the belief that the basis of the enquiry
is in anything but a satisfactory state, I have applied myself entirely
to the study of the groundwork only, as the primary proceeding for a
solid superstructure.</p>
<p>The days are past, when imaginary spirits, ethers, and astronomical
phenomena, were believed to have any essential influence over our
destinies in a physical point of view; we have therefore to deal with
<i>matter</i> in some form or other.</p>
<p>The question, therefore, which I have proposed for enquiry, is,
whether the matter which causes epidemic and endemic diseases, exhibits
the properties of inorganic or organized matter.</p>
<p>The properties and qualities of organized <!-- Page 5 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page5"></a>{5}</span>bodies, as well as those of
inorganic matter, need but be stated, and in some instances we may
picture to ourselves the object, without having seen it, and not be very
far from a true conception. But for this purpose a clear and definite
idea must be previously formed, and have taken possession of the mind, of
the great general divisions of objects in the material world.</p>
<p>Having made these preliminary remarks, I have suggested a certain mode
of procedure in making enquiries of this kind, not perhaps in strict
accordance with logical systems, but on the principle of nature's
operations in our own minds, which appears to me, when reduced to a
systematic and simple form, to be sufficiently clear and strict for
synthetical application, and so concise as to be usefully and practicably
applied.</p>
<p>In endeavouring to establish a theory for the explanation of
extraordinary phenomena, there are certain rules which should guide us in
the thorny and treacherous path of speculation. But these rules readily
flow from the train of thought, and if we examine our own minds during
their operations, we <!-- Page 6 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page6"></a>{6}</span>shall find that the following is the course of
our instinctive reflections. It is a course we adopt as the test of
theories when formed, and is a guide in all cases for their
construction.</p>
<p>We first commence with an idea, which exists in our minds in the form
of a proposition: then the following rules naturally suggest
themselves:—</p>
<p>1. The probability of the value of our proposition from inference.</p>
<p>2. The number and value of facts to support the proposition.</p>
<p>3. The reasonableness of the application of the facts to the
inference.</p>
<p>4. What amount of information in the form of results can be produced
in proof of the tenableness of the proposition.<a name="NtA1"
href="#Nt1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
<p>In illustration of the value of these rules the history of Dr.
Jenner's discovery affords an appropriate example. To use the words of
Dr. Gregory, "he appears very early in <!-- Page 7 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page7"></a>{7}</span>life to have had his
attention fixed by a popular notion among the peasantry of
Gloucestershire, of the existence of an affection in the cow, supposed to
afford security against the Small Pox; but he was not successful in
convincing his professional brethren of the importance of the
<i>idea</i>."</p>
<p>The popular notion of the peasantry originated the idea in Jenner's
mind, and it became fixed there as a proposition.</p>
<p>1. He commenced his enquiry by observing that the hands of milkers on
the dairy farms were subject to an eruption, and he <i>inferred</i> that
the notion of the peasantry bore the stamp of probability, which
strengthened the idea in his mind and gave force to the proposition.</p>
<p>2. His next step was to accumulate facts; he found on enquiry that the
persons engaged on these farms in milking, possessed an immunity from
Small Pox to an extent sufficient to strengthen the value of his
proposition.</p>
<p>3. The reasonableness of the application of the facts to the inference
is clear from the coincidence that the eruption on the hands of the dairy
people bore a striking <!-- Page 8 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page8"></a>{8}</span>resemblance to the Small Pox, and as this
disease does not usually occur twice in the same individual, the
inference was most reasonable that this eruption protected the people
from Small Pox.</p>
<p>4. We have but to take the almost universal adoption of vaccination,
and its acknowledged prophylactic powers against the propagation of Small
Pox to shew the application of our fourth rule.<a name="NtA2"
href="#Nt2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
<p>Between the conception of the idea and the accomplishment of Jenner's
designs, vaccination seems to have undergone an incubation of nearly
twenty years. During that period, with an energy and perseverance only to
be obtained by confidence, did this great man brood over and elaborate
his idea; and well might the 14th day of May, <!-- Page 9 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page9"></a>{9}</span>1796, be styled the birth
day of vaccination, for on that day was a child first inoculated from the
hands of a milker.</p>
<p>In adopting the above method I have endeavoured to bear in mind M.
Quetelet's observations on the requirements necessary for medical
authorship; he says, "All reasonable men will, I think, agree on this
point, that we must inform ourselves by observation, collect
well-recorded facts, render them rigorously comparable, before seeking to
discuss them with a view of declaring their relations, and methodically
proceeding to the appreciation of causes."</p>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page 10 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page10"></a>{10}</span></p>
<p><!-- Page 11 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page11"></a>{11}</span></p>
<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
<p class="cenhead">IS IT PROBABLE THAT EPIDEMIC, ENDEMIC, AND
INFECTIOUS DISEASES, DEPEND UPON VITAL
GERMS FOR THEIR MANIFESTATIONS?</p>
<p>It is, I believe, almost universally considered that Epidemic,
Endemic, and Infectious diseases, originate from some imaginary poisons
of a specific nature, each disease having its own peculiar poison. That
this conception should have taken possession of the minds of men, is most
natural from the symptoms which characterize these diseases, but when we
come to enquire into the nature of these agents, or supposed poisons, we
are at once struck with the idea that they exhibit one peculiarity which
separates them in a marked manner, from those poisons with which we are
familiar; for the poisons of Small Pox, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Hooping
Cough, Fever, &c. possess the power of multiplication, or spontaneous
increase, a property which attaches only to the organic kingdom, and is
never known in the inorganic kingdom. The source of most of the poisons
is to be found among mineral or vegetable products. A mineral in
combination with an acid or oxygen may become a poison, and <!-- Page 12
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"></a>{12}</span>nitrogen in
various combinations with oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, or with carbon
alone, may become a poison; these combinations are, however, in most
instances the products of vegetable life, others again are obtained from
the animal kingdom, such as the poison of the serpent, &c. but in all
of these instances, there is not one in which the power of
self-multiplication is to be found.</p>
<p>We are, therefore, constrained to admit that this feature, which
distinguishes poisons, is one well worthy attentive consideration. The
varieties of poisons may be classified into those which act topically as
escharotic poisons, those which act chemically on the blood, and those
whose effects are manifested in inducing a speedy annihilation of organic
or vital action, as in the case of hydrocyanic acid, which is supposed
specifically to affect the nervous centres from which originate the vital
manifestations. It is rather remarkable that the vital poisons (as I will
call them for distinction), seem to have their appropriate locality in
the blood, they do not primarily affect one organ more than another, all
the effects we witness resulting from them are to be traced progressively
from the blood to other parts of the body. When a person is inoculated
with small pox, a very minute portion (indeed it is impossible to say how
minute it may be) is sufficient, when absorbed, to excite a certain train
of symptoms, all due to absorption of the materies of the disease, and
the process by which <!-- Page 13 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page13"></a>{13}</span>that materies arrives at maturity, is that
known in the vegetable world as the fructification; this process of
fructification is a process of development and increase.</p>
<p>I here may repeat that among all the poisons known, constituted as
they are of various combinations of elementary matter, they are without
exception destitute of the power of development or increase. Now, it is
pretty accurately known what amount of these poisons is necessary to
produce their effects on the living body; we can say how many drops are
sufficient of hydrocyanic acid of Scheeles strength, to destroy a man
instantaneously. Again, how many grains of arsenious acid are sufficient
to induce such an inflammatory condition of the stomach and intestine as
will end in death, and how many grains of morphia, will bring about a
fatal coma,—but who shall say the amount of the vital poisons
necessary to produce their results? It far exceeds the limit of
conjecture, to what extent the dilution of miasmatic or contagious matter
may be carried, and the poison yet be capable of committing in a short
time the most frightful ravages.</p>
<p>We may fairly then infer, that if a quantity of matter inappreciable
in amount be sufficient to exhibit the characters of growth and increase,
that it is endowed with the properties of vitality. That the poisons of
scarlet fever, of measles, and of small-pox have this power of growth and
increase, is as much a matter of universal belief as that "the sun <!--
Page 14 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"></a>{14}</span>will
rise and set to-morrow, and that all living beings will die."</p>
<p>This power of individual increase, or reproduction, is the very summit
of vital manifestation; indeed Coleridge, in his Theory of Life, (in
which he says, "I define life as the <i>principle of individuation</i>,
or the power which unites a given <i>all</i> into a whole that is
presupposed by all its parts,") places reproduction in the first rank,
and expresses his hypothesis thus: "the constituent forces of life in the
human living body are, first, the power of length or reproduction; 2nd,
the power of surface, or irritability; 3rd, the power of depth, or
sensibility—life itself is neither of these separately, but the
copula of all three."</p>
<p>Extensive research is not required to shew that many thinking men
believe in the existence of living organic beings, as the elements of
contagious and epidemic diseases; the idea indeed seems to flow
spontaneously in that direction. Whenever thought, and enduring
contemplation, have been concentrated on the subject, the result appears
to have been the same, a firm conviction in each individual mind that a
vital force must be in operation; or as Schlegel would define it, "a
living reproductive power, capable of and designed to develope and
propagate itself."—"Its Maker originally fixed and assigned to it
the end towards which all its efforts were ultimately to be
directed."</p>
<p>Referring further to beings having the property of reproduction and
propagation, he says, (using <!-- Page 15 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page15"></a>{15}</span>the word nature here evidently as the vital
principle for want of a better term,) "Nature indeed is not free like
man, but still is not a piece of dead clockwork. <i>There is life in
it.</i>"—"Thus we know that even plants sleep, and that they too as
much as animals, though after a different sort, have a true impregnation
and propagation."</p>
<p>When Schlegel wrote this, how little could he have imagined the
intricacy of this proceeding among the lower forms of vegetation. It has
been shewn by Suminski, and verified by many others, that the mode of
impregnation, and the period at which it occurs in the ferns, do not at
all correspond to the general notion on this subject. He has discovered
in the early development of the frond of ferns certain cells, which he
denominates antheridia, or sperm cells; these contain in their cavity a
number of subordinate cells, each containing a spermatazoon. At a certain
period of the progress of the frond, the parent cells become ruptured and
liberate the spermatoza, these move about in a mucilaginous fluid, which
bedews the inferior surface of the frond, and become the means of
impregnating the germ cells, or pistillidia, with which they readily come
in contact. Thus the process of impregnation in these plants occurs
during the germination, or what corresponds to the period of germination
in the seeds of exogenous and endogenous plants.</p>
<p>I have referred to the discovery of Suminski in <!-- Page 16 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page16"></a>{16}</span>this place to recal to
the mind the great and incomprehensible wonders of creation, for who
could conceive it possible or feasible that even for the impregnation of
an inferior vegetable, animal life should form an indispensable and
essential appurtenant of the process. Truly may we say with Coleridge, of
plants and insects, "so reciprocally inter-dependent and necessary are
they to each other, that we can almost as little think of vegetation
without insects, as of insects without vegetation."</p>
<p>I will make but two more quotations on the supposed vital character of
the germs of disease. "That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the
highest degree full of life, I may, I think, take here for granted, and
generally admitted. It is, however, of a mixed kind and quality,
combining the refreshing breath of spring with the parching simooms of
the desert, and where the healthy odours fluctuate in chaotic struggle
with the most deadly vapours. What else in general <i>is the wide-spread
and spreading pestilence</i>, but a living propagation of foulness,
corruption, and death? Are not many poisons, <i>especially animal
poisons, in a true sense, living forces</i>?"—Schlegel.<a
name="NtA3" href="#Nt3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
<p>It were useless to multiply quotations to shew <!-- Page 17 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page17"></a>{17}</span>that the opinions here
entertained are matters of general belief among thinking men.<a
name="NtA4" href="#Nt4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> I will at once then conclude
with an observation of Dr. C. J. B. Williams: he puts the question, "Does
the matter of contagion consist of vegetable seeds? Are infectious
diseases the results of the operations and invasions of living parasites,
disturbing in sundry ways the structures and functions of the body, each
after its own kind, until the vital powers either fail or succeed in
expelling the invading tribes from the system?"</p>
<p>And this expression, the seeds, is an universal expression, it is a
"Household Word" in connexion with disease. That it has obtained this
position in the popular vocabulary is alone a proof of the applicability
of the term to the thing intended to be <!-- Page 18 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page18"></a>{18}</span>signified. Popular
notions, as we have seen in the case of Jenner's discovery, are not to be
unheeded. An instance occurs to me, it was a popular belief, that in acne
punctata, the matter of a sebaceous follicle, was itself, when pressed
out, a worm, the dark portion which results from the accumulation of dust
upon the matter at the mouth of the follicle was supposed to be the head
of the maggot, as it was called; subsequent observation, however, has
proved that though this matter is not a worm, it contains an animal
within its substance, the Acarus folliculorum.</p>
<p>The popular notions found among savage tribes as to the efficacy of
certain remedies in the cure of disease have been the means of furnishing
us with some of our most valuable medicines, indeed it is almost
impossible to say whether originally man did not derive his remedies from
the herbs and trees by an instinctive faculty impelling him, as it does
the animals when in a state of liberty and with freedom of range, to seek
certain plants as they avoid others.</p>
<p>It is well known that animals when indisposed will find out some spot
as if almost led to it by a visionary guide where the "healing plant" is
to be discovered. I am told that sheep have this faculty, and that they
will, when affected with the rot, feed upon some plant when they can
discover it, which eradicates the disease.</p>
<p>Almost every one is familiar with the fact that cats and dogs will
crop herbage and eat it; I have <!-- Page 19 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page19"></a>{19}</span>seen them frequently leave the house and
proceed to the grass in the most business-like manner, partake of some
quantity, and quietly return.</p>
<p>A close observer of diseased animals might obtain some useful
information by noticing the plants cropped by them while in that
condition. The observations should be made in a variety of districts in
consequence of the uncertain distribution of some even of the most
commonly scattered plants; in one year they may be abundant, but in
another they may be almost entirely absent from the same spot.<a
name="NtA5" href="#Nt5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
<p>Were it only on the fact of reproduction, I would be contented to take
my stand that the force of life is the indwelling power of pestilential
matter. Reproduction is a law of nature, and the law of nature is the law
of God. And where do we find He prevaricates with us? The more we study
His laws the more harmony and perfection we find; what is seeming
confusion in the ignorance of to-day, is order in the knowledge of
to-morrow. If any one ignorant of the law which regulates the diffusion
of gases were <!-- Page 20 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page20"></a>{20}</span>told that a heavier gas would ascend
contrary to its specific gravity through the septum in a vessel
containing a lighter gas above the heavier, he would naturally doubt your
assertion, and say, "that is contrary to the law of gravity;" but explain
to him the principle by which this comes about, and the objects of the
law; the order and beauty of the design become manifest. But this is no
equivocation, it is evidence there, that subordinate laws exist and
nothing more. It has never been found that men have gathered "grapes of
thorns and figs of thistles," nor has it ever been discovered that
inanimate matter multiplies itself. The seed of disease "is within
itself," multiplying and propagating itself; whether it formed a part of
creation at the beginning or not, is rather a question to be solved by
divines than physicians. When we know, however, the latency of seeds and
even of entire plants, and that they may be dried and remain so for years
yet being brought again into conditions adapted to their active
existence, they, as it were, revive from their sleep, and renew again
their reproductive properties: can we wonder if, in the great scheme of
nature, existences new to mankind should make their appearance? When the
New Zealander saw the surface of his ground producing to him unknown
plants, and the skins of his children generating peculiar eruptions, and
each propagating its kind, would he look, think you, to the wood or the
stones, the air or the water,—for the solution of the <!-- Page 21
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"></a>{21}</span>mystery? No, he
would naturally say these people brought the <i>seeds</i> with them. From
the property of reproduction possessed by these forms of matter, we infer
the value of the proposition.</p>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page 22 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"></a>{22}</span></p>
<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
<p class="cenhead">THE NUMBER AND VALUE OF FACTS TO SUPPORT
THE PROPOSITION.</p>
<p class="cenhead">————</p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION I.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">ON REPRODUCTION.</span></p>
<p>It is inferred that the proposition, "<i>the matter which operates in
the production of Epidemic, Endemic, and Infectious Diseases, possesses
the property of vitality</i>," we proceed now to the enumeration of those
facts which further elucidate this subject.</p>
<p>The facts must necessarily be such as illustrate the identity of
properties in the imaginary germs, that are known to exist in
demonstrable germs: we take therefore the law of reproduction to be to
life, what the law of attraction is to gravitation.<a name="NtA6"
href="#Nt6"><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 23 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"></a>{23}</span></p>
<p>But further; do those matters which engender disease furnish to our
minds the properties inseparable from life in the abstract? Though the
faculty of reproduction is essentially an evidence that the thing which
reproduces its kind must be a living body, yet it is only a property or
power of living beings and is not itself life, it therefore is necessary
to establish the fact that the <i>materies morbi</i> not only has the
power of reproduction, but also those properties which in the abstract
will prove as far as demonstration can go, that it has the essential
properties common to all living bodies.</p>
<p>I must again quote from Coleridge, he says: "By life I every where
mean the true idea of life, or that most general form under which life
manifests itself to us, which includes all its other forms. This I have
stated to be the <i>tendency to individuation</i> and the degrees or
intensities of life, to consist in the progressive realization of this
tendency. The <!-- Page 24 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page24"></a>{24}</span>power which is acknowledged to exist
wherever the realization is found, must subsist wherever the tendency is
manifested. The power which comes forth and stirs abroad in the bird,
must be latent in the egg."</p>
<p>The tendency to individuation cannot be more strongly marked than in
the simple experiment of vaccination: we insert a small particle of the
so-called vaccine lymph under the skin, and by this means we multiply to
an enormous extent, the power which, in the first instance, we had in the
form of minute corpuscles in a dry and apparently inert state;
nevertheless, though in this condition there must have existed the
tendency to individuation or multiplication of individual existence, and
the germs are here to their active existence, as seen in the development
of the vaccine vesicle, what the egg is to the bird,<a name="NtA7"
href="#Nt7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> as described above; we may, therefore, say
that the power which exhibits itself in the production of a vaccine
vesicle, must have been latent in the dried matter. It is the opinion of
Muller that the entire vital principle of the egg <!-- Page 25 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page25"></a>{25}</span>resides in the germinal
disk alone, and since <i>the external influences which act on the
germs</i> of the most different organic beings are the same, we must
regard the simple germinal disk, consisting of granular amorphous matter,
as the potential whole of the future animal, endowed with the essential
and specific force or principle of the future being, and capable of
increasing the very small amount of this specific force and matter, which
it already possesses, by the assimilation of new matter.</p>
<p>After speaking of inanimate objects, Dr. Carpenter says; "and what
compared with the permanence of these is the duration of any structure
subject to the conditions of <i>vitality</i>? <i>To be born</i>, to grow,
to arrive at maturity, to decline, to die, to decay, is the sum of the
history of every being that lives; from man, in the pomp of royalty, or
the pride of philosophy, to the gay and thoughtless insect that glitters
for a few hours in the sunbeam and is seen no more; from the stately oak,
the monarch of the forest through successive centuries, to the humble
fungus which shoots forth and withers in a day."</p>
<p>To be born, signifies the faculty of reproduction existing or having
existed in an antecedent being to that one born, and also that itself
possesses equally a like power. To be born, is the first expression which
must be used in speaking of the faculties or properties of living beings
as independent existences, the annual formation of buds, trees, and
shrubs, is a multiplication of the species; the coral <!-- Page 26
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"></a>{26}</span>and various
budding polypes increase by this process, indeed what is the seed of a
plant, or the egg of a bird, or the ovum of mammalia, but cast off buds;
in all, the new being was originally a portion of its parent, and if we
examine the ovary of the vegetable, the bird, or the mammal, can we find
any expression more fitting to designate the process than that of
budding. To be born then, is the evidence of an act of one living being,
and the commencement of a series of vital phenomena in another, but all
these are subsequent to reproduction, and constitute another chain of
vital acts, all tending to a similar result, the multiplication of the
species.<a name="NtA8" href="#Nt8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
<p>Now, whether we apply the philosophical language of Coleridge, or the
language of observation of Muller, in confirmation of the doctrine here
inculcated, we arrive at the same point.</p>
<p>Do we not witness in the newly formed vaccine vesicle, an increase of
the specific force and principle? We certainly have acquired by the
process of vaccination a manifold multiplication of power, and is there
not also assimilation of new matter in <!-- Page 27 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page27"></a>{27}</span>which this power resides?
And does not every particle of this new matter contain within itself the
same force and principle, as existed in that which generated it?</p>
<p>"We revert again to potentiated length in the power of magnetism
(reproduction); to surface in the power of electricity, and to the
synthesis of both or potentiated depth in constructive, that is chemical
affinity."<a name="NtA9" href="#Nt9"><sup>[9]</sup></a></p>
<p>Some may be at a loss to conceive, at first, how irritability may be
considered a property of all vegetable matter; that it does exist in some
vegetables is certain, but that it does exist in all living beings is
equally certain;<a name="NtA10" href="#Nt10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> the
term, however, which would appear more appropriate when that irritability
does not exhibit itself in an appreciable form, is <i>impressibility</i>.
Irritability, as commonly understood, is seen in its highest condition in
muscular tissue; but "the irritable power and an analogon of voluntary
motion first dawn on us in the vegetable world in the stamina and anthers
at the period of <!-- Page 28 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page28"></a>{28}</span>impregnation."—"The insect world is
the exponent of irritability, as the vegetable is of reproduction."</p>
<p>The property of irritability attains its acme in man, the most highly
organized of all beings; and its gradations pass downwards through the
whole scale of animate creation; not so reproduction, for this faculty
observes the very opposite direction, for in plants a single impregnation
is sufficient for the evolution of myriads of detached lives.</p>
<p>Reproduction is a fact, it is an essential property of life, and is a
reality to us from observation; but irritability is not so tangible and
demonstrable a property. We nevertheless may assume its universality,
from the circumstance that we lose sight of it by imperceptible degrees;
the irritability of the sensitive plant is as much irritability as that
of the highly organized muscle; but because the faculty evades our
perception, "in tapering by degrees, becoming beautifully less," we have
no reason for pronouncing its total extinction at any one point of the
vegetable kingdom,<a name="NtA11" href="#Nt11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> any
more than we should have <!-- Page 29 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page29"></a>{29}</span>in saying that we see the end of the earth,
when describing the extent of our vision as we stand on the sea shore.
The extreme limit of our vision is the tangent of the circle in reference
to our visual organs; but how many tangential points there may be beyond,
it is impossible to say without knowing the dimensions of the circle.</p>
<p>I think we are now in a condition to assume, as far as abstraction
will conduct us without proceeding to an extreme length, that the
<i>materies morbi</i>, or, as I will now call them for the sake of
clearer distinction, <i>semina morbi</i>, possess those properties which
in the abstract are common to all living beings.</p>
<p>Another argument strikes me as capable of adding further strength to
the proposition. We need but be told that a small piece of iron was
placed in a certain position with regard to another piece of iron, and
that the smaller piece moved through a given space and became attached to
the larger, to infer that magnetic force was in operation. Supposing this
magnet then to be folded in paper, and that it <!-- Page 30 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page30"></a>{30}</span>be promiscuously placed
near a compass, the deflection of the needle would indicate that some
object in the vicinity was the cause of the deflection; we may farther
try what positions the needle takes by varying the position of the
packet, and thus point out which is the north and which the south pole of
the screw of paper. If we may consider attraction then to be to
gravitation what reproduction is to life, we do not err in saying in the
one instance that there is a living being, and in the other there is a
magnet.</p>
<p>The nebular theory, from which some astronomers made the foundation of
many speculations, came with so much interest to our minds that the
fascination could not be resisted. It was most delightful to revel in the
imagination that we possessed a key to the mode of formation of the
starry hosts, and when speculation had taken its extreme limits in the
"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," and the nebulæ had served
as the ground work of a gigantic scheme, Lord Ross's monster telescope
swept the heavens of its cobwebs. We can imagine this great promoter of
science saying to us, Gentlemen, the clouds which have obscured you, are
composed of myriads of stars, and comprise systems as vast and as
luminous as our own, had you but power of vision to discern them. A new
light thus appeared to philosophers, and though no great practical
results may flow from the discovery, it is instructive from the fact that
the imperfectly aided or unaided vision, should not limit legitimate <!--
Page 31 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page31"></a>{31}</span>inference. The nebulæ before Lord Ross's
discovery were to the astronomer what the materies of epidemic and
infectious disease are to medical men. In the absence however of a giant
microscope to reveal such great truths, we may yet dimly shadow them by
the light of our reason. It was predicted in 1849 that minute vegetable
germs, in all probability all of the same type, were the agents producing
epidemic and infectious disease. In 1850, Mr. Oke Spooner says,<a
name="NtA12" href="#Nt12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> "On examining the matter of
Small <!-- Page 32 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page32"></a>{32}</span>Pox and Cow Pox in every stage, he finds its
essential character to consist of a number of minute cells not exceeding
the 10,000th part of an inch in diameter: being about one-fourth smaller
than the globules of the blood, containing within their circumference
many still more minute nuclei, and presenting beyond their circumference
bud-like cells of the same size and character as those contained within
the circle."</p>
<p>Should these observations made by Mr. Spooner turn out to be correct,
they will but fulfil my anticipations. Then again shall we see the same
application of imperfect vision to the limitation or temporary
obstruction of solid and determinate knowledge.</p>
<p>We may reasonably expect that these bodies, discovered by Mr. Spooner,
should be the elementary matters of disease. Their existence was
predicted from the probability that living matter must be the agent;
moreover, that this matter when discovered <!-- Page 33 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page33"></a>{33}</span>would be cellular, most
probably resembling the yeast plant as described by Mr. Spooner.</p>
<p>It was predicted that a planet would be discovered in a certain
position in the heavens, because the perturbations of a comet indicated
an attracting body in the path of the eccentric wanderer; the prediction
and the fulfilment were almost simultaneous.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 34 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page34"></a>{34}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION II.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">HISTORICAL NOTICE OF EPIDEMIC DISEASES.</span></p>
<p>The earliest notices we have of Pestilences are contained in Holy
Writ. The plagues which smote the Egyptians in the time of Moses are not
unworthy some comment here. Of those ten plagues, four out of the number
were due to the miraculous appearance of myriads of the lower animal
tribes, in three instances of insects,<a name="NtA13"
href="#Nt13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> viz. lice, flies, and locusts; in the
fourth, when Aaron stretched forth his hand with his rod over the
streams, over the rivers, and the ponds, frogs came up and covered the
land of Egypt. In these instances living beings are made the instruments
in God's hand for the punishment of the wicked. These plagues include the
second, third, fourth, and eighth. The first plague is mentioned as a
conversion of the waters into blood. Now if we may take this expression
as being literal, there is no reason to suppose that this blood differed
in any respect from ordinary sanguineous liquid; we therefore may assume,
as the blood is every where in Scripture spoken of as the <i>life</i>,
that this fluid was endowed with vital properties.</p>
<p><!-- Page 35 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"></a>{35}</span></p>
<p>The fifth plague is described as a murrain among beasts; and the
sixth, as exhibiting itself as "a boil breaking forth with blains, upon
man and upon beast."<a name="NtA14" href="#Nt14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> Now
these affections bear a resemblance to the diseases known to us at the
present day through authentic records. The Black Death of the 14th
century affords in its history but too awful a picture of the horrors of
such pestilences. In the tenth plague, the smiting of the first-born, we
are not told by what means it was brought about; but we have something
even here to lead us to conjecture. In the second visitation of the Black
Death, there were destroyed a great many children whom it had formerly
spared, and but few women. The seventh plague of hail is within our
conception; as is also that of darkness, the ninth plague.</p>
<p>It is not a little remarkable that of the ten plagues, seven of them
depended upon agents intelligible to our comprehension; we can conceive
of <!-- Page 36 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page36"></a>{36}</span>the invasion of a country by myriads of
loathsome insects and reptiles, and can imagine the wrath of an offended
Deity directing the force of a supernatural storm of hail upon a
disobedient people; and we can conjecture, though faintly, the
consternation of human nature on being subjected to a total darkness of
three days' duration, when we consider <i>that</i> darkness has been
described, as "a darkness that might be felt."</p>
<p>From this abstract we discover that the three plagues whose causes we
cannot understand, or rather upon which no light has been thrown by
Scripture, bear analogies to those which we recognise, in the writings of
modern authors, as fearful pestilences.</p>
<p>It is now our province to reflect on the causes supposed to be in
operation in the three instances, which become naturally separated from
the rest.</p>
<p>We are told that a murrain appeared among the cattle, without any
preliminary step. When the blains broke out upon man and beast, Moses had
been previously directed by the Almighty to take handfuls of the ashes of
the furnace, and sprinkle them towards the heaven in the sight of
Pharaoh. "<i>And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt</i>,
and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast,
throughout all the land of Egypt."</p>
<p>Another coincidence, in connexion with subsequent pestilences, arrests
the attention, on the subject of the mysterious appearance on these
occasions of <!-- Page 37 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page37"></a>{37}</span>matter resembling dust being prevalent about
the houses, and on the clothes of the people. Clouds also, and showers of
dust-like particles, were not of infrequent occurrence. Indeed, in the
summer of 1849, during the progress of the Cholera, several phenomena of
a similar nature were observed and authenticated; I myself can bear
testimony to one instance of the kind. It was observed by many persons in
my neighbourhood after the passage of an ominous and lurid cloud, that as
they walked their clothes became covered with a singular dust-like matter
of very peculiar appearance. That this phenomenon was not destitute of
significance may be gathered from the fact, that on the night of that day
several severe cases of Cholera occurred, though our village had been
comparatively free for ten days.</p>
<p>Hecker, in writing on the Black Death says, the German accounts
expressly speak of a "thick stinking mist which advanced from the east,<a
name="NtA15" href="#Nt15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> and <!-- Page 38 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page38"></a>{38}</span>spread itself over Italy;
there could be no deception in so palpable a phenomenon." It is not
unworthy of mention, that in the East successive invasions of locusts
"which had never perhaps darkened the sun in thicker swarms," preceded
the great outbreak of this disease, for they left famine in their
train.</p>
<p>From 1500 to 1503 in Germany and France, during the prevalence of the
sweating sickness, spots of different colours made their appearance,
"principally red, but also white, yellow, grey, and black, often in a
very short time, on the roofs of houses, on clothes, on the veils and
neckerchiefs of women, &c." Blood rain is also mentioned as having
occurred at this time, which consisted of the aggregation of minute
particles of red matter.</p>
<p>In the seven plagues, miraculous operations of the Deity consisted in
the unusual manifestation of phenomena, but which in their effects are
recognizable as of clear and definite import. The miracles here
are,—in the <i>mode</i> of producing the swarms of frogs, locusts,
&c. but they are manifest and unmistakeable <i>causes</i> of plague
and famine; in the other three, on the contrary, we witness only the
effects, the causes are hidden from us; we may, therefore, as in current
events, legitimately investigate the subject, and what better course can
be adopted than that which classifies the traditionary past with all
subsequent history. Presuming such a method of research to be admitted, I
have assumed that as <!-- Page 39 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page39"></a>{39}</span>the <i>causes</i> of the seven plagues have
been distinctly given, the others, though only mentioned in their
effects, were due to causes of a nature in some way to be compared with
their concomitants, that is to say, if a special intervention of the
Deity brought about a miraculous appearance of frogs, lice, &c. there
is but little reason to doubt that some other agent was miraculously
multiplied and concentrated to induce the murrain, engender the blain,
and smite the first-born: as if to lead us into this enquiry, on the
visitation of the blain in man and beast, the Bible History tells us that
Moses threw ashes of the furnace, which became a dust throughout all the
land of Egypt; we cannot imagine that this simply as ashes could have
caused the blain, we may conclude that by some special miracle, either
the ashes were converted into a specific form of matter capable of
inducing the effects recorded, or that an independent septic matter was
generated for the purpose. If the latter, the act of throwing the ashes
of the furnace into the air may have been intended to signify that the
extremely minute division of the particles when thus cast into space,
typified the inscrutable and hidden nature of the matter endowed with
such marvellous properties.<a name="NtA16"
href="#Nt16"><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 40 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page40"></a>{40}</span></p>
<p>Further on in the book of Leviticus are passages which I cannot
forbear transcribing, for they point out to us most indubitably a line of
enquiry in reference to diseases of a contagious nature.</p>
<p>"The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a
woollen garment, or a linen garment, whether it be in the warp or woof,
of linen or of woollen, whether in a skin, or in any thing made of skin,
and if the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment ... it is a
plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed unto the Priest, and the Priest
shall look upon the plague and shut up it that hath the plague seven
days; and he shall look on the plague on the seventh day; if the plague
be spread in the garment, either in the warp, &c. ... the plague is a
fretting leprosy, it is unclean. He shall therefore burn that garment ...
wherein the plague is, for it is a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in
the fire. And if the Priest shall look, and behold, the plague be not
spread in the garment ... then the Priest shall command that they wash
the thing wherein the plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more:
and the Priest shall look on the plague, after that it is washed: and
behold if the plague have <i>not</i> changed his colour, and the plague
be not spread, it is unclean; thou <!-- Page 41 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page41"></a>{41}</span>shalt burn it in the
fire; it is fret inward; whether it be bare within or without. And if the
Priest look and behold the plague be somewhat dark after the washing of
it, then he shall rend it out of the garment ... and if it appear still
in the garment either in the warp or the woof ... it is a spreading
plague: thou shalt burn that wherein the plague is with fire. And the
garment ... which thou shalt wash, if the plague be departed from them,
then it shall be washed the second time and shall be clean."—Chap.
xiii. 47-58.</p>
<p>Again in Deuteronomy. The curse for disobedience: "The Lord shall make
the pestilence cleave to thee until he have consumed thee from off the
land.—The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with
the drought, and with blasting, and with <i>mildew</i>, and they shall
pursue thee until thou perish.—The Lord shall make the rain of thy
land <i>powder</i> and <i>dust</i>: from heaven shall it come down upon
thee until thou be destroyed."</p>
<p>It may be said, and I doubt not will be said, all this is
unnecessarily dragging the sacred volume into an enquiry totally foreign
to its general tenor; on the contrary, however, I maintain by that Book
we are to learn the ways of God to man, and further, that no study can
impress mankind with so awful, so terrific an idea of his responsible
position, as that which leads him into the investigation of the causes
<!-- Page 42 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page42"></a>{42}</span>by
which the Almighty, doubtless in His wisdom, has thought fit at various
epochs of this world's history, to place man face to face with
pestilence, famine and sudden death.</p>
<p>There is no man would less willingly than myself introduce profanely
the revelations of Scripture. The observations here made are not,
therefore, intended for light or heedless controversy; if they have a
significance of any import, let them be alluded to in the same spirit
with which they have been quoted; if they convey nothing for approval to
the reader, let silence rest upon them. To those who would fain disregard
my request, let me recall to their minds the veneration which from
childhood I trust we have always felt on hearing or seeing those two
words—Holy Bible.</p>
<p>It is yet to be determined, whether the greenish or reddish appearance
of the garment spoken of, as being contaminated with the plague of the
leprosy had any specific relation to the disease itself. The priest
orders that the garment shall be shut up seven days, and on the seventh
day, if the plague be increased, by which, of course, is meant if the
greenish or reddish colour have increased, and from which we may gather
that a power of spontaneous increase was possessed by the matter, such a
result indicated a fretting leprosy, and the garment was to be burnt.
Again, though there may have been no increase, but a persistence of the
coloured matter after shutting up and washing the garment, it is to <!--
Page 43 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"></a>{43}</span>be
burnt, for it is fret inward, signifying, that the germs of the affection
are still there, and may soon increase. Other rules follow in reference
to the plague of leprosy, and the mode of deciding whether an article be
unclean or clean is definitely laid down, but our purpose is served in
mentioning the above, to shew that in the time of Moses the spontaneous
increase of certain minute multiplying germs was supposed to have a close
connexion with disease. It is equally clear, that the priests were aware
by the order given them, that if the ordinary modes of purifying articles
of clothing failed in their effect, the safest and surest method of
destroying infectious matter was to resort to the practice of consuming
by fire all materials capable of propagating an infectious malady.</p>
<p>The facts above noticed, accurately correspond to what we now know as
applicable to the matter of infectious and contagious maladies. It is a
rule, I believe universally adopted throughout the Poor-houses of this
country, to put the clothes of all persons about to become residents in
these establishments, into ovens, where they are submitted to a
temperature incompatible with the existence of either animal or vegetable
life. By this means all living matters are destroyed, but the fabrics and
inorganic matters retain their properties intact. This simple proceeding,
I am credibly informed, is an effectual preventive of contamination by
articles of clothing, a desideratum of no small importance, when it is
<!-- Page 44 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page44"></a>{44}</span>remembered that the diseases among the poor
owe much of their inveteracy to the accumulation of effete organic
matters about their persons and clothes.</p>
<p>A few more observations are called for on the quotation from
Deuteronomy, in which allusion is made to living matter being an agent in
the production of disease. In the curse upon the children of Israel for
disobedience, we read that they are to be smitten with mildew. No further
information, however, is vouchsafed to us, nevertheless, we can conceive
the wretched condition of those on whom the curse might fall. Again, we
find in a continuation of this curse that the Almighty uses means such as
He adopted in the sixth plague of the Egyptians. The ashes of the furnace
became a small dust in all the land of Egypt, breaking forth with blains
upon man and beast. In the curse of the Israelites the words are: "The
Lord shall make the rain of thy land <i>powder and dust</i>: from Heaven
shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed."</p>
<p>It might be conjectured that the absence of rain would be sufficient
to account for the extinction of the people on whom the curse was
pronounced, by the famine and drought necessarily attendant upon the loss
of moisture. But this does not appear to be the meaning of the passage,
for the powder and dust are mentioned as the agents of destruction;
besides, in the continuation of the curse, the locust is to destroy the
grain, the worm the grapes, and <!-- Page 45 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page45"></a>{45}</span>the olive is to shed his fruit; we may thus
take for granted that drought and famine are not to be caused by the
showering of powder and dust, it must consequently be supposed that the
effects of the dust in the instance of the Egyptians are to be compared
and classified with those of the dust which smote the Israelites.</p>
<p>As far then as Sacred History conducts us in the enquiry, concerning
the causes of pestilences, we gain encouragement in the belief that
living germs are the active agents, for in the case of the leprosy, we
have evidence of reproduction in connexion with infection, which, if our
line of argument be tenable, amounts to demonstration; then, in the other
instances of the plagues, by boils and blains, they distinctly bear
comparison with the accounts given by profane writers, of the visitations
of pestilences on the earth, subsequently to those mentioned in Scripture
history.</p>
<p>This leads now to the consideration of recorded facts observed and
noted during the various Epidemics in the early and subsequent periods of
Man's History, as given by those on whom reliance may be fairly
placed.</p>
<p>Setting aside the uncertain information contained in the writings of
the Chinese,<a name="NtA17" href="#Nt17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> a people
whose <!-- Page 46 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page46"></a>{46}</span>progress in the science and practice of
Medicine has nothing to commend it (even as it is at the present day) to
the notice either of the physician or the historian, unless it be to the
latter as a mark of peculiarity both in a social and political point of
view,—passing also over the Egyptians, the Arabians, and the
Greeks,—and even Hippocrates himself, we are driven to the Romans
for any authentic or precise notice of Epidemic Affections. It has been
attributed to Hippocrates that he predicted the appearance of the Plague
at Athens, <!-- Page 47 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page47"></a>{47}</span>and that when it was introduced into Greece
he dispelled it, "by purifying the air with fires into which were thrown
sweet-scented herbs and flowers along with other perfumes."<a
name="NtA18" href="#Nt18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> But little advantage can be
derived from enquiries concerning the first appearance of any disease,
for the probability of discovering the primary cause is certainly a <!--
Page 48 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page48"></a>{48}</span>hopeless
case, if attempted by means of the writings of ancient authors, when it
is recollected that with all the science and learning of the ancient
Egyptians, the use of optical instruments was not comprised among the
paraphernalia of their arts. The knowledge that was limited to the powers
of natural vision, where the foundation of knowledge is based upon facts
obtained through the aid of that penetrator of nature's secrets, the
microscope, offers no advantages to the student of the present day.</p>
<p>To say that a disease commenced in the East and travelled westward,
and at length found a habitation and a name in every part of the globe,
is no more than to say that disease is coeval with the fall of man. The
cause is as much hidden in the region of its birth, as in that where it
sojourns for a time. The cause of the sweating sickness was as much a
mystery in England as in all the other nations of Europe, which were
visited by its devastating power. And these observations apply with as
much force to one disease as another; for even our indigenous ague,
originating in some places so limited that the shadow of a passing cloud
may mark the boundary of its dwelling place, as inscrutably evades our
vigilance, with all the appliances that art can bring to our assistance,
in endeavouring to evoke its extraordinary properties under the
cognizance of our senses.</p>
<p>If we weigh the air which carries the poison, or analyze it by the
most delicate chemical tests, or <!-- Page 49 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page49"></a>{49}</span>take the weight of the atmosphere which is
charged with it, or if we take the blood which carries the germs of the
disease to the tissues of the body, and submit them after the work of
destruction is accomplished, to the most rigid inspection, we can but
exclaim,</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="hg3">"These are Thy marvellous works!"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>and confess our total inability to fathom the unbounded.</p>
<p>If then no practical advantage can accrue from investigating the
writings of the ancients on these subjects, beyond comparing their
historical statements with those of more recent date, our purpose will be
served by occasionally embodying any remarkable observations of the
former with those of the latter.</p>
<p>In proceeding with this course it were better to confine our minds
chiefly to two diseases which appear from history to have been known from
the earliest periods, these are the Plague and the Small Pox, mentioning
other diseases only <i>en route</i>.</p>
<p>Passing then, to the sixth century of the Christian era for the first
distinct and connected account of the Plague, it appears from a host of
testimony, that the history of this disease, as given by Procopius, well
merits our attention. Drs. Friend and Hamilton, in their Histories of
Medicine, and Gibbon, in his History of Rome, are equally warm in their
praise of Procopius: the latter says, he "emulated the skill and
diligence of Thucydides in the <!-- Page 50 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page50"></a>{50}</span>description of the Plague at Athens." The
account given by Procopius of this disease, does not differ materially
from that given by subsequent eye-witnesses of similar pestilences. Its
point of origin is clearly marked, and its mode of dispersion in all
directions distinctly traced from "the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between
the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile." It commenced in
the year 542. It raged in Constantinople in the following year, and it
was in this city that our historian gathered the materials which are
handed down to us. When, however, we anxiously look for any explanation
as to the cause of the malady, we are told that it must have been a
direct visitation from Heaven, in consequence of the eccentric characters
exhibited in its wide-spreading influence, in not yielding to the
scrutiny nor bending to the laws known to prevail, and to regulate the
course of other diseases: neither country nor clime, age nor sex, the
strong and healthy, nor the weakly and previously diseased, could be said
to be free from its indiscriminate destruction.</p>
<p>But some phenomena preceding the outbreak of the pestilence are
observed as coincidences by all authors. Gibbon thus writes: "I shall
conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes, and the plague
which astonished or afflicted the age of Justinian." From the accounts
given by this author, earthquakes for some years had been threatening and
destroying many portions of the globe, <!-- Page 51 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page51"></a>{51}</span>that in the ruins of
cities and in the chasms of the earth, great was the sacrifice of human
life. Constantinople, which suffered so severely from the plague is said
to have been shaken for forty days. These great disturbances of the globe
have been always looked upon as indicating other and important influences
of a secret or hidden nature; these impressions on the minds of the
people are traceable throughout the histories of all epidemics, and have
been sufficiently distinct among the people of our own time, preceding
and during the period of infliction.</p>
<p>From this short notice of the Plague of 543, I pass to the ninth
century, when Rhazes, the Arabian physician, endeavoured to enlighten the
world on the subject of Small Pox.<a name="NtA19"
href="#Nt19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> In quoting his opinions, I am not to be
understood as subscribing to them, but merely endeavouring to point out
some peculiar and interesting observations.</p>
<p>First, then, Rhazes attributes the disease to a condition of the
blood, which he thus describes, to shew how it happens that in infancy
and childhood the disease is most prevalent, and that old age is <!--
Page 52 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page52"></a>{52}</span>least
liable to the affection.<a name="NtA20" href="#Nt20"><sup>[20]</sup></a>
"The blood of infants and children may be compared to <i>must</i>, in
which the coction leading to perfect ripeness has not yet begun, nor the
movement towards fermentation taken place; the blood of young men may be
compared to must which has already fermented and made a hissing noise,
and has thrown out abundant vapours and its superfluous parts, like wine
which is now still and quiet, and arrived at its full strength, and as to
the blood of old men, it may be compared to wine which has now lost its
strength, and is beginning to grow vapid and sour."</p>
<p>"Now the Small Pox arises when the blood putrifies and ferments, so
that the superfluous vapours are thrown out of it, and it is changed from
the blood of infants which is like must, into the blood of young men
which is like wine perfectly ripened: and the Small Pox itself may be
compared to the fermentation and the hissing noise which take place at
that time."</p>
<p>But the cause of the disease is simply alluded to by this author, as
depending upon "occult dispositions in the air," and as he speaks here of
Measles with the Small Pox he goes on to say—"which necessarily
cause these diseases and predispose bodies to them." This notion of
Rhazes that there is some peculiar condition of the blood which favours a
process resembling fermentation is not without interest. The circumstance
that individuals are not <!-- Page 53 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page53"></a>{53}</span>usually liable to a second attack of the
disease, no doubt directed the attention of this physician to compare the
process of fermentation with disease of such a nature, seeing that when
the whole of the saccharine matter was converted into spirit, the hissing
noise, as he calls it, or the disengagement of carbonic acid gas would
cease, and the capacity for fermentation be entirely gone. So that the
occult conditions of the air, their power of inducing a disease, and
multiplying the matter capable of engendering a similar affection, stood
in the mind of Rhazes as analogous if not identical phenomena.</p>
<p>We pass now without further comment to the epidemics of the Middle
Ages; and here the work of the philosophical Hecker leaves us little else
to desire in the way of information, as far as it is obtainable from
published records. From the manner in which he has grouped the facts
which presented themselves to his mind in the course of a most laborious
research, he has saved the student of this subject much toil in acquiring
matter for reflection; he has here but to read and digest.</p>
<p>I know not how to select from this invaluable work the most striking
passages, to strengthen and support my hypothesis, for not a page is
destitute of facts corroborative of the doctrine that vital germs are the
material agents of pestilential disorders. The opening paragraph to the
Black Death is a most cogent illustration of the assertion; it is, as it
were, the theme of the work. "That <!-- Page 54 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page54"></a>{54}</span>Omnipotence, which has
called the world with all <i>its living creatures into one animated
being</i>, especially reveals himself in the desolation of great
pestilences. The powers of creation come into violent collision; the
sultry dryness of the atmosphere; the subterranean thunders; the mist of
overflowing waters are the harbingers of destruction. Nature is not
satisfied with the ordinary alternations of life and death, and the
destroying angel waves over man and beast his flaming sword."</p>
<p>I must here apologise for large transcripts from Hecker's work, for
neither could I command the amount of knowledge there displayed, nor use
such appropriate language as the learned translator has employed.</p>
<p>It is not doubted that the Black Death was an Oriental plague, only of
more than usual severity, and wider spread influence of the infectious
nature of this disease, and the active properties of the matter producing
it. Hecker says, "articles of this kind—bedding and
clothes—removed from the access of air, not only retain the matter
of contagion for an indefinite period, <i>but also increase its activity,
and engender it like a living being</i>, frightful ill consequences
followed for many years after the first fury of the pestilence was
past."<a name="NtA21" href="#Nt21"><sup>[21]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 55 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"></a>{55}</span></p>
<p>As extraordinary atmospheric and telluric phenomena preceded the
Plague in the time of Justinian, so do we find similar instances recorded
as the precursor of a similar visitation 700 years later. I am concerned
more with those circumstances which refer more especially to my subject,
<i>viz.</i> the development of organic matter, and the peculiar odours of
the atmosphere, the latter being evidence of some foreign and unusual
production in our respiratory media. "On the island of Cyprus, before the
earthquake, a pestiferous wind spread so poisonous an odour, that many
being overpowered by it, fell down suddenly and expired in dreadful
agonies. A thick stinking mist advanced from the east, and spread itself
over Italy."</p>
<p><!-- Page 56 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"></a>{56}</span></p>
<p>It is probable that the atmosphere contained foreign and sensibly
perceptible admixtures to a great extent, which, at least in the lower
regions, could not be decomposed or rendered ineffective by separation.
In 1348 an unexampled earthquake shook Greece, Italy, and the
neighbouring countries. During this earthquake the wine in the casks
became turbid, a proof that changes causing a decomposition of the
atmosphere had taken place. "The insect tribe was wonderfully called into
life, as if animated beings were destined to complete the destruction
which astral and telluric powers had began."</p>
<p>"The corruption of the atmosphere came from the east, but the disease
itself came not upon the wings of the wind, but was only excited and
increased by the atmosphere where it had previously existed."</p>
<p>"The most powerful of all the springs of the disease was contagion;
for in the most distant countries, which had scarcely yet heard the echo
of the first concussion, the people fell a sacrifice to organic poison,
the untimely offspring of vital energies thrown into violent
commotion."</p>
<p>"After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in women
was every where remarkable, a grand phenomena, which from its occurrence
after every destructive pestilence, proves to conviction the prevalence
of a higher power in the direction of general organic life." <!-- Page 57
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"></a>{57}</span></p>
<p>In the article Contagion, of the Essay, Sweating Sickness: "Most
fevers which are produced by general causes, propagate themselves for a
time spontaneously." "The exhalations of the affected become the germs of
a similar decomposition in those bodies which receive them, and produce
in these a like attack upon the internal organs, <i>and thus a merely
morbid phenomenon of life, shows that it possesses the fundamental
property of all life, that of propagating itself in an appropriate soil.
On this point there is no doubt, the phenomena which prove it have been
observed from time immemorial, in an endless variety of circumstances,
but always with a uniform manifestation of a fundamental law.</i>"</p>
<p>Mead, in his Essay on the Plague, makes many observations of great
interest and worthy a physician of eminence; and where, in recent times,
shall we look for any more definite information concerning the causes of
pestilences? It is not a little singular that at the time this book was
published, it was read with such avidity that it went through seven
editions in one year.<a name="NtA22" href="#Nt22"><sup>[22]</sup></a>
From this circumstance we may gather that the public generally took a
lively and proper interest in a subject that was not only of domestic,
but national importance. Whether this interest was stimulated by the fact
that the work was written expressly by order of the <!-- Page 58 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page58"></a>{58}</span>government, it is now
impossible to say, at any rate much credit is due to the Lords of the
Regency for having placed so important a duty upon one so thoroughly and
in every way so duly qualified for the task as Dr. Mead. It had been well
if some of the advice given at that time, as means of protection against
the Plague, had been applied and put in force during the late visitation
of epidemic Cholera, for, however the minds of some may be convinced of
the non-contagiousness of Cholera, there are many who hold a different
opinion, and all will acknowledge, that if not strictly a contagious
affection, it is clearly proved to be capable of being carried from place
to place, or to use Dr. Copland's words, it is "a portable disease." But
this is not the place to discuss the subject of contagion, allusion will
be made to it hereafter. To return, Mead's expressions are singularly
illustrative of the vital power possessed by the germs of disease; he
says, "There are instances of the distemper's being stopt by the winter
cold, and yet the seeds of it not destroyed, but only kept unactive,
<i>till the warmth of the following spring has given them new life and
force</i>. His confession as to the hidden cause of the disease, is
worthy transcribing: "We are acquainted too little with the laws, by
which the small parts of matter act upon each other, to be able precisely
to determine the qualities requisite to change animal juices into such
acrimonious humours, or to explain <!-- Page 59 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page59"></a>{59}</span>how all the
distinguishing symptoms attending the disease are produced."<a
name="NtA23" href="#Nt23"><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>
<p>On the spread of the Plague is the following:—"The plague is a
<i>real poison</i>, which being bred in the southern parts of the world,
maintains itself there by circulating from infected persons to goods,
that when the constitution of the air happens to favour infection, it
rages with great violence." Contagious matter is lodged in goods of a
loose and soft texture, which being packed up, and carried into other
countries, let out, when opened, the imprisoned seeds of contagion, and
produce the disease whenever the air is disposed to give them force,
"otherwise they may be dispersed without any considerable ill effects."
Gibbon thus speaks of the above quoted work: "I have read with pleasure
Mead's short but elegant Treatise concerning Pestilential Disorders;"
many also might read it at the present day with infinite advantage. Mead
most satisfactorily combats the opinions of the French physicians who
maintained the non-contagiousness of the Plague. Experience proves beyond
doubt, that certain conditions of atmosphere, of <!-- Page 60 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page60"></a>{60}</span>which we are ignorant,
favour the growth and increase of pestilences as they do of all
vegetation.</p>
<p>Dr. Bancroft was of opinion that specific contagions are each and
severally creatures of Divine Wisdom, as distinctly and designedly
exerted for their production, as it was to create the several species of
animals and vegetables around us.</p>
<p>The indigenous fever of Ireland, which has several times shewn itself
in an epidemic form, appears to have been as fatal, as the Plague in the
South of Europe. Its devastations have generally been associated or
preceded by famine and general distress. Dr. Harty, writing in 1820, says
that thrice within the last eighty years has the same fever appeared in
its epidemic character. In the year 1741 Ireland lost 80,000 of her
inhabitants from this cause. It is a maculated typhus, and considered to
be a special product of the Emerald Isle. It has been shewn that fever
began to exceed its ordinary rate in those places first where famine and
want of employment were most severely felt,<a name="NtA24"
href="#Nt24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> and that in such places and under such
circumstances, it was most prevalent and fatal. The physicians generally
believed it to have been spontaneously produced and not to have been
imported. In the last Famine Fever of Ireland, Liverpool and several
other places suffered severely from the <!-- Page 61 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page61"></a>{61}</span>importation of their
Channel neighbours with the disease in some instances, and the infection
in others about their persons. Hitherto these have to all appearance been
the limits of the affection; we know not, however, how soon the time may
come when the invisible bonds which have thus chained the disease to
certain localities may be severed, and spreading itself like other
pestilences in an aggravated form, attack this country as a last and
crowning act of retributive justice. At present it has but cost us money
and regrets, but if the history of pestilences is to be heeded, there are
many tokens which seem to indicate that a few slight concurrent
circumstances only are wanting, to bring the full force of this disease
upon us; then will there be a sacrifice of life. Edinburgh and other
towns of Scotland have had some visitations already, ourselves but
slightly, but let our labouring population suffer to any large extent for
want of work, and we shall inevitably be the sufferers from that fever
which in consequence of general destitution is now always more or less
prevalent in Ireland.</p>
<p>The Sweating Sickness prevailed in England alone at first, but at
length sought foreign victims. The Cholera is an exotic disease, as well
as the Plague, but they occasionally have visited our shores, and their
seeds remain among us. The Small Pox is now even not known in some parts
of the world, but when once it is established, who can predict the period
of its first appearance in an <!-- Page 62 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page62"></a>{62}</span>epidemic form. The history of the disease
informs us that in all the countries where it has been introduced, sooner
or later an epidemic has seized the inhabitants.</p>
<p>A disease previously unknown in India appeared at Rangoon in the year
1824, which obtained the name of Scarlatina Rheumatica. Four years
afterwards it attacked the Southern States of North America, and though
the disease was so impartial as scarcely to spare a single individual of
any town to which it extended its influence, it was not accompanied with
that mortality which has usually been the characteristic of wide spread
epidemics.</p>
<p>There is one peculiar feature of all epidemics which may be here
mentioned as indicative of some definite, though at present unaccountable
cause, operating in the sudden suppression of the disease after a certain
period of duration. This distinctive character may almost be considered
as a law in reference to these affections; if we take three distinct
diseases, the Plague, the Irish Fever and the Cholera, we find the rule
apply to all. Of the latter disease we have so recently been witnesses,
that I need not quote authorities on this point concerning it. In Dr.
Patrick Russell's work on the Plague at Aleppo I find the following
remarkable passage. After alluding to the great increase of pestilential
effluvia that there must be towards the close of an epidemic, compared
with the amount at the onset of the disease, and expressing his <!-- Page
63 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page63"></a>{63}</span>astonishment
that so many escape infection, he says: "The fact, however unaccountable,
is unquestionably certain; the distemper seems to be extinguished by some
cause or causes equally unknown, as those which concurred to render it
more or less epidemical in its advance and at its height." He then
mentions that in Europe the sudden cessation may be partly attributable
to the measures adopted for preventing its extension; but "at Aleppo,
where the disease is left to run its natural course, and few or no means
of purification are employed, it pursues nearly the same progress in
different years; it declines and revives in certain seasons, and at
length, without the interference of human aid, ceases entirely."</p>
<p>The expressions of Dr. Harty on this subject, in connexion with the
Irish Fever, would apply as well to all other epidemics: "It is a fact,
that though every diversity of management was resorted to for effecting
the suppression of the disease, yet, nevertheless, there was an almost
simultaneous and apparently spontaneous decline of the epidemic in the
various and most remote parts of Ireland. It is not an easy matter to
offer a satisfactory explanation of this circumstance, <i>some general
cause must</i> no doubt have influenced the subsidence of the disease,
yet that cause could not be atmospheric, inasmuch as the decline, though
it might be said to be simultaneous, was not sufficiently so to admit of
that explanation."</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 64 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page64"></a>{64}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION III.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">THE DISPERSION OF PLANTS AND DISEASES.</span></p>
<p>The dispersion of Diseases and the dispersion of Plants, exhibit
analogies which might be little expected, on a superficial view of the
enquiry.</p>
<p>We are led to believe, that the earth as a whole, was not covered with
vegetation in a day, the geological history of this planet is one of
development, and though at first sight this expression of opinion may
appear to savour of doubt in the Mosaic record, a more extended
acquaintance with the subject, favours rather and confirms Scripture
history.</p>
<p>As the peopling of the earth has been a gradual process with the
animal creation, so has it been also with the vegetable kingdom. We see
at the present day, that plants by various means of transit from place to
place, multiply themselves on new soils and in new climes, the same with
animals. By other means we observe, or can trace, the extinction from
various localities and countries, of members of both the animal and
vegetable kingdom.</p>
<p>We learn that originally this planet had a temperature much higher
than at present, and that the variation of temperature between the
equator and the poles, which we now witness, did not obtain in the
earlier condition of the globe. We are given to understand, and not
without considerable proof, <!-- Page 65 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page65"></a>{65}</span>if not demonstration, that the earth was a
vast bog, in which rank vegetation grew, and in which the ichthyosauri
and plesiosauri, must have floundered about as unwieldy and loathsome
bodies. We can readily conceive a condition of atmosphere at this time to
have been loaded with pestiferous vapours of an organized nature; it is
entirely in accordance with all we know, that it should have been so.
Allied forms of plants to those now in existence, are found in the form
of fossils, by which comparisons are made, but how the transition into
the present Flora took place, or at what period, it is impossible to say.
That these plants should have been entirely destroyed during the
revolutions of the earth by earthquakes, and their consequences; the
collection of waters into the vacuities formed, and their draining off
from other places by elevations of the land, is not to be dwelt on
without astonishment; then again the ultimate changes of temperature on
the surface of the earth, may have been another element in the history of
their extinction. But if we may be allowed to imagine that there were
organic germs floating in the vapours of the atmosphere, these would
hardly be subject to the same influences as those which depended solely
on their fixation to the soil for subsistence. The atmosphere, their
native element, being influenced by the commotions from below, would be
agitated; vortiginous currents would be established, hurricanes would
sweep over the stagnant pool and reeking morass, <!-- Page 66 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page66"></a>{66}</span>and the higher regions of
the air might have thus given protection to these subtle germs, while
almost a total extinction of the elegant ferns, the stately palm, and the
towering cane was in course of procedure. Then when the strife of the
earth and elements had subsided, these would descend with the gentle
breezes, and again find in various spots a local habitation—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="hg3">"Where blue mists, through the unmoving atmosphere,</p>
<p>Scatter the seeds of pestilence <i>and feed unnatural vegetation</i>."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>In the new era, when the earth took its present physiognomy, who shall
say whether much of the pestiferous matter may not have been enclosed and
condensed in the bowels of the earth, and when it is remembered, that
earthquakes and convulsions of nature,<a name="NtA25"
href="#Nt25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> have invariably preceded the outbreak of
<!-- Page 67 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"></a>{67}</span>any
great pestilences, that stinking mists, coming from some unknown regions,
and unusual vegetations have made their appearance in concert at these
times, what I ask is more natural than to imagine, that they have been
let loose during the general convulsion? It may be asked, what is to be
said about that revolution of the earth, when the great Deluge spread
over the whole face of the globe? It can only be replied, that this is a
part of the scheme of cosmogony into which we are not called upon to
enter. There are yet strenuous supporters of the partial as well as total
submersion of this planet, but whether it be true that the vast torrents
which appear to have swept the surface uniformly in a southern direction,
were of a date coeval with the deluge, and constituted an essential
portion of the phenomena, of which one was, that "the fountains of the
great deep were broken up," or whether they were anterior to this
catastrophe, will not at all interfere with the conjecture of a very
early formation and propagation of the germs of pestilential diseases,
for the commotions of a deluge were less likely to interfere with the
vapours of the atmosphere, than extensive volcanic and electric
disturbances. Moreover, it is rather in favour of this theory, that the
<!-- Page 68 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page68"></a>{68}</span>regions where the temperature and
exhalations most nearly resemble those of the former condition of the
earth, are those in which pestilential disorders most frequently arise,
and where their virulence has always been most strongly marked.</p>
<p>After the various commotions which left the globe, with its present
physiognomy of mountains, plains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and oceans; a
new Flora and Fauna appeared to adorn and animate the scene of man's
existence. Plants and animals were created apparently in adaptation to
the numerous climes, which the seasons in the various latitudes or the
elevations of the soil, were prepared to render fruitful and useful each
in its own sphere. Besides this, the plants of the same latitude, in some
instances, differ materially from each other; in this case it seems that
the soil has much to do with this peculiarity, for it is certain that the
soil and the contiguous atmosphere, have a close and intimate relation;
the drought of the desert depends upon the sand, as humid atmosphere is
connected with the morass. To illustrate the tendency which vegetation
shews in appropriating one locality more than another, I may quote the
following: "Some of the volcanic masses of the Æolian or Lipari Islands,
that have existed beyond the reach of history, are still without a blade
of verdure; while others in various parts, of little more than two
hundred years date, bear spontaneous vegetation, and the same is seen on
two lavas of Etna near each other, for the one <!-- Page 69 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page69"></a>{69}</span>of 1536 is still black
and arid, while that of 1636, is covered with oaks, fruit trees, and
vines."</p>
<p>In comparing the diffusion of plants, and the diffusion of diseases,
the different modes by which this generally has been effected may be
considered under heads, that the comparison may be more readily
traced.</p>
<p><i>First</i>, seeds are diffused by the atmosphere, either by the
prevalence of certain currents, which are produced by known laws, in
which case, no difficulty occurs in the explanations; or in a more
imperceptible manner, as by those more uncertain atmospheric currents of
a partial nature, which, though they seem to have laws governing them,
are not yet understood.</p>
<p><i>Second</i>, seeds are transported by water across oceans, &c.
when they can be floated on any material by which they are preserved, as
by wrecks and masses of wood, which have been washed down the rivers.</p>
<p><i>Third</i>, they are conveyed by man to all parts of the globe.</p>
<p><i>Fourth</i>, a period of latency is observed to apply to them, that
is, they require certain essential conditions before germination occurs;
so that even in some localities, a plant may not have been known to exist
in a particular neighbourhood, but by a train of circumstances, it may
make its appearance, and again be a centre of development.</p>
<p>1st. I shall not here wander into the speculation, <!-- Page 70
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page70"></a>{70}</span>whether plants
had originally one birth-place, as a centre from which they spread by
various agencies, as supposed by Linnæus, nor into any enquiry beyond
those facts, which may fairly come within our own comprehension, and
within our own means of demonstration.</p>
<p>Many seeds are provided with means adapting them for floating in the
atmosphere, these are by pappi, or winglets and hairs, but it cannot be
doubted that the agency of atmospheric currents, is productive of
considerable effects in the dispersion of lighter seeds, such as those of
mosses, fungi, and lichens—lichens have been discovered in
Brittany, which are peculiar to Jamaica, and Monsieur De Candolle
concludes, that their seeds had been carried thence by the south-westerly
winds, which prevail during a great part of the year on this portion of
the French coast.</p>
<p>But Humboldt's testimony on the subject of winds is most satisfactory,
for he says, "Small singing birds, and even butterflies, are found at
sea, at great distances from the coast (as I have several times had
opportunities of observing in the Pacific), being carried there by the
force of the wind, when storms come off the land." It is generally
believed, from abundance of proofs, that the trade winds, and other
continuous currents, are means by which plants are conveyed from one
country to another.<a name="NtA26" href="#Nt26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 71 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71"></a>{71}</span></p>
<p>As to the partial currents, Humboldt further says, "The heated crust
of the earth occasions an ascending vertical current of air by which
light bodies are borne upwards. M. Boussingault, and Don Mariano De
Rivero, in ascending the summit of the Silla, one of the gneiss mountains
of Caraccas, saw in the middle of the day, about noon, whitish shining
bodies rise from the valley to the summit of the mountain, 5755 feet
high, and then sink down towards the neighbouring sea coast. These
movements continued uninterruptedly for the space of an hour. The whitish
shining bodies proved to be small agglomerations of straws, or blades of
grass, which were recognized by Professor Kunth, for a species of vilfa,
a genus, which together with agrostis, is very abundant in the provinces
of Caraccas and Cumana."</p>
<p>On the plague of locusts we read, that "the Lord brought an east wind
upon the land, all that day and all that night, and when it was morning
the east wind brought the locusts."</p>
<p>On the Black Death we read, "There were many locusts which had been
blown into the sea by a hurricane, and a dense and awful fog was seen in
the heavens, rising in the east, and descending upon Italy."</p>
<p>Of the Plague of 542, Gibbon says, "The winds might diffuse that
subtle venom, but unless the atmosphere be previously disposed for its
reception, the plague would soon expire in the cold or <!-- Page 72
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page72"></a>{72}</span>temperate
regions of the north. The disease alternately languished and revived, but
it was not till a calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind
recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious
quality."</p>
<p>In the history of the Sweating Sickness, of which there were five
distinct visitations, we find ample allusions to the atmosphere, and the
mode in which the disease was conveyed by this medium.</p>
<p>I quote again from Hecker: "It seemed that <i>the banks of the
Severn</i> were the <i>focus of the malady</i>, and that from hence, a
true impestation of the atmosphere, was diffused in every direction.
Whithersoever the winds wafted the stinking mists, the inhabitants became
infested with the sweating sickness. <i>These poisonous clouds of mists
were observed moving from place to place</i>, with the disease in their
train, affecting one town after another, and morning and evening
spreading their nauseating insufferable stench. At greater distances,
these clouds being dispersed by the wind, became gradually attenuated yet
their dispersion set no bounds to the pestilence, and it was as if they
had imparted to the lower strata of the atmosphere, <i>a kind of ferment
which went on engendering itself even without the presence of the thick
misty vapour</i>, and being received into men's lungs, produced the
frightful disease everywhere."<a name="NtA27"
href="#Nt27"><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 73 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page73"></a>{73}</span></p>
<p>Mr. K. B. Martin, harbour-master of Ramsgate, in a communication to
Lord Carlisle on the Cholera of last autumn, says, "At midnight of the
31st August (1849), the Samson (steam-tug) proceeded to the Goodwin
Sands, where the crew were employed under the Trinity agent, assisting in
work carried on there by that corporation. While there, at 3 A.M. 1st
September, <i>a hot humid haze, with a bog-like smell</i>, passed over
them; and the greater number of the men there employed instantly felt a
nausea. They were in two parties. One man at work on the sand was obliged
to be carried to the boat; and before they reached the steam vessel at
anchor, the cramps and spasm had supervened upon the vomitings; but here
they found two of the party on board similarly affected. Here then is a
very marked case without any known predisposing local cause. Doubtless it
was atmospheric, and in the hot blast of pestilence which passed over
them."</p>
<p>Many more instances might be quoted, to shew that the germs of
disease, as well as of plants, are borne on the wings of the wind from
place to place <!-- Page 74 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page74"></a>{74}</span>in one country, and from one country to
another, the distance being no obstacle, however great that may be.<a
name="NtA28" href="#Nt28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> "Dust and sands," says
Sharon Turner, "heavier than many seeds, are borne by the winds and
clouds for several hundred miles across the atmosphere, falling on the
earth and seas as they pass along." "The clouds not only bring us
occasionally meteoric stones, hail, and <i>epidemics</i>, but also
vegetable seeds."<a name="NtA29" href="#Nt29"><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
<p>2nd. The transportation of seeds of plants by water requires very
little notice; every one is familiar with the mode in which coral
islands, which gradually rise out of the sea, become covered with
vegetation. "If new lands are formed, the organic forces are ever ready
to cover the naked rock with life.—Lichens form the first covering
of the barren <!-- Page 75 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page75"></a>{75}</span>rocks, where afterwards lofty forest trees
wave their airy summits. The successive growth of mosses, grasses,
herbaceous plants and shrubs or bushes, occupies the intervening period
of long but undetermined duration."</p>
<p>The following may be cited as an instance of the transportation of
disease by water. "Cyprus lost almost all its inhabitants, and ships
without crews were often seen in the Mediterranean, or afterwards in the
North Sea, driving about, <i>and spreading the plague wherever they went
on shore</i>."<a name="NtA30" href="#Nt30"><sup>[30]</sup></a></p>
<p>It requires no argument to enforce the conviction that cottons,
woollens, furs, skins, &c. will retain the matter of infection for
almost an indefinite period; instances of the kind have been already
given; it is therefore easy to understand that portions of wrecks and
ship's goods would be a frequent though unsuspected source of infection.
Dr. Halley mentions a case, in which a bale of cotton was put on shore at
Bermuda by stealth; it lay above a month without prejudice, where it was
hid, but when opened and distributed among the inhabitants, it produced
such a contagion that the living scarce sufficed to bury the dead. Dr.
Walker found seeds dropt accidentally into the sea in the West Indies
cast ashore on the Hebrides. He says, "the sea and rivers waft more seed
than sails." The waters of many rivers induce diarrhœa and
dysentery.<a name="NtA31" href="#Nt31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> Well water
also in many <!-- Page 76 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page76"></a>{76}</span>places has a similar effect, especially if
any surface drainage happens to find its way into the well.</p>
<p>3rd. The part performed by man himself in the communication of disease
to his fellow creatures, is perhaps the most fruitful source of the
extensive spread of epidemic and contagious diseases.</p>
<p>In the time of Moses, restrictions were laid on those who had the
plague of the leprosy to avoid contagion; the dictum for one so affected
was, "he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be."<a
name="NtA32" href="#Nt32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> All the ancient authors
believed in the <!-- Page 77 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page77"></a>{77}</span>infectious nature of pestilential fevers,
and some other diseases; but, according. to Mr. Adams, they held that no
specific virus was the cause, and merely a contamination of the
surrounding air by effluvia from the sick. Thucydides, Hippocrates,
Procopius, Galen, Plutarch, all recognized the property of
communicability from one individual to another of the plague; and Hecker,
on the epidemics of the middle ages, abounds with instances in support of
contagion. As regards small-pox and measles, Rhazes observes particularly
the connection that exists between the condition of the air and the
severity or mildness of these diseases, remarking that small-pox seldom
happens to old men, except in pestilential, putrid, and malignant
constitutions of the air in which this disease is usually prevalent.</p>
<p>The history of the introduction of Scarlet Fever, Hooping Cough, Lues,
and other diseases into the various countries of the globe, is
sufficiently convincing that men carry about with them the seeds of
disease; that while these attach themselves to the persons and clothing
of those who introduce them into new climes, and flourish independently
of cultivation, yet the exotics which they foster with so much care,
often disappoint their most sanguine expectations; and these "languishing
in our <!-- Page 78 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page78"></a>{78}</span>hothouses can give but a very faint idea of
the majestic vegetation of the tropical zone." Art in this procedure
fails to accomplish here, what nature but too sadly, under some
circumstances, effects most readily. The germs of some diseases though of
an exotic character, under congenial influences of various kinds, appear
to flourish with native vigour: is it not so, also, with some forms of
vegetation? The aloe, a native of Mexico, which lives, but does not
thrive well, or reproduce under ordinary circumstances in this country,
will occasionally send forth a most luxuriant blossom;<a name="NtA33"
href="#Nt33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> so rare is this, that some say it occurs
every 50 or 100 years, but no law seems to be established on this point,
any more than the statement that we may expect pestilential diseases at
certain intervals. But that there are intervals of <i>uncertain</i>
duration when the aloe will blossom, when the grapes will ripen, and a
general productiveness of exotics will occur, is as certain as that
seasons will occur when contagion will be rife, and a most unusual
multiplication of disease prevail. This is not an imaginary or
speculative notion,—all observers of seasons and diseases within
the last twenty years, may fully verify the statement.</p>
<p>In 1846, a large vine, the black Hambro-grape, <!-- Page 79 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page79"></a>{79}</span>ripened its fruit out of
doors, and was as fine as any green-house production; but during nine
years that the vine has been under my inspection, this was the only time
I have witnessed such a result.</p>
<p>We are apt to attribute an abundant or scarce fruit season to
temperature alone, but this is an error—for we have before
remarked, that though certain lands may be in the same degree of
latitude, the plants which thrive well on one land, will not do so on the
other: in fine, that where reason and analogy would lead one to expect a
particular form of vegetation, a totally different Flora is presented to
the view. These facts are indeed suggestive of new and important
deductions. Is it yet explained why the town of Birmingham should be free
from Cholera? There is a large manufacturing population, a great number
of poor, the usual overcrowding of individuals in small chambers, a
considerable amount of destitution and depravity; irregular habits of
living, and unwholesome diet, and doubtless many parts of the town, which
on investigation would have yielded all the elements usually considered
necessary for the localization of the disease: but no—here was some
repelling cause, some opposing agent to the generation and propagation of
the pestilential seeds. There are no known laws by which inorganic matter
could be supposed to observe such a selection, or such an antagonism.
Electricity, magnetism, ozone, gases, exhibit no such elective properties
that here they will destroy, and <!-- Page 80 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page80"></a>{80}</span>there they will spare; that they can almost
depopulate small villages, and scarcely find a victim in Birmingham and
Bath. But if we suppose a living, and multiplying matter as the cause of
disease, many local causes may conspire to arrest the development of the
germs, or perhaps, even utterly destroy them.</p>
<p>4th. As to the time of latency, facts crowd upon us indefinitely, as
elements of comparison between vegetation generally, and disease in its
early stages and history. The seeds of plants are extraordinarily
tenacious of life. What a mysterious arrangement of the ultimate
particles of matter must there be, by which the vital force remains
apparently inactive for many years, and yet when the conditions arise
favourable to its manifestation, as it were by an extraordinary fiat,
life appears.</p>
<p>Previous to the year 1715, no broom grew in the King's Park, at
Stirling; but in that year a camp was formed there, and the surface of
the ground consequently was broken in many places. Wherever it was
broken, broom sprang up. The plant was subsequently destroyed; but in
1745 a similar growth appeared after the ground had been again broken for
a like purpose. Some time afterwards the park was ploughed up, and the
broom became generally spread over it. "In several places in the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh," says Professor Graham, "the breaking of the
surface produces an abundant crop of Fumaria parviflora, <!-- Page 81
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81"></a>{81}</span>although the
same plant had never before been observed in the neighbourhood. It is
impossible to say the lapse of time since these were buried, before they
were again excited to the performance of all their vital functions." Dr.
Graham also gives another proof of the vital force existing in seeds. "To
the westward of Stirling there is a large peat bog, a great part of which
has been flooded away by raising water from the River Teith, and
discharging it into the Forth,—the under soil of clay being then
cultivated. The clergyman of the parish standing by while the workmen
were forming a ditch in this clay, which had been covered with fourteen
feet of peat earth, saw some seeds in the clay which was thrown out of
the ditch; he took some of them up and sowed them: they germinated and
produced a crop of Chrysanthemum septum. What a period of years must have
elapsed while the seeds were getting their covering of clay, and while
this clay became buried under fourteen feet of peat earth!"<a
name="NtA34" href="#Nt34"><sup>[34]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 82 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page82"></a>{82}</span></p>
<p>What limit can there be to the dispersion of seeds when their vital
properties may remain so long unimpaired? The seeds of which we have been
speaking were, no doubt many of them, washed away with the waters of the
Teith, and carried by the stream into the Forth; and who shall then mark
their destination; for we have seen that by such means the most distant
lands are supplied with vegetation; for whence come the plants which
cover the Coral Islands, unless by the air and the water, and that both
contribute, has been incontestably proved. Dr. Lindley states that melon
seeds have been known to grow when forty-one years old; maize thirty
years, rye forty years, the sensitive plant sixty years, kidney-beans a
hundred years. But seeds in general have an indefinite period,
apparently, at which they can retain their power of germination; for many
of the seeds which had been kept in the herbarium of Tournefort for more
than a century, were found to have preserved their fertility.</p>
<p>It has now to be shewn that the germs of disease also retain their
vital powers in a state of dormancy during a lengthened period.</p>
<p><!-- Page 83 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page83"></a>{83}</span></p>
<p>Mead has very judiciously observed, "to breed a distemper, and to give
force to it when bred, are two different things." He further remarks,
that the seeds of the Plague may confine themselves to a house or two
during a hard frosty winter, and be preserved, and again put forth their
malignant quality as soon as the warmth of the spring gives them force.
It is certainly very remarkable that the Plague of London, which
commenced at the latter end of the year 1664, should "lie asleep," as
Mead says, from Christmas to the middle of February, and then break out
in the same parish.</p>
<p>It has been also known that an infected bed laid by for seven years
had done infinite mischief on being again brought into use. Indeed, it is
quite uncertain for how long a period woollen, fur, linen, cotton, and
other articles may retain infectious matter in a dormant state. It has
been supposed by some that in closely packed bed and body clothes a
multiplication of the germs may and does take place, nor do I see any
reason why this should not be the case, for these articles contain within
their structure the effluvia of the animal body, and they may possibly
there find sufficient nutriment for their development. Nees von Esenbeck
believed that some of the minute Cryptogamia were re-produced in the air,
we are not therefore exceeding philosophical conjecture when we imagine a
basis and substratum, though an unusual one, for the germs of vegetation.
Exclusion from air and light, <!-- Page 84 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page84"></a>{84}</span>however, as would be the case in packed-up
clothes, would <i>a priori</i> give a better colour to the conjecture, as
these are the usual conditions necessary for the growth of seeds.</p>
<p>Small Pox and Cow Pox matter, which are now proved to be the same
virus, the former modified by having been through a process of growth and
maturation in the cow, are both remarkable for exhibiting their active
properties after having lain dormant for a considerable time. And each,
though so closely allied, retaining its specific properties.</p>
<p>This peculiarity in the history of Small Pox virus suggests a
comparison with some phenomena of vegetation, <i>viz.</i> that of
grafting or budding. The lower Cryptogamia in their fructifications
resemble rather multiplication by buds than by seeds. M. Moyen's idea is
that every spore or little globule, independently of its neighbouring
one, lives, absorbs, assimilates, grows, and re-produces on its own
account; this is certainly the characteristic of the Torula and the
Uredo, and doubtless is so of many other of the Cryptogamia, the
Protococcus nivalis is another instance. Other modes of cultivation
produce also great varieties of results of an unexpected kind.</p>
<p>Would any one, says Dr. Walker, imagine that cabbage, cauliflower,
savoy, kale, brocoli, and turnip-rooted cabbage, were the same species?
yet nothing is more certain than that they are only varieties produced by
the cultivation of the Brassica oleracea, <!-- Page 85 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page85"></a>{85}</span>a plant which grows wild
on the sea-shores of Europe.</p>
<p>These varieties in vegetables have now become permanent, and though it
is supposed that each is liable to return to its original condition, I am
not yet certain that such is the tendency. A deterioration is not
unlikely to ensue in the course of time, because the propagation by seeds
must necessarily very much approach the system of intermarriage, on which
Mr. Walker has so ably written and clearly shewn that as a result we may
invariably expect a deterioration of the species. Dr. Darwin has also
poetically described what his experience taught him.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="hg3">"So grafted trees with shadowy summits rise,</p>
<p>Spread their fair blossoms and perfume the skies,</p>
<p><i>Till canker taints the vegetable blood</i>,</p>
<p>Mines round the bark and feeds upon the wood;</p>
<p>So years successive from perennial roots,</p>
<p>The wire or bulb with lessened vigour shoots,</p>
<p>Till curled leaves or barren flowers betray</p>
<p>A waning lineage verging to decay;</p>
<p>Or till amended by connubial powers,</p>
<p>Rise seedling progenies from sexual flowers."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The minute nature of the germs of disease preclude all possibility of
their being submitted, as far as we know at present, to the inspection of
the physiologist, but we may infer many facts from results. In the same
way, though with humbler <!-- Page 86 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page86"></a>{86}</span>ideas, as Cuvier could build up an animal
from a single bone, can we by a combination of facts infer the existence
of living beings and conjecture their forms. "The re-production or
generation of living organized bodies is the great criterion or
characteristic which distinguishes animation from mechanism." We find the
virus of Small Pox, according to Mr. Ceely's experiments, developing
itself as a constitutional disease upon the cow, and becoming modified
into a form known as the Cow Pox; this resembles the process of
cultivation by which a species is converted into a variety, this variety
remains for a certain time persistent; the time is not yet known, but it
is known that by degrees, as stated above, a deterioration occurs, and
fertility becomes impaired, "a waning lineage verging to decay," and this
has been observed as a feature in the result of vaccination. I believe
Dr. Gregory was one of the first to notice this fact, and deemed it
necessary to obtain fresh lymph from the cow; this has been done, and it
is not improbable, if the analogy we have drawn be correct, that the
slowly spreading scepticism regarding vaccination may be arrested in its
progress. If we can explain the deterioration of cow pox virus on this
principle we have a hold at once upon the public, and can assure them
that the efficacy of the proceeding is as certain as in the time of
Jenner. The people, I contend, have a right to demand of us the reason
why vaccination is not so efficacious as formerly, and I <!-- Page 87
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page87"></a>{87}</span>affirm as
unhesitatingly that we are bound to give the subject our most earnest
attention.<a name="NtA35" href="#Nt35"><sup>[35]</sup></a></p>
<p>Now concerning the re-production of Cow Pox matter, and assuming it to
resemble that of the lower Cryptogamia, we can easily understand how
degeneration in a course of years should ensue, for we find that though
the Small Pox is a constitutional disease, that produced by vaccine lymph
is a local affection, so that it bears the relation that grafting does to
vegetation, and it is not improbable that such a modification takes place
in the germs by passing through or becoming generated in the blood of the
cow, that they entirely lose their original and characteristic form of
reproduction: the seeds of the disease were originally capable of
vegetating, if I may be allowed to use the term, by diffusion through the
atmosphere; they now, however, have lost that property, and require to be
grafted to exhibit any manifestation of vitality.</p>
<p>How often will the seeds of a cultivated fruit grow? If you bud it
upon another plant, you obtain a being exactly like the parent, but this,
as we have seen, deteriorates in a course of years, we have also seen
that the virus deteriorates; but not to stretch this point to an unseemly
length, I cannot avoid expressing my conviction, that these are elements
of comparison, possessing an interest and a practical utility of no small
value.</p>
<p><!-- Page 88 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page88"></a>{88}</span></p>
<p>I have before said, that the reproduction in the Cryptogamia, rather
resembles budding than seeding. If we observe the Torula, or take the
process of all formation, generally it will be found to accord more
exactly with the budding than the seeding process, and this peculiarity
is not confined to vegetation, it is also a marked feature in the
reproduction of infusoria, sponges, polypes, &c.</p>
<blockquote class="b1n">
<p>"New buds surround the microscopic plant."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The reproduction of plants and animals appears to be of two kinds,
solitary and sexual; the former occurs in the formation of the buds of
trees, and the bulbs of tulips.</p>
<p>The microscopic productions of spontaneous vitality propagate by
solitary generation only.</p>
<p>We have but reached the threshold of this vast and interesting
subject, the experiments which suggest themselves to the mind while
reflecting upon it, would alone occupy a whole life of leisure, and I can
but feel how forcibly Mr. Sewell's words apply to us: "The grand field of
investigation lies immediately before us, we are trampling every hour
upon things which to the ignorant seem nothing but dirt, but to the
curious are precious as gold."</p>
<p>It is difficult, perhaps, to bring many instances, in which the germs
of disease have lain dormant for a lengthened period, because many may
take exception to them, from the fact, that sporadic cases of <!-- Page
89 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page89"></a>{89}</span>most epidemic
and infectious diseases, are rarely absent from any country in which
those diseases have become indigenous, and these cases may be said to be
the foci whence originates the epidemic constitution of the air; this,
however, would not invalidate the supposition, because one of two
inferences must be drawn, either that the germs of disease always exist
in a dormant state, requiring circumstances and conditions only for their
development, or that the germs are imported from some distant locality,
where the disease has occurred, and finding a nidus there, grow and
multiply.<a name="NtA36" href="#Nt36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> Whichever
notion we take, however, matters very little to the fact of the dormancy
of the germs, for in both, a certain period elapses between their
transmission and their propagation. It may fairly be presumed, that
sometimes one method may apply <!-- Page 90 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page90"></a>{90}</span>and sometimes the other, perhaps both during
general epidemic conditions of the atmosphere.</p>
<p>The Oidium vitis attacked the vines partially last year, and I believe
generally spared other forms of vegetation; but this year in my vicinity,
cucumbers, melons, and vegetable marrows, are all suffering more or less
under the disease.<a name="NtA37" href="#Nt37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> How
shall we say, whether are the seeds of last year the cause of the general
diffusion at the present time, or were there a sufficient number of old
and dormant seeds, universally diffused, and only waiting opportunities
for multiplying themselves? We are here on the horns of a dilemma; and
spontaneous generation, from which one naturally shrinks, can alone
extricate us, if we do not admit diffusion and dormancy. I think I may,
without undue assumption, affirm that a period of latency of indefinite
duration, applies as cogently to the germs of disease as to those of
plants.</p>
<p>There is yet one other point in connection with this subject, and that
is the apparent extinction of some diseases, at any rate their
non-appearance in certain localities, which had been at one time
congenial to them, and in which they flourished. We have seen, in
illustrating the dormancy of seeds, that the broom must have been a
common plant at <!-- Page 91 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page91"></a>{91}</span>some considerable period back, in the King's
Park at Stirling, or on that site.</p>
<p>Then again, the appearance of Fumaria parviflora in the vicinity of
Edinburgh, in several places where the ground is broken, is sufficiently
convincing that this plant must once have been a common form of
vegetation there; and as it had never before been observed in the
neighbourhood, there must have been a combination of peculiar
circumstances capable of rendering germination impossible, otherwise a
continued multiplication, as in other forms of vegetation, would have
followed of necessity.</p>
<p>But besides these instances, how many are passing under our own eyes
of the disappearance of plants under the influence of cultivation, and
the generation of the noxious fumes arising from different and
innumerable manufactories. In the vicinity of large cities and
manufacturing towns, how rarely do we see healthy vegetation; shrubs and
animals drag on a sickly and almost unprolific existence, and their term
of natural life is much shortened.</p>
<p>And if we compare diseases with this peculiar feature of vegetation,
how very close do we find the analogies. The Sweating Sickness which
appeared in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and at certain
intervals multiplied and extended itself at first only in this country,
but ultimately more or less over the continent of Europe, has <!-- Page
92 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page92"></a>{92}</span>never since
the year 1551 shewn any symptom of productiveness, indeed for all we know
the disease may be extinct; on the other hand, it is impossible to say
whether or not circumstances may arise, under which it may commence
again, to put forth its energies and again desolate the land.<a
name="NtA38" href="#Nt38"><sup>[38]</sup></a></p>
<p>Since 1665, the Bubo-plague has not found a congenial soil in this
country, or if the seeds be here, which is more than probable, the
necessary conditions to excite them to activity do not exist.</p>
<p>It cannot be imagined that with all the merchandize which comes into
this country from the Mediterranean, but that an abundance of the germs
of the disease are annually brought into our ports, and disseminated
throughout the land. The law by which we have seen that they possess a
power of vitality and reproduction, holds now as it did in former
times;—the properties of matter never alter, but the conditions
under which they exist may be so modified, as to influence their
properties, and the usual course of their operations. It is therefore to
<!-- Page 93 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page93"></a>{93}</span>an
alteration or modification of conditions that we are to look for the
exemption, during the last two centuries, from an invasion of the Plague.
To say what those conditions may be in their totality is difficult,
perhaps impossible. We may generalize on the subject, and imagine the
reason discovered, but all those causes which were said to have conspired
to favour the spread and contamination with Plague, were as distinctly
specified and attributed, as the cause of our late infliction with
Epidemic Cholera. Why then did we have the Cholera and not the Plague? To
what particular element was it—in the mode of living, of
destitution, of filth and want of drainage—can it be ascribed that
we suffer under one disease, and not under the other?</p>
<p>We have made some few observations and comparisons on the mode of
dispersion of plants and diseases,—but there is yet one more point
which invites notice. Not only do seasons vary in their effects on
vegetation in a remarkable and unexplained manner, but there are many
localities to which some special form of vegetation attaches, and which
appear to have a power of exclusion of other forms; and as yet I have not
been able to trace the connexion, nor can I discover it in the writings
of botanists and travellers, who would be most likely to have sought an
explanation of so interesting and curious a fact. Dr. Prichard has on
this subject some very apposite illustrations. "Still further southward,
the austral temperated zone completely <!-- Page 94 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page94"></a>{94}</span>changes the physiognomy
of vegetation, and the Isle of Norfolk has, in common with New Holland,
the Auracania found also in the harbour of Balade, and with New Zealand,
the Phormium tenax. It is however remarkable, that this vast island,
composed of two lands, separated by a channel, though so near New
Holland, and lying under the same latitude, differs from it so
completely, that they display no resemblance in their vegetation. Yet New
Zealand, so rich in genera peculiar to its soil, and little known, has
some Indian plants: such as Pepper, the Olea, and a reniform Fern, which
is said to exist in the Isle of Maurice."</p>
<p>I must quote one more passage from Dr. Prichard's excellent work. "We
have one instance of an island at no great distance from a continent,
having a peculiar vegetation. Mr. R. Brown has remarked, that there is
not even a single indigenous species characterising the vegetation of St.
Helena, that has been found either on the banks of the Congo, or on any
other part of the Western coast of Africa. Does the diversity of marine
and atmospheric currents more completely separate this island from the
continent, than its situation would imply; or are the nature of soil and
other local circumstances, the cause of so marked a diversity? The last
supposition seems the most probable; because not only the species of
plants, but likewise the genera in St. Helena, are different from those
of the African coast." <!-- Page 95 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page95"></a>{95}</span></p>
<p>We are not without instances of diseases, observing this peculiarity
which attaches to plants; but their specific characters have hardly been
sufficiently considered in reference to climate and situation, together
with diet and local influences, to afford us accurate data for
comparison. It has, however, been remarked, in every country where
Epidemics have prevailed, that some districts or tracts of country,
though supposed to possess all the qualities favourable to the
development of the diseases, have nevertheless been entirely or nearly
free from them. The following passage on the course of the Cholera gives
an example of this peculiarity. "Whenever the malady deviated, so to
speak, from its normal direction, and passed towards the west, it seemed
incapable of propagating itself; and <i>died away spontaneously, even in
places which appeared to be well fitted for its reception</i>.—The
rich fertile and densely peopled countries to the right of the Dneiper,
enjoyed an equal freedom from attack, which can only be explained by the
fact that they were situated <i>beyond the line of the disease</i>." With
this I close the subject of the diffusion of plants and diseases, though
it would require a volume of itself, to record all that has been noticed.
I have endeavoured to select such instances as shall mark distinctly the
features which point to comparison without overloading the enquiry.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 96 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page96"></a>{96}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION IV.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">THE RELATION BETWEEN EPIDEMIC AND ENDEMIC DISEASES.</span></p>
<p>Epidemic diseases, which multiply their germs in any climate, and
under apparently the most varying conditions of temperature and
hygrometric and electrical states of atmosphere, offer many points of
contrast with Endemic affections, and many of relationship. The latter
are traceable to a certain extent, to geological and geographical
positions of the localities where they are observed to prevail, in
combination with atmospheric vicissitudes and peculiarities, as well as
to extent of cultivation of the soil: it has been remarked that the
sickly island (as it is called) of St. Lucia has certain salubrious
parts, but these are where sulphur abounds; this geological peculiarity
has been deemed sufficient to account for the absence of endemic
affections in these parts, and with much force of reason; for in the
neighbourhoods where sulphur or sulphurous acid, a compound of sulphur,
is an element prevalent in the soil or atmosphere, vegetation and the
ague disappear together.</p>
<p>Now ague, and other endemic fevers, doubtless originate from some
allied, if not identical cause; for the localities in which they appear
have so many <!-- Page 97 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page97"></a>{97}</span>features in common, that we are constrained
to acknowledge that endemic fevers have some relations and analogies,
though not yet unravelled.</p>
<p>Geographical situation, together with certain vegetation, particularly
of grounds which grow rice, is one remarkable for the production of
endemic affections. But the soil which generates or gives force to the
contaminating matter, is not alone the part where human beings feel its
influence most severely. A low marshy ground, prolific of malaria, may be
comparatively free; while some neighbouring elevated land, to which
prevailing currents of air waft the volatile elements of disease, may be
desolated by their virulent and concentrated action. "Malaria may be
conveyed a considerable distance from its source, <i>and be condensed</i>
in the exhaled vapour, when attracted by hills or acclivities in the
vicinity, and when there are no high trees or woods to confine it, or to
intercept it in its passage."</p>
<p>The inhabitants of the city of Abydos were at one time subject to
disease, arising from malaria, generated in some neighbouring marshes; by
draining these marshes, which suspended the growth of rank vegetation,
the city became healthy.</p>
<p>Rome is in like manner even now subject to fevers, having a similar
origin. Sir James Clark says, "Among the more prevalent diseases of Rome,
malaria fevers are the most remarkable, and claim our first notice." He
considers the fevers to be of exactly the same nature as those of
Lincolnshire <!-- Page 98 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page98"></a>{98}</span>and Essex in this country, of Holland, and
certain districts over the greater part of the globe. To the climate, the
season, or the concentration of the cause of these fevers, he attributes
their varieties. It is the same disease, he says, whether from the swamps
of Walcheren, or the pestilential shores of Africa.</p>
<p>From July to October the inhabitants of Rome are most subject to these
affections.</p>
<p>Sir James Clark further says: "It may be stated as a general rule,
that houses in confined shaded situations, with damp courts or gardens,
or standing water close to them, are unhealthy in every climate and
season; but especially in a country subject to intermittent fevers, and
during summer and autumn. The exemption of the central parts of a large
town from these fevers, is explained by the dryness of the atmosphere,
and by the comparative equality of temperature which prevails there."</p>
<p>In this respect there is a marked difference between an epidemic and
an endemic affection; for when an epidemic disease attacks a city or town
we do not discover that the central parts are more exempt than others;
indeed, it is rather the contrary; for the most crowded parts of towns
and cities are those, if not exactly in the centre, which would be
comprised in a space nearer to the centre than the circumference; and it
has been in those parts generally where the epidemic influences seem to
have exercised the most potent sway. One would more naturally suppose,
that a city surrounded by <!-- Page 99 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page99"></a>{99}</span>paludal miasm, and not itself being capable
of generating the poison, should be more affected at the circumference,
from the simple fact that the paludal germs, which rise in the air, are
suspended in the fogs and dews of the atmosphere. These, unless widely
dispersed by the winds, would remain within a comparatively confined
space; and those situations nearest to them would be most subject to
their influence. Besides, it has been shewn, that a small wood or hill,
or even a wall, has been sufficient to cut off or obstruct the paludal
miasm.</p>
<p>Without enumerating all the known endemic diseases, two or three may
be alluded to for our present purpose; viz. that of shewing that endemic
and epidemic diseases have a similar origin.<a name="NtA39"
href="#Nt39"><sup>[39]</sup></a></p>
<p>It is well known that under certain favouring conditions an endemic
may become a malignant and pestilential disease; that Yellow Fever, which
is always endemic in the west, Cholera in the east, and the Plague in the
south of Europe and north of Africa, every few years takes on an epidemic
form, and desolates considerable tracts of country.<a
href="#Nt39"><sup>[39]</sup></a></p>
<p>The Pestilence which raged in the summer and autumn of 1804 in Spain,
commenced at Malaga, and remained for a considerable time confined to its
<!-- Page 100 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page100"></a>{100}</span>boundaries, in consequence of the measures
of precaution that were used, in preventing all communication between the
inhabitants of the infected city and those living in the surrounding
country. It was only in consequence of persons escaping through the
cordon, and passing into the interior of the country, that the disease
spread, and extended its ravages to distant places.</p>
<p>It appears to be quite clear, that this disease may properly be
considered in the first instance of endemic origin; but the tendencies,
atmospheric and otherwise, were such as to favour its multiplication in
other districts than that in which it first came into active existence.
From this we may infer, that the seeds of the disease were dormant, and
only became roused into vital activity by fortuitous circumstances. Dr.
Rush states, that the endemic disorders of Pennsylvania were converted,
by clearing the soil, to bilious and malignant remittents, and to
destructive epidemics. Dr. Copland says, it has been observed, especially
in warm climates, and in hot seasons in temperate countries, that when
the air has been long undisturbed by high winds and thunder-storms, and
at the same time hot and moist, endemic diseases have assumed a very
severe and even epidemic character.</p>
<p>Dr. Robertson also confirms this view. "Endemic diseases, in cases of
neglect and preposterous management, are found to become more malignant
even in the most temperate climates; and to <!-- Page 101 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page101"></a>{101}</span>generate a matter in
their course, capable of producing a particular disease in any
circumstances. <i>Indeed the origin of every</i> contagious fever
unattended with eruptions, with the exception of Plague, must commence in
this way." Why Dr. Robertson should except eruptive Fevers and Plague I
cannot understand, for they must have had a commencement; and their many
points of similarity indicate, if not an identical, an analogous source
to other endemic fevers.</p>
<p>It will doubtless be generally acknowledged that endemic and epidemic
diseases depend upon some unknown agents, having their source in
malarious districts, and being capable of assuming either a contagious or
non-contagious character, according to circumstances.</p>
<p>If, therefore, we find that under any conditions an endemic affection
becomes capable of being propagated by contagion, the same law will hold
with regard to it as to the Plague; that the power of reproduction in
this matter is evidence of life, according to the doctrine laid down in
the earlier part of this work. But whether or not infection be admitted,
a matter generated in a malarious district, if confined in its effects to
that district alone, would not necessarily imply an inorganic nature of
the poison; for it is difficult to understand how inorganic poison,
prevailing generally over a certain tract of country, could select
particular individuals for its victims. If chloroform, chlorine, carbonic
acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, or even spores of poisonous fungi, (as <!--
Page 102 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page102"></a>{102}</span>supposed by Mitchell, which, as he regards
their effects, would act in a similar manner to inorganic compounds) were
the agents, all persons would suffer more or less, and the majority be
similarly affected. We do not find that uniformity of symptoms, which
attend upon the exhibition of poisons in the ordinary acceptation of the
term, poisoning. This subject shall be more particularly considered, when
treating of the influence of organic germs on animals and plants.</p>
<p>The history of the Eclair steamer is particularly interesting, as
shewing the extraordinary tenacity with which the germs of disease attach
themselves to vessels, which we may call floating houses.</p>
<p>The crew of the Eclair contracted Yellow Fever on the coast of Africa,
and a number of them died. The remainder, sick and well, landed at Bona
Vista, one of the Cape de Verde Islands, and the vessel underwent a
process of washing, whitewashing, and fumigating. Nevertheless, on the
return of the ship's company, the disease broke out again with equal
intensity, and the vessel was ordered home. Sixty-five out of 146
officers and men, who composed the crew, died of the disease before
reaching Portsmouth, and twenty-three were sick at the time of
arrival.</p>
<p>Eight days after the Eclair left Bona Vista, a Portuguese soldier who
had mixed with her crew died in the fort which had been occupied by them.
Other soldiers then fell sick, and the fort was abandoned. The fever
still spread.</p>
<p>From the 20th September, when the first soldier <!-- Page 103 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page103"></a>{103}</span>was attacked, to the
first week in December, the fever continued to rage, and at that period
it had found its way into almost all the country villages. The fever was
believed to be the genuine black vomit fever; it proved contagious almost
without exception to the nurses of the sick.</p>
<p>This is an abstract of Mr. Rendell's letter to Lord Aberdeen, Mr.
Rendell being British Consul at Bona Vista.</p>
<p>Now at the time the fever broke out in the island the weather was
extraordinarily hot, and much rain had fallen, and the town itself was
badly drained and in a filthy state; can it be imagined then that the
seeds of a disease liable to assume a pestilential character should lie
dormant or be annihilated under circumstances the most favourable for
their development, especially when we know that endemic diseases may
assume a malignant character?</p>
<p>This is just one of many cases which confirm our opinion in this
respect, that plants and diseases are not long in making their appearance
where the soil and atmosphere are congenial.</p>
<p>The tenacity with which the disease attached itself to the Eclair is
sufficiently explained in the absence of due ventilation; in fact, that
in the first instance there was no ventilation at all in the hold of the
ship. This also the more readily affords a clue to the disaster through
all its stages, first in the contraction of the disease as an endemical
affection in the vessel; secondly, in the multiplication of the <!-- Page
104 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>{104}</span>germs in
the damp ill-ventilated hold, in a warm climate; and thirdly, the
persistence and entire localization of the disease to the vessel when it
arrived in the climate of the British shores; while, fourth and lastly,
in the unusually hot and damp island of Bona Vista, the seeds of the
disease were sown, and, as we might expect, multiplied indefinitely.</p>
<p>The consecutive attacks of the crew of the Eclair shew that here a
noxious gas or a vaporized inorganic poison could not have been the cause
of the disease, for as I have before said, in this case the attacks
should have been simultaneous; we find, on the contrary, that as the
depressing effects of the melancholy condition of the crew was almost
hourly undermining the health of the stoutest of them they as surely
became the victims. The Kroomen, or natives on board the ship had not
suffered, shewing that they were inured to the miasm, or were destitute
of that condition of blood which would be favourable to a propagation of
the materies of the disease.</p>
<p>The Eclair we learn had left Bona Vista eight days when the first
victim breathed his last; this would give perhaps three or four days for
the incubation of the disease in the patient, or supposing he had not
contracted the germs of the disease before the crew of the Eclair left
the fort, some local favouring conditions were the means of keeping the
germs in a fertilizing state, for it is clear from this spot the
infection spread as from a centre or focus. <!-- Page 105 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page105"></a>{105}</span>Such instances as these
might be multiplied to extend the length of the enquiry, but, I think, to
little advantage. The chief facts to be gathered are that an endemic
affection became epidemic and pestilential, contrary to its usual mode,
for the Portuguese official physician, on being consulted by the Governor
of the Island as to the safety of landing the contaminated crew, said,
"No danger at all; I have often brought sick men on shore coming in
vessels from the African coast, and I never knew any ill effects to
arise." Putting the most reasonable construction on this emphatic and
straightforward language, we may presume that ordinary, remittent, and
yellow fever had been commonly imported into the island, for it is not to
be supposed but that both forms of disease must have existed among those
sick men who had "<i>often been landed</i>," under the sanction of the
Portuguese physician.</p>
<p>To take another instance; intermittent fever or ague, is a disease
known among almost all nations of the world, but it usually occurs in the
endemic form only. It is universally supposed to depend entirely upon
marsh effluvia, and we are accustomed to consider it as attaching only to
low lying countries;<a name="NtA40" href="#Nt40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> but
this is not always the case, for disease in <!-- Page 106 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>{106}</span>this respect, like
vegetation, may be found in various latitudes, to accommodate itself at
varying altitudes, to the temperature and climatic relations, so as to
appear indigenous. But though our prejudices are in favour of a simple
miasmatic source of ague, as its sole cause, there are some who believe
in its infectious nature. M. Sigaud, in his work on the Climate and
Diseases of Brazil, speaks of Epidemics of <i>grave intermittent
Fever</i>, and Dr. Copland says, that the epidemic prevalence of ague is
a better established fact than its infection, and has been admitted by
most writers.<a name="NtA41" href="#Nt41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> We have,
therefore, but to go one step further to arrive at infection, after
having found that an endemic disease under peculiar circumstances, though
but rarely, becomes <!-- Page 107 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page107"></a>{107}</span>epidemic. The number of persons attacked
by ague in a malarious district, in proportion to the population, is not
so great as might be expected, considering that they are always subject
by night and day, more or less, to respire the air containing the germs
of intermittent fever; we might, therefore, deny the paludal source of
the affection, as reasonably as deny infection, if we found that
occasionally, persons, though subject to all the usual influences, yet
escaped all injurious consequences.</p>
<p>There are grades and varieties of infectious diseases, from the most
inveterate to the most mild and doubtful; but that all, without
exception, which can in any way be traced to a specific generating and
organic cause, may assume an exalted infectious character, and that the
most inveterate, on the contrary, may more resemble the mild and
doubtfully infectious forms, is a conviction that must be forced on all
who pursue this enquiry with unbiassed interest.</p>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page 108 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page108"></a>{108}</span></p>
<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
<p class="cenhead">THE REASONABLENESS OF THE APPLICATION
OF THE FACTS TO THE INFERENCE.</p>
<p class="cenhead">————</p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION I.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">THE CHEMICAL THEORY OF EPIDEMICS UNTENABLE.</span></p>
<p>It has been inferred that the germs of disease possess the property of
vitality, and a number of facts have been adduced to support the
proposition that vitality is the indwelling force by which the matter
generating epidemic and endemic disease exercises its influence over man
and animals. The reasonableness of the application of these facts to the
end in view has now to be considered. Chemistry cannot account for
epidemics.</p>
<p>Our first subject of reflection points to the chemical discoveries of
the last few years, and particularly to those of the great German chemist
Liebig. We find in the first paragraph of his Organic Chemistry applied
to Physiology and Pathology, the following words: "In the animal ovum, as
well as in the seed of the plant, we recognize a certain remarkable
force, <i>the source of growth</i> or increase in the mass, <i>and of
reproduction</i> or of supply of the matter consumed; a force in a state
of rest. By the action of external influences, by impregnation, by the
presence of air and moisture, the condition <!-- Page 109 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page109"></a>{109}</span>of static equilibrium
is disturbed. This force is called the <i>vital force</i>, <i>vis
vitæ</i>, or vitality."</p>
<p>The doctrine of Liebig, that the vital force manifests itself in two
conditions, or rather, that it is known to be in two different states,
that of static equilibrium as in the seed, and in a dynamic state, as in
that of growth and reproduction, is perfectly applicable to the germs of
disease; the static equilibrium is referrible to the matter of vaccine
lymph when dried and preserved for use, and the dynamic forces of the
matter are known to be in operation during its reproduction and growth in
the system of the vaccinated child.</p>
<p>Then as to reproduction of matter by any chemical process, our author
can furnish us with no examples, for even in his explanation of the
causes of disease he is quite silent on this point, merely acknowledging
that diseased products must be either rendered "harmless, destroyed, or
expelled from the body." He further says, that "in all diseases where the
formation of contagious matter and of exanthemata is accompanied by
fever, two diseased conditions simultaneously exist, and two processes
are simultaneously completed," and that it is by means of the blood as a
carrier of oxygen that neutralization or equilibrium is established.
Liebig thus admits that an agent exists in the blood, capable of
deteriorating it at the expense of the oxygen, which he maintains is
contained in the red globules; he further acknowledges that two processes
of diseased <!-- Page 110 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page110"></a>{110}</span>action are going on at the same time, and
though he does not explain them, I imagine him to mean that new
contagious matter is generated and eliminated from the blood, and that at
the same time, there is that condition of body which he would call simply
a diseased state, and characterizes it thus: "Disease occurs when the sum
of vital force which tends to neutralize all causes of disturbance, (in
other words, when the resistance offered by the vital force) is weaker
than the acting cause of the disturbance."</p>
<p>If I rightly apprehend his notions, they perfectly harmonize with my
ideas, to a certain extent, on the subject. They accord, at any rate,
most completely with the theory attempted to be established, and fully
confirm the reasonableness of the application of the facts recorded to
the inference drawn from other sources. The difference only rests on the
question whether vitalized or non-vitalized matter is the <i>fons et
origo mali</i>.</p>
<p>How is the production of new matter, resembling that originally
causing the disease, to be explained by any known hypothesis, except on
the assumption of living organized matter? Though Liebig and Mulder both
deny the fact, that the Torula cerevisiæ is the sole agent in the process
of fermentation: they both equally fail in shewing upon what it does
depend, and their difficulty rests entirely on their incapacity to
explain the uniform reproductive properties of the matter engaged in
this, as well as in all other allied operations. Liebig's statement <!--
Page 111 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page111"></a>{111}</span>however on this matter requires
notice—he says, "that <i>putrifying</i> blood, white of egg, flesh
and cheese, produce the same effects in a solution of sugar, as yeast or
ferment. The explanation is simply this; that ferment or yeast is nothing
but vegetable fibrine, albumen or caseine, in a state of
decomposition."</p>
<p>This state of decomposition, however, involves a much more complex
proceeding, than simply a reduction of matter into its elementary forms
of gases, earths, and minerals; for we nowhere find decomposition of this
kind going on without the development of some organized bodies, either
animal or vegetable: and since we have seen that the spores of the
cryptogami are always in existence in the atmosphere, and making their
appearance under favouring conditions, and especially when we find that
fermentation is invariably accompanied, and I may safely say, preceded by
the deposition in the fluid of the sporules of the Torula, we can hardly
believe that they are any other than the sole agents of the process. I
have now a considerable quantity of the Torula obtained from the urine of
a diabetic patient, in which they appeared, as it were, spontaneously.
After the urine had been allowed access to the air for a certain time,
and the whole of the saccharine matter was converted into new compounds,
reproduction of the Torula ceased;—and those which remained when
the process was completed, still continue as organic cells, deposited
<!-- Page 112 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page112"></a>{112}</span>in the bottle in an inert state, but
ready, on the addition of fresh sugar, as has been proved, to resume an
active existence. These germs, it is now well known, may be dried into
powder, so as to be blown away like dust without any, or but little,
detriment to their vital energies; and there is now no doubt that they
exist in this condition in the air, as do the spores of mucor,
aspergillus, oidium, agaricus, and all other fungi.</p>
<p>Mulder, however, does allow some properties to the yeast vesicle; he
says, "a variety of strange ideas have been entertained respecting the
nature of yeast; recent experiments have convinced me that it undoubtedly
is a cellular plant consisting of isolated cells. They resemble the
composition of cellulose in some respects, but differ from it in many."
"These vesicles, consisting of a substance resembling that of cells, do
not contribute in the least to the fermentation, but are exosmotically
penetrated during fermentation by the protein compound." These chemists
seem to have an instinctive horror of allowing any active properties to
the yeast vesicle, that is as far as the conversion of sugar into
carbonic acid and alcohol is concerned in the act of fermentation. Dr.
Carpenter, as if desiring to conciliate the chemical and physiological
disputants, considers that the truth is to be found in the mean of the
two extremes,—that is, that the process of fermentation is neither
entirely dependent on chemical laws, nor on those laws which preside <!--
Page 113 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>{113}</span>over
the growth of reproductive matter, but is a process in which both perform
certain offices, each depending on the other to produce the combined
result; he thus approaches more nearly to the theory of Mulder, than that
of Liebig.</p>
<p>But to revert to Mulder, he speaks of the Torula cells being
"exosmotically penetrated during the process of fermentation by the
protein compound." Now the Torula is acknowledged to be one of the
Fungals, and the chemical constituents of the Fungi approach very nearly
that of animal tissues. They contain a peculiar principle, residing in
and obtainable from them, termed Fungin, which is as highly azotised as
animal fibre. The protein compound alluded to, Mulder says, is not
gluten, because insoluble in boiling alcohol, and not albumen, because it
is very readily dissolved in acetic acid, and he regards it as a
superoxide of protein. This superoxide of protein can only have been
produced by a vital action in the cells of the Torula, and as the fungi
consume oxygen, and give out carbonic acid, we clearly have all the
elementary conditions for their growth in almost all decomposing animal
and vegetable matters. It is the nature of the fungi to live on organized
matter, but always when it has a tendency to decay; it is for this reason
they have been called "Scavengers." Again, we can understand why some
animalized or nitrogenous matter should be necessary for fermentation,
otherwise fungi could not grow, nitrogen being an essential constituent
of <!-- Page 114 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page114"></a>{114}</span>their structure, and further fermentation
does not commence without the presence of oxygen, and like as in animals,
this gas supports their existence. The conversion of sugar into alcohol
is represented by the following formula:—</p>
<table class="nobctr" summary="Conversion of sugar into alcohol" title="Conversion of sugar into alcohol">
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; padding-top:1em" colspan="2"> <span class="sc">Result.</span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> Sugar.</td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> Alcohol. </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> Carbonic Acid.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> Hydrogen </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 3 </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 3</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> Oxygen </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 3 </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 1 </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 2</td></tr>
<tr><td class="hspcsingle"> Carbon </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 3 </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 2 </td><td class="hspcsingle" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom"> 1</td></tr>
</table>
<p>If therefore the process were merely of a chemical nature, where is
the necessity for atmospheric oxygen to accomplish the end? it is quite
certain that fermentation cannot go on without its presence. Let us
compare the action of ferment or yeast in a dried state to the action of
albumen, which Liebig says is sufficient when decomposing to set up
fermentation. "The white of eggs when added to saccharine liquors
requires a period of three weeks, with a temperature of 96° F. before it
will excite fermentation."<a name="NtA42"
href="#Nt42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> But any saccharine liquor on exposure to
the air, though entirely destitute of albumen or gluten, will ferment,
and the Torula may be found in it. I have found the Torula in a great
variety of syrups which have spontaneously undergone fermentation. I have
also discovered that the development of the cells is delayed or
accelerated by the nature of the ingredient used in flavouring <!-- Page
115 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page115"></a>{115}</span>the
syrups, with other peculiarities which need not here be mentioned.</p>
<p>But the conversion of starch into sugar by means of gluten requires
some notice, as by some persons it is associated in their minds with the
organic process of fermentation.<a name="NtA43"
href="#Nt43"><sup>[43]</sup></a> Mulder ascribes the latter in the first
instance to the action of heat, evidently believing that the
pseudo-catalytic operation of gluten upon starch is the type of all such
actions, and regarding them all as simply chemical, but we here
distinguish a wide difference; in the latter instance the gluten is
decomposed, and rendered unfit for a repetition of the chemical
phenomenon, and if it is desired to renew the action fresh gluten must be
obtained, and a certain temperature kept up, otherwise the experiment
fails. How different is fermentation: in the ordinary temperature of the
atmosphere the yeast vesicle will multiply, no incremental or unnatural
addition of heat is requisite, and it is one of the commonest and most
natural instances of vegeto-chemistry: the grape cannot shed its juice,
nor the sugar cane its sap without admitting these germs, which, under
certain <!-- Page 116 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page116"></a>{116}</span>conditions multiply themselves and convert
the saccharine elements into new compounds. The method by which the
conversion of starch into sugar is accomplished is thus described by Dr.
Ure. He says that if starch one part be boiled with twelve parts of water
and left to itself, water merely being stirred in it as it evaporates, at
the end of a month or two in summer weather it is changed into sugar and
gum, bearing certain proportions to the amount of starch used. But "if we
boil two parts of potato starch into a paste, with twenty parts of water,
mix this paste with one part of the gluten of wheat flour, and set the
mixture for eight hours in a temperature of from 122° to 167° F. the
mixture soon loses its pasty character, and becomes by degrees limpid,
transparent, and sweet, passing at the same time first into gum and then
into sugar."—"The residue has lost the faculty of acting upon fresh
portions of starch."</p>
<p>Four points of contrast present themselves for notice as elements of
comparison with true fermentation. 1st. The starch solution has to be
boiled, so that heat, by which it is to be supposed that the starch
globule is ruptured, seems to be an essential portion of the chemical
change, and even this may in fact alone be sufficient in such a case to
produce some elementary change in the starch, and may prepare it for the
subsequent catalytic action of some related organic, though not vital
material.<a name="NtA44" href="#Nt44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> <!-- Page 117
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page117"></a>{117}</span>2nd. Not only
a summer heat is necessary, but a period of one or two months time must
elapse before the starch with the water simply becomes converted into
sugar, and if artificial heat is to be used to hasten the operation, a
temperature from 122° to 167° F. must be resorted to in order to obtain
the desired result. 3rd. When even this is accomplished there is no
reproduction of the fermenting matter, and artificial and chemical means
must again be applied to repeat the experiment. 4th. The conversion of
starch into sugar can be accomplished without the presence of gluten at
all, by the aid only of temperature and time. It seems to me, therefore,
to be entirely unnecessary to occupy more space in the elaboration of a
proof of the doctrine that the germs of the Torula are the sole agents in
the conversion of saccharine fluids into alcohol and carbonic acid. By
another chemical process starch can be converted into sugar, but I am not
aware that hitherto any method has been discovered by which sugar can be
converted into alcohol except by the process of fermentation proper.</p>
<p>I have been thus particular in commenting on this subject, as it
bears, in an especial manner, on the question under consideration.</p>
<p><!-- Page 118 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>{118}</span></p>
<p>The physiologist cannot afford to lose this process from the category
of chemico-vital, or biochemical manifestations.<a name="NtA45"
href="#Nt45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> The philosophy of the age has a tendency
to make every thing chemical; it is true that the Divinity is as much
seen in the laws which govern the elementary particles of matter, as in
those laws which preside over the transmutation and sustentation of those
elementary and inorganic particles, when compounded in the tissues which
are engaged in the formation of living beings. The laws by which acids
and alkalies neutralize each other, and the affinities single, double and
elective, which the particles of matter exhibit, together with the
influences of light, heat, and electricity upon almost every condition of
matter, are as truly wonderful as the creative power. Man may, in many
instances, imitate the processes of nature, he can render iron magnetic,
and form alkaloids, but the <!-- Page 119 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page119"></a>{119}</span>laws which govern the particles of matter
are still the secret of the whole proceedings. We do but interpret the
language of nature in discovery, the book is ever open before us, and
every atom of the world is a word and a theme, capable of occupying the
short span of sublunary existence allotted to man. We have read of
"sermons in stones," but a book has been written on a "pebble."<a
name="NtA46" href="#Nt46"><sup>[46]</sup></a></p>
<p>To return, as we every where in nature find a gradual transition in
the forms, arrangements and properties of matter, so we may expect to
find a link between the inorganic and vital chemistry of nature. The
fungi, by which we contend this transition appears to be accomplished,
are also a link in chemical composition, between the animal and vegetable
kingdom, and not only in that, but in their subsisting upon matter which
has been organized, they are deoxidizers and reducers, as the vegetable
kingdom in its highest function is a compounder. To their functions and
offices in the great scheme of creation, we may fairly apply ourselves
with a sure and certain result of the most interesting discovery. Is it
no hint that wherever decaying organic matter is found, there do we find
fungi? is it no hint that they are found in all parts of the world? that
even in snow the germs of fungi will grow and multiply to such an extent,
according to Capt. Ross, that the protococcus was seen <!-- Page 120
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page120"></a>{120}</span>by him,
clothing the sides of the mountains at Baffin's Bay, rising, according to
his report, to the height of several <i>hundred feet</i>, and extending
to the distance of <i>eight miles</i>?</p>
<p>Even stones contain in their interior, or interspaces of their
structure, the germs of fungi. A species of Tufa is found in the vicinity
of Naples of a porous texture, which, when moistened and shaded, produces
vast mushrooms, four or five inches high, and eight or ten inches
broad.<a name="NtA47" href="#Nt47"><sup>[47]</sup></a> This author
further says: "In the Maremma, where the volcanic tufa is the basis of
the soil the surface is intermixed with the animal remains of departed
empires, and the ordure of cattle, is covered with grasses of old
pasturages, and is wet with heavy dews. Everything, therefore, conspires
there to a fungiferous end."</p>
<p>They are found growing in and upon both vegetables and animals. Nees
von Esenbeck imagined, that minute forms multiplied themselves in the
atmosphere; and really, when we consider the amount of effluvia composed
of the atoms cast off from the bodies of living or decaying organic
matters, which are incessantly passing into the atmosphere, the
conjecture is not an unreasonable one. The minuteness of those, which we
know are always found growing on decomposing bodies, does not preclude
the possibility, nay, further favours <!-- Page 121 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page121"></a>{121}</span>the probability, that
others infinitely more minute,<a name="NtA48"
href="#Nt48"><sup>[48]</sup></a> may be destined to remove the more
subtle and vaporous particles which escape into the air.</p>
<p>We can, therefore, I think, conclude, that the lower tribes of
vegetation, may consistently be regarded as capable of existing in almost
any condition, and almost under any circumstances, they may be made to
grow in plants by inoculation, as shewn by De Candolle, and Dr. Hassall.
If the stem of wheat also is inoculated with vibriones, they will make
their appearance in the grain.<a name="NtA49"
href="#Nt49"><sup>[49]</sup></a> If the seed contain them and have not
lost its germinating properties, these worms will be found again in the
grain. If the grain containing them be dried for years, and moistened
again with water, these animalcules, according to Bauer and Steinbach,
will present all the phenomena of life. This experiment I have witnessed,
and can confirm the statement. These animalcules in the diseased grain,
have under the microscope the appearance of an immense <!-- Page 122
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>{122}</span>number of eels
crowded together in a small space, and presenting a movement more,
perhaps, vermicular than any other, and it is continued for a
considerable time. Now if these animalcules, or their ova, can be proved
to pass with the sap to the seed, there can be no difficulty in
comprehending how germs, considerably more minute and of a vegetable
nature, should be found subject to the same peculiar mode of obtaining an
entrance into animals and vegetables for sustenance. "It is usually
imagined," says Dr. Carpenter, "that the germs liberated by one plant are
taken up by the roots of others, and being carried along the current of
the sap, are deposited and developed, where vegetation is most
active."</p>
<p>The chemical theory of disease would be better sustained by a
comparison of "the artificial formation of alkaloids," and the phenomena
of transformation of blood into the tissues of animals, and their
degeneration into effete matters, and of sap into the tissues of plants
and their degenerations.</p>
<p>Professor Kopp of Strasburg, says, "In a chemical point of view, the
alkaloids are remarkable for their composition, for their special
properties, both physical and chemical, and for the interesting reactions
to which many of them give rise, when exposed to the influence of
different reagents. Considered medically, the organic bases are
distinguished by their energetic properties. They <!-- Page 123 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>{123}</span>constitute at the same
time, the most violent and sudden poisons, and the most valuable and
heroic remedies."</p>
<p>Upon this very intricate and interesting part of chemical philosophy,
it is rather dangerous to enter without a thorough and practical
knowledge of the subject. This, however, falls to the lot of few men. We,
who are engaged in the study of disease, and of the best methods of cure,
are obliged to take the investigations of the analytical chemist, and
examine them for ourselves in the intervals of leisure allowed us during
the active exercise of our calling. Though with less advantages for the
study of these transcendental relations of organic and inorganic matter,
we are not, nevertheless, precluded from forming our opinions on their
practical bearings to the phenomena and treatment of disease.</p>
<p>That there is a matter of a poisonous nature concerned in the
production of endemic and epidemic affections, cannot be doubted by any
one; I believe indeed, that the chemical theorists admit this, at all
events Liebig does, for he says, "The morbid poison changes in the blood
are fermentative, just such as occur in beer making." If we start, then,
with the consideration that poisons, in a chemical point of view, are the
objects of our research; the obvious course to take is to enquire what is
the source of poisons generally, and what their effects on the animal
economy? The mineral poisons are entirely excluded from the enquiry by
their <!-- Page 124 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page124"></a>{124}</span>inaptitude for diffusion, and their
uniform effects upon all persons, differing only in degree in their
operation. The same objections apply to gaseous poisons, except that to
them the property of diffusion would be admitted.<a name="NtA50"
href="#Nt50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> We come then to the alkaloids, which
constitute, as Kopp says, the most violent and sudden poisons. For the
production of alkaloids by artificial means, organic products of some
kind are required. Artificial heat, powerful chemical agents or length of
time, are, as far as information at present extends, the indispensable
requirements to induce these peculiar changes in matter. The only
instance I can find, in which elementary matters can by artificial means
be combined, so as to resemble the products of nature, is that of the
conversion of carbon and nitrogen into cyanogen. But the process by which
this is accomplished, leads rather to doubt whether it be really and
simply by a combination of <i>elementary</i> carbon and nitrogen. I
extract the following from the Annual Report of the Progress of
Chemistry, for 1848. "H. Delbruck has performed some experiments on the
important subject of the formation of cyanogen. He confirms the
statements of Desfosses and Fownes, inasmuch as a <i>weak but
distinct</i> formation of cyanogen was observed on igniting <!-- Page 125
--><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page125"></a>{125}</span><i>sugar-charcoal</i><a name="NtA51"
href="#Nt51"><sup>[51]</sup></a> with carbonate of potassa in an
atmosphere of nitrogen." The use of sugar-charcoal, may be perhaps an
explanation of the weak formation of cyanogen, for in these numerous and
successive chemical changes of matter, it is impossible to say how many
sources of error may arise. The constant contradictions of each other,
and the opposite statements made by chemists, of equal eminence, leave us
in a wilderness of doubt, from which we are not likely to be freed, until
definite laws shall be discovered to act as a guide in the comprehension
of the higher branches of Chemical Philosophy.</p>
<p>But supposing that the generation of alkaloids could take place in the
body, or some analogous poisonous matter, we have yet to imagine a whole
host of peculiar and essential conditions to effect this change, besides
an atmospheric agent or agents to set in motion those compositions and
decompositions, capable of bringing out these new products from the
elements of blood. We are aware that in the blood, carbon and nitrogen
are sufficiently abundant as well as saline compounds, to generate
cyanides, and, with hydrogen also there in plenty, hydrocyanates, and
thus from them many other poisonous products, but how is all this to be
effected? And even if effected, it is yet a question if such compounds
can in any way simulate the attacks of epidemic disease. We have <!--
Page 126 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page126"></a>{126}</span>already shewn that the amount of most
poisons necessary to destroy an individual, can be pretty clearly
estimated, and their <i>modus operandi</i> is tolerably well understood.
Again, the most essential part, in which all chemical theory fails, is an
explanation of the reproduction of contagious matter.</p>
<p>The catalytic process, by which decompositions are said to be
effected, and in which Liebig includes the various fermentations, is one
of those chemical relations of matter to matter, considered by some as
the probable cause of infection. Mr. Simon, in a late lecture, has said,
"I consider the phenomena of infective diseases, to be essentially
chemical, and I look to chemistry to enlighten the darkness of their
pathology. Qualitative modifications, affecting the molecules of matter
as to their modes of action and reaction, are such as form the subject of
chemical science; and those humoral changes which arise as the result of
infection clearly fall within the terms of its definitions." Further on
he adds: "The phenomena of infected diseases appears then, in many
respects, to be sui generis. Certainly they are chemical. <i>Probably</i>
they belong to that <i>class</i> of chemical actions called
<i>catalytic</i>."<a name="NtA52" href="#Nt52"><sup>[52]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 127 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page127"></a>{127}</span></p>
<p>It is not improbable that something resembling a catalytic action may
take place in the blood in those diseases of endemic and epidemic origin,
but that it can be by a chemical process alone is contrary to all
experience of catalytic operations, for except in the instance of
fermentation proper, there is no multiplication of the fermentative
matter. The action of the matter of contagion seems to stand on the
confines between electro-chemical and bio-chemical manifestations, and so
long as no chemical explanation can be given for the multiplication of
the matter of infection, the most rational course to adopt is to assume
that life under some unknown form is, as we every where find it, the sole
reproductive agent.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 128 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>{128}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION II.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">THE ANIMALCULAR THEORY OF EPIDEMICS UNTENABLE.</span></p>
<p>The animalcular theory of disease, after remaining almost unnoticed
for nearly two centuries, has been again revived under the auspices of
Dr. Holland in this country, and Henle of Berlin. And though not entirely
buried in obscurity, this theory had completely failed to modify the
practice of physicians in the treatment of those diseases which were
supposed to owe their existence to these invisible atoms of created
being. The resuscitated notions and all their amplifications, to which
the advance of science has contributed so much, are threatened with a
like fate, an absence of all practical results.</p>
<p>Though I would not attempt to deny the possibility, nay, even the
probability, that insect life may yet be discovered as the cause of some
diseases,<a name="NtA53" href="#Nt53"><sup>[53]</sup></a> still <!-- Page
129 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page129"></a>{129}</span>there are
many and cogent reasons against both, and which are at variance with
facts and observations. Where insect life has been found associated with
disease, it more especially appears as a consequence than as a cause.</p>
<p>Disease, in its most enlarged sense, is a conversion of one form of
matter into another; it is a transformation of healthy blood and tissue
into new and abnormal products. Where insects in all their variety of
forms are discovered, their voracious propensities are their chief
characteristics, they are the consumers of matter after its partial
disintegration, if animal matter be their food, unless they be
carnivorous and predacious, or if herbivorous they usually feed upon the
tender shoots of plants. Thus far we are certain of the manner in which
insects destroy living matter; it is a process the unassisted eye may
every where witness, and which experience has amply attested. To take,
however, the animalcular world as it presents itself to us under the
microscope, and as the intermediate step between the manifest and the
hidden for a fairer and more direct method of reaching the truth, what do
we observe to be the ruling law of infusory instinct? They live to feed;
the term polygastrica sufficiently implies their natural tendency to
consume. The simplest form of animalcular life, seen in the genera of
monads, still preserves the animal character by possessing a stomach or
stomachs in which the food is received, to be digested for the
nourishment of the <!-- Page 130 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page130"></a>{130}</span>system; and even some of these minute
objects which vary in size from one <i>two-thousandth</i>, to one
<i>three-thousandth</i> of a line in diameter, are said to be carnivorous
and predacious. Upon this fact alone, I would place the improbability of
insects being the cause of epidemic disease. Each insect doubtless has
its own peculiar food, and whether it be a vegetable or animal feeder, it
consumes the matter already organized for conversion into its own tissue,
and the only change which could be affected by them in the blood, would
necessarily be that of appropriation of some one of the constituents as
an element of food; when that food is digested, (taking digestion
generally as an identical process,) the excrementitious matter is
composed of secretions and disorganized matter, mixed together as an
<i>effete</i> product, and destined then for reorganization by the
vegetable kingdom. Now all animals, whether they be large or small, live
on organized matter,—they convert that matter into an inorganic
form, and I cannot help imagining that if epidemic diseases and fevers
depended upon animalcular growth and development in the blood or tissues
of the body, the excretions or secretions from them would have yielded
some information to the searching enquiries of the chemist, supposing
that these excretions and secretions were capable of reaching to a
sufficient amount in quantity, to bring about those fatal effects of
poisoning, we witness in Cholera and other epidemic affections. Insects,
I <!-- Page 131 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page131"></a>{131}</span>believe are poisonous only by their
secretions, and though they are known to multiply with exceeding
rapidity, I can hardly imagine that by their development, however rapid,
they could produce such a change in the human body, as to bring about the
speedy dissolution, and generally gangrenous appearance, that has
invariably been observed in those suddenly dying under the influence of
epidemic poisons. The vibriones, whose destructive effects on wheat are
so well known, are a genus of animalcules, which at first would seem to
favour the animalcular theory in a remarkable manner; for on examining
them, they do not appear to possess any other structure than a gelatinous
absorbing mass, in this respect resembling a vegetable.</p>
<p>But Ehrenberg's scrutiny corrected the error of De Blanville, and
shewed, that they were far from being agastria, or stomachless animals.
The Rev. William Kirby says, "Ehrenberg has studied the vibriones in
almost every climate, and has discovered, by keeping them in coloured
waters, that they are not the simple animals that Lamarck and others
supposed, and that almost all have a mouth and digestive organs, and that
numbers of them have many stomachs." All the discoveries indeed which
have been made on the minuter forms of animal life, have tended to
confirm the doctrine that the stomach is the exponent organ of an animal;
that is, in all animals there exists, in a variety of modified
conditions, a receptacle for food. Some of the <!-- Page 132 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>{132}</span>animalcules, however,
are still supposed to exist by absorption, as the vinegar eel, <i>vibrio
anguilla</i>,<a name="NtA54" href="#Nt54"><sup>[54]</sup></a> but when we
find that the law is, generally speaking, that the receptacles of food
become multiplied in number in these minute beings, and the vibriones
which were supposed to be stomachless, have been proved to emulate their
associates in the number of these organs; it would be more reasonable to
conclude that our imperfect vision is the barrier to their detection,
rather than to suppose that they do not exist. Besides, when we are told
on undoubted authority that some of the animals of this class, have as
many as <i>forty or fifty</i> stomachs; the least we can do, is to allow
that all of them possess, at least one digestive organ, though we may not
be able to detect it.<a name="NtA55" href="#Nt55"><sup>[55]</sup></a></p>
<p>So far then for the consideration of animalcular structure: let us now
more particularly enquire into their destructive habits, and their
functions, inasmuch <!-- Page 133 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page133"></a>{133}</span>as they may be supposed capable of
engendering epidemic diseases and fever. The truly carnivorous
animalcules, or those truly herbivorous in their instincts, we may
presume to be beyond the limits of our enquiry. We have rather to do with
those which take an intermediate position, namely, those which feed upon
matter undergoing decomposition, or upon fluids containing organic
matters in solution, or suspension. If we take Entozoa generally, they
may be considered as most conveniently to be placed in this intermediate
class; and here we find still the digestive apparatus, and more than
this,—for upon the modifications of the organs appropriated to
digestion is their classification founded. "Rudolphi divided the Entozoa
into Sterelmintha, or those in which the nutrient tubes without anal
outlet are simply excavated in the general parenchyma, and into the
Cœlelmintha, in which an intestinal canal with proper parietes
floats in a distinct abdominal cavity, and has a separate outlet for the
excrements."<a name="NtA56" href="#Nt56"><sup>[56]</sup></a></p>
<p>How do these animals obtain their sustenance, and what changes can
they produce upon the vital fluid of the body? Analogy is here our only
guide. If the trichina spiralis is examined, it is found to be enclosed
in a cyst containing fluid; and this is, <!-- Page 134 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>{134}</span>doubtless, the source
of its nutriment, and contains in solution the elements for its
nutrition; but in this instance there is no selection, and there can be
no locomotion to an extent sufficient to imply searching for food, as the
animalcule in its natural state, when taken from the human muscle, is
found coiled upon itself, making about two and a half turns. The fluid of
the cyst is thus in all likelihood prepared by endosmosis, for the
immediate and appropriate nutrition of the parasite. The cyst is thus the
part which performs the diseased process, the containing animalcule is
merely the consumer of what is prepared for it by the cyst. And this
would seem to be the rule with all parasites, of the encysted kind.</p>
<p>We have alluded to the vibriones which are found in the fluids of
living bodies, and the trichina which is found in the solid muscle; we
have now to refer to those which infest the cavities. It was, I believe,
Ehrenberg, who shewed that the tartar which accumulates on the teeth is
composed of the debris of minute animalcules; in fact, that it consists
of calcareous matter, having once formed a portion of the structure of
their bodies, the ubiquity of these creatures is therefore as much and
clearly established as the lower forms of vegetation. The intestinal
worms, of which perhaps the Tænia is the most curious and important to be
noticed, are from the locality in which they are found, chiefly injurious
by the irritation they set up, and by appropriating <!-- Page 135
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page135"></a>{135}</span>to themselves
the nutrient juices elaborated in the process of animal digestion, thus
depriving the individuals they infest of that which was destined for
their own nourishment. In this, as in all associated instances, the
character by which these parasitic animals are marked is their consuming
propensity. There is, however, one more observation to make upon
parasitic growths; but the question is yet unsettled in what kingdom of
nature is the acephalocyst, or hydatid, to be placed. Mr. Owen says, "As
the best observers agree in stating, that the acephalocyst is impassive
under the application of stimuli of any kind, and manifests no
contractile power, either partial or general, save such as results from
elasticity, in short, neither feels nor moves, it cannot, as the animal
kingdom is at present characterized, be referred to that division of
organic nature."</p>
<p>We thus arrive at the simple cell, and the multiplication of living
beings by cell buds; it is the point at which the confines of the animal
kingdom are reached, and at which we are driven to speculation. The
hydatid lives like a plant, by imbibition; and procreates, like a plant,
by budding, either endogenously or exogenously, as regards the original
or parent cell.<a name="NtA57" href="#Nt57"><sup>[57]</sup></a></p>
<p><!-- Page 136 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>{136}</span></p>
<p>This condition of being, suggested the notion of Protozoa, or first
animals, in the same way that the purely cellular plants, that is, each
individual, consisting of a single cell, gave the idea of <span
class="correction" title="Original reads 'Prolophyta'."
>Protophyta</span>, or first plants. Mr. Kirby thus expresses himself on
this subject: "The first plants, and the first animals, are scarcely more
than animated molecules, and appear analogues of each other; and those
above them in each kingdom represent jointed fibrils."</p>
<p>Admitting, then, that animals as well as plants exist in the form of
simple cells, and that their multiplication proceeds apparently upon the
same principle in each, it is nevertheless abundantly manifest, that the
cellular form of perfect individuals is infinitely more numerous in the
vegetable than in the animal kingdom.</p>
<p><!-- Page 137 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page137"></a>{137}</span></p>
<p>From the mosses downwards to the fungi, the whole structure of the
plants consists of an aggregation of cells, more or less in number and
complicate arrangement, until, through a variety of gradations, we reach
the single cell as a perfect individual.</p>
<p>It is rather remarkable, that the lower forms of vegetables and
animals seem to derive their nutriment from matter of a similar kind; and
though the office of plants is as a rule, to convert inorganic into
organized matter, it appears that some of the fungi may live as animals
do on organic matter when in a state of solution. This, however, is
uncertain; for we do not know what are the first signs of decomposition
in organized bodies, and for aught we can tell, it may be perpetually
going on; so far as the disengagement of carbon from the system is
concerned, this is certain; but whether the nitrogenous compounds also
are subject to a resolution into their elements in the living body, is
another question, and not so easy of solution. The partially decomposed
elements of animal structures are, however, particularly adapted for the
nutrition of the lower forms of vegetation; it is, indeed, from the
decaying organic matters that the fungi derive, it may be said, their
entire food.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 138 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>{138}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION III.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">SKETCH OF THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS.</span></p>
<p>Animals and plants depend for their existence upon a nutritive fluid,
which permeates their structure; it is the element from which all their
secretions are formed, and their organs are nourished.</p>
<p>The food of animals is composed of previously organized matters, and
is conveyed into a reservoir called a stomach, where it undergoes a
process of solution, previously to entering the circulation. At this
period, the animal and the plant again present points of resemblance, the
lymphatics or absorbent vessels take up the products of digestion, and
convey them to the blood-vessels, where mingling with the current of the
blood, they are conveyed to the lungs, there to undergo a process of
oxygenation before they become fitted for the renovation of the tissues
of the body. Such is the nature of the food of man, that it contains all
the elements necessary and adapted for transformation into bone, muscle,
brain, and parenchyma, as well as the other tissues of the body; besides
other elementary matters, which, though they form a very insignificant
portion of <!-- Page 139 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page139"></a>{139}</span>animal textures, from their constant
presence in the vital fluid, evidently perform some important offices in
the general economy of life; they are partly, perhaps, occupied in
forming constituents of secretions.</p>
<p>Plants do not require a stomach,—the humus or soil to which they
are fixed is the laboratory, where the nutritive matter is prepared in a
state fit for absorption by the spongioles of their roots, and these
correspond to the lymphatics of animals; after being taken up by the
spongioles, this new fluid mingles with the sap, and passes to the leaves
or breathing apparatus of plants, where carbonic acid gas combines with
the crude vital liquid, and converts it into a condition fit for all the
offices to be performed by the plant: viz. the growth of tissues, and the
elaboration of secretions.</p>
<p>The tissues, however, of plants, though more simple in their nature,
present a much more varied character than those of animals, when the
different species are compared.</p>
<p>The bones of animals which give them their form, are invariably
constituted of phosphate and carbonate of lime, deposited in a matrix of
gluten; muscle, nerve, brain, tendons, and ligaments, have nearly, if not
completely, an identical composition throughout the whole range of the
animal kingdom: their secretions, however, vary much more considerably,
as also do the secretions of vegetables. But vegetable tissue may
contain, as in the stems of <!-- Page 140 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page140"></a>{140}</span>grasses, a considerable amount of silex,
and some notable quantity of sulphur, and so essential to their existence
is the former element, that they cannot live without its presence in the
soil, and also with it an alkali, to render it soluble. A large amount of
soda, is an invariable attendant upon the structure of marine plants, as
potash is of those growing on the land.</p>
<p>Thus, whether we regard the health of animals, or vegetables, we
discover, that besides the matters which are absolutely indispensable for
the nutriment of the tissues which undergo rapid transformation, those of
a more permanent and durable nature require in an almost insensible
degree, a restitution of elements; and though not apparently absolutely
necessary to preserve vitality in the being, yet have so marked an
influence over it, as to indicate an extensive bearing of each <span
class="correction" title="Original reads 'indivdual'.">individual</span>
part, on the whole associated entity.</p>
<p>The elementary tissues of both kingdoms have been traced, in whatever
form they may be found, to a cellular origin. The minutest vegetable
germ, is a cell containing a granular matter within it, and even man
himself, in his embryonic state, may be represented as an insignificant
point in the realms of space; and might be placed side by side with the
smallest particle of living matter, without suffering by the
comparison.</p>
<p>The laws by which the development of these elementary cells is
regulated, so that each advances <!-- Page 141 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page141"></a>{141}</span>to its limit, and
fulfils its destination, is one of those inscrutable and overwhelming
mysteries of nature, which leads the admirer of creation on and on into
the abyss of the future, and fills his soul with aspirations for that
time, when the veil of ignorance shall be withdrawn. But this is not my
subject.</p>
<p>The organization of the two animated kingdoms, is then regulated by
definite laws, and all matter, whether acting upon them as agents of
nutrition or destruction, are equally under their dominion; to
investigate and to endeavour to fathom some of these laws, is the aim I
have in view.</p>
<p>The sap is to the plant, what the blood is to the animal,—the
elements of nutrition and secretion are contained in it, and whatever
interferes with its normal constitution by subtracting from, or adding to
it, deteriorates its qualities, and retards or accelerates the functions
of the individual. Excess or deficiency of the natural elements may also
be a source of disturbance; if carbonic acid be too abundantly liberated
in the soil, as Dr. Lindley expresses it, "plants become gorged;" and if,
on the other hand, the elimination be too slow, they become starved. It
has been also shewn, that plants though they give out oxygen from their
leaves, do not throw it off as animals do carbonic acid from their lungs;
but that this arises as a result of digestion, and the fixation of carbon
in the system, and that they really respire oxygen as <!-- Page 142
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>{142}</span>animals do,
and give off carbonic acid, both by day and night.</p>
<p>That light is the stimulant of the digestive functions, and that,
therefore, during the day, the amount of oxygen thrown off, far exceeds
the amount of carbonic acid liberated during the same period.</p>
<p>The great and important distinction between animals and plants is,
that the former possess a nervous system, by which they are subject to a
very extended series of psychological relations; it is in these chiefly,
if not entirely, that we are to look for the distinctive and well-marked
differences of diseased action. In animals there are special media of
communication between the sources of dynamic power, and the parts upon
which the force is exercised: and again, a return communication exists,
which conveys impressions to the source of power, and to use a simple
comparison, a system of telegraphing is in incessant and watchful
operation. This force is influenced and modified in its action, when
exercised in the regulation of nutrition, growth, and reproduction of
tissues, by the passions and emotions of the mind. All the secretions and
functions of the body are more or less susceptible of being accelerated,
retarded or modified by the psychical relations of mind and matter.
Though we are apt to imagine that in man alone, these phenomena obtain
much importance—there can be but little doubt, that wherever a <!--
Page 143 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page143"></a>{143}</span>nervous system exists, whether in the form
of aggregated or diffused ganglia, the interdependence of force and
organization, each upon the other, bears a certain and definite
physiological comparison; the more aggregated the ganglia, the more
close, intimate, and extensive the psychical connexions, and the
gradations pass downwards, until they appear to be lost on the confines
of the vegetable kingdom.</p>
<p>The diseases of plants and animals deserve a more careful comparison
than, I think, has hitherto been bestowed upon them.<a name="NtA58"
href="#Nt58"><sup>[58]</sup></a> If the study of physiology, or an
enquiry into the laws which regulate the functions of living beings in a
state of health, has been materially aided by the intimate knowledge of
vegetable physiology, which, from the simple structure of plants, so
favours the experiments of the student, there is every reason to suppose
that vegetable pathology may also lead us to an equally important and
useful result.</p>
<p>It is quite certain, that if a healthy seed, or leaf-bud, be placed in
such a situation, that, according to the laws known, it will in all
likelihood germinate, if all the elements for its sustenance exist in the
soil, and the temperature and hygrometric <!-- Page 144 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page144"></a>{144}</span>condition of the
atmosphere are adapted to it, a healthy plant will be the result. Light,
heat, moisture, and soil are therefore to be considered as the agents
required to exist in a certain balance, or proportion, in reference to
the health or power of vitality of the plant. Within a certain amount of
variation, health may persist in virtue of the power of selection, which
appertains to the spongioles of the root in absorbing nutriment; and also
as regards light, from the tendency which most plants have to accommodate
themselves to any deficiency of this element, by presenting their leafy
expansion in that direction where the most of its influence may be
obtained. But beyond a certain limit an unhealthy condition sets in. If
the soil contain not the inorganic elements, which are absolutely
indispensable for the tissues of the plant, or even if they be there and
not in a state to be absorbed, a dwindling and degeneration ensue; if
light be deficient in quantity, pallor, feebleness, and elongation of
tissue follow, with more fluidity and general softness of texture. These
conditions of plants have their analogues in the ill-fed and
ill-nourished children in some of our manufacturing districts; they are
stunted and diseased. Transport a healthy country lad, with the bloom of
health on his cheek, from his native hills and valleys, or woods and
fields, to the stool behind a desk for eight hours a day, in a narrow
street in any city, where the rays of the sun rarely penetrate, it will
not be long before <!-- Page 145 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page145"></a>{145}</span>the skin of the animal and the cuticle of
the plant may be submitted for comparison, when both will testify to the
importance of the solar rays, as an indispensable agent in supporting the
normal processes of organic life. So far common observation is competent
to a solution of the facts; but beyond this we come to the enquiry, what
resemblances are there in the early conditions of plants and animals.
Each originates from nucleated cells, endowed by the All-seeing Power
with a blind impulse of progressive development; the most simple cell of
a vegetable multiplies itself by a generation of new cells within it,
when the parent dies, and liberates the offspring. Here progression is
simply multiplication; it is, as it were, progression in length only. The
original cell, however, of animals, which is styled the germinal vesicle,
extends or becomes developed into dissimilar parts; and whatever may be
the variety, all alike proceed from the original germ cell, and the
<i>tout ensemble</i> of parts constitutes the one and indivisible whole;
in this instance there is addition besides multiplication, tissues and
organs are added in all variety, until the maximum of organic development
is attained in the wonderful being, man.</p>
<p>Yet how many points of resemblance are there between the vegetable
cell and the fully developed human being, in a physiological and
pathological point of view. There must be nourishment to sustain both;
both require a certain amount of light <!-- Page 146 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page146"></a>{146}</span>and heat for their
growth and increase, and are dependent upon various unknown causes for
active and healthy existence; and when a certain time has expired, all
alike return to a condition, in which the particles composing them are
subject only to the dominion of the laws which preside over inorganic
matter.</p>
<p>But during the existence of plants and animals, we discover other
features of comparison; plants, as well as animals, are liable to
disease; they are subject to functional and organic affections. The
former, among plants, are usually traceable to atmospheric vicissitudes
or irregularities, changes of situation, &c.; and in man to
irregularities of diet, and mental and bodily excesses, as well as to
atmospheric vicissitudes.<a name="NtA59"
href="#Nt59"><sup>[59]</sup></a></p>
<p>The organic diseases of plants and animals depend upon a repetition,
or continuance, of functional derangement. As a consequence of this, the
nutrition and reproduction of tissues lose their normal and definite
character, wherefrom an indefinite and abnormal result is obtained. There
is a limit to abnormal productions, and they are apparently <!-- Page 147
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>{147}</span>subject to
laws, though not yet understood. In animals, they may be either excessive
development of natural tissue in natural localities, as obesity and fatty
tumours; they may be natural products in unnatural situations, as fatty
degenerations of muscular tissue; or altogether new and unnatural
products, as tubercle and cancer.</p>
<p>In plants, from their greater simplicity of structure, organic
affections are perhaps entirely limited to the two first forms of animal
organic disease; viz. to undue development of tissue in natural
situations, and to the formation of natural tissue in parts of a plant
where they are not usually found in a state of nature. The variety of
excrescences seen on the stems, branches, and twigs of plants, may be
given as instances of the former; and the conversion of stamina into
petals, as in double flowers, as an instance of the latter.</p>
<p>We derive our sustenance from vegetables, and they from us; they
produce for us the soothing opiate and the deadly strychnia; we for them
the animating ammonia, and the distortions and sterility of excessive
culture; we engender in them, by the latter, debility, disease, and
death; and in our turn we become their prey. All this indeed is but a
cycle of events, that requires no learned mind to fathom, and to
comprehend; it is a matter of every day occurrence, and, though perhaps
not entirely unheeded, is not dwelt upon in the fulness of its bearings
and importance. <!-- Page 148 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page148"></a>{148}</span></p>
<p>Let us now consider the diseases of plants, as a study progressive to
those of man; and as their physiology has so extensively served us, we
may possibly also find in their pathology much material for instruction;
not that it will be attempted to shew that the same diseases affect both
kingdoms, but that diseases, though dissimilar in effects, may have
similar sources.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are not many men in this country, who need go
further than their own gardens to find abundance of disease among their
fruit trees and vegetables. The vine, the apple and the potato, common to
most gardens, will furnish specimens.</p>
<p>It is an error of a serious kind to suppose, that the parasites which
infest plants are not essentially the cause, or, perhaps, more properly
speaking, the elements of disease. I confine myself here to disease of
parasitic origin, as that is the subject of which I am chiefly
treating.</p>
<p>That parasitic growths are the elements of disease in some instances,
is now beyond dispute. The experiments of Mr. Hassall, detailed in Part
II. of the Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London, are most
conclusive; and they are of that simple nature, that any one may convince
himself of their accuracy, by a repetition of them from the directions
there laid down.</p>
<p>He says, the decay is communicable at will "to any fruits of the apple
and peach kind, no matter <!-- Page 149 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page149"></a>{149}</span>how strong their vital energies may be, by
the simple act of inoculation of the sound fruit with a portion of
decayed matter, containing filaments of the fungi. We may use with
success the sporules of such fungi; but in this case the decomposition
does not set in so quickly; in the one case, the smaller filaments of the
fungi have advanced several stages in their growth; while in the other,
the sporules have yet to pass through the several stages of their
development."</p>
<p>Mr. Hassan, however, seems to speak doubtfully as to the mode in which
the disease becomes naturally introduced;<a name="NtA60"
href="#Nt60"><sup>[60]</sup></a> how the spores enter the fruit, "is not
very clear—though probably, it is by insinuating themselves between
the cells of which the cuticle is composed, or perhaps by means of the
stomata, where they are present. I may here state that the experiments
were made on fruit, while living, and attached to the tree."</p>
<p>But why should there be a doubt as to the parts by which the sporules
of minute fungi enter the plant, when it is clear, that not only can they
enter <!-- Page 150 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page150"></a>{150}</span>by the spongioles, but by the stomata of
the leaves, and mingle with the sap. It is true, that they make their
appearance and grow upon the leaves and the fruit; but these are the
situations most adapted for their fructification. I have seen the spores
of the fungi which attack the cucumber and vegetable-marrow, in the cells
of the hairs, and even their filamentous prolongations; these appropriate
the fluids conveyed to the cells of the hair, rupture them, and at length
fructify.</p>
<p>On referring to Dr. Lindley's Medical and Economic Botany, I find that
many fungi are the active elements of disease, and in a manner which
renders it highly improbable that they are so in any other way, than by
obtaining an entrance to the sap of the plants. Of the microscopic fungus
which destroys wheat, the Uredo caries of De Candolle, we find the
habitat to be within the ovary of the corn, and that 4,000,000 may be
contained in a grain of wheat,—now this and another fungus, the
Lanosa nivalis, are said to destroy whole crops of corn: we cannot
imagine that such an extensive affection, can have any other source than
by means of the spores through the sap, seeing that bruising of the
surface, or rupture of the cuticle of the apple, a comparatively soft
fruit is necessary to produce the disease artificially in them; besides,
a grain of corn containing vibriones, when grown and having fruited, the
new fruit also contains them—now here, as this is I believe almost
invariably the <!-- Page 151 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page151"></a>{151}</span>case, either they or their ova must be
carried with the sap to the new germs.</p>
<p>It is rather a remarkable fact, that these entophytes appropriate the
nutriment destined for the plant in which they grow, they are
consequently the means in many instances of its entire destruction,
though only partially so in others.</p>
<p>There are many Fungi which have this tendency. The Puccinia gramienis,
"preys upon the juices of plants, and prevents the grain from swelling."
The Æcidium urticæ, common on nettles, deprives the plant on which it
grows, of the organizable matter, intended for its own nutrition. The
Erysiphe communis, overruns and destroys peas. The Botrytis infestans,
"attacks the leaves and stems of potatoes." The Oidium abortifaciens,
attacks the ovaries of grasses—and the Oidium Tuckeri, "a
formidable parasite, destroys the functions of the skin, of the parts it
attacks." The latter has been most injurious to the vines, during the
last two years. I have known instances in which the vines have been cut
down, and every means taken to rid the houses of the disease; but this
year, it has made its appearance, with all its former virulence, in the
new shoots.</p>
<p>This, however, is sufficient to shew that plants are liable to
disease, depending upon parasitic growths, which affect their vital
powers, and deprive them of their natural nutritive fluids.</p>
<p>But somewhat similar diseases belong also to <!-- Page 152 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>{152}</span>warm climates; in a
letter from Cuba, dated Dec. 1843,—Mr. Bastian writes, "<i>a
plague</i> has appeared among the orange trees—a mildew attacking
the leaves and the blossoms, which finally dry up. It most frequently
kills the trees. None of the orange family are exempt; lemons, limes, and
their varieties, with the shaddock and forbidden fruit, have all
suffered." This disease has continued without intermission, till the
present year,—when the same gentleman writes, Feb. 20th, 1850: "The
evil exists, although in a diminished degree, so much so, as to have
allowed the trees to produce me 30,000 oranges again. In old times, the
same plantations produced me 100,000."</p>
<p>The West India sugar-canes are also liable to a disease, which the
Rev. Mr. Griffiths, in his Natural History of the Island of Barbadoes,
speaks of, in the following manner: "This, among diseases peculiar to
canes, as among those which happen to men, too justly claims the horrible
precedence." This disease is called the Yellow Blast. It is difficult to
distinguish the Blast in its infancy, from the effect of dry weather.</p>
<p>There are often seen on such sickly canes, many small protuberant
knobs, of a soft downy substance. It is likewise observable, that such
blades will be full of brownish decaying spots. The disease is very
destructive to the canes. It is observed, that the Blast usually appears
successively in the same fields, and often in the very same spot of land.
<!-- Page 153 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page153"></a>{153}</span></p>
<p>This Blast is often found far from "infected places," and the
infection always spreads faster to the leeward, or with the wind.</p>
<p>"<i>It is remarkable if canes</i> have been once infected with the
Blast, although they afterwards to all appearance, seem to recover; yet
the juice of such canes will neither afford so much sugar, nor so good of
its kind, as if obtained from canes which were never infected."</p>
<p>I may here allude to the circumstance, that in the island of Cuba, the
destructive mildew is commonly called, <i>la pesta</i>.</p>
<p>It were needless to multiply instances of other endemic and epidemic
diseases of vegetables; they are well known by practical observers to be
very numerous, and I believe, in most instances, depending upon fungoid
growths. The destruction of vegetables by insects, is of a very different
nature to that produced by the fungi; it would be as unreasonable to
consider the consumption of corn and herbage by locusts, as a disease of
vegetation, as the massacre and devouring of human beings by cannibals, a
disease of the human body.</p>
<p>It is true that insects are exceedingly destructive to plants, but as
far as I am able to obtain information, they appear to be so chiefly by
their voracious propensities; they consume the structure of the plant in
its entity, and do not primarily interfere with its vitality. The
instance of the vibriones, before-mentioned, seems at first to be an
exception <!-- Page 154 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page154"></a>{154}</span>to the rule, but this is rather apparent,
than real; and it may be made to apply more as a confirmation, than an
obstacle to the vegetable theory: for if we may fairly compare the
diseases of animals with those of plants, the existence of entozoa in the
latter, would be considered an essential point to be substantiated.</p>
<p>Having now considered the question as to the infeasibility of
supposing that chemical fermentation is the basis upon which a theory of
diseases can be sustained, and having shewn that life is inseparable from
infection, and miasmatic generation;—having explained the phenomena
of the dispersion of diseases by comparison with the dispersion of
plants, and finally, having demonstrated that the physiology and
pathology of plants bear so close a relation to each other, and that
their epidemic affections depend upon minute organic germs, I submit to
the judgment of my readers, whether there is not much reasonableness in
the application of the facts to the inference—that living germs are
the cause of epidemic disease in man and animals.</p>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page 155 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>{155}</span></p>
<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
<p class="cenhead">RESULTS IN PROOF OF THE TENABLENESS OF THE
PROPOSITION.</p>
<p class="cenhead">————</p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION I.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">OBSERVATIONS ON SOME OF THE LAWS OF EPIDEMIC DISEASES.</span></p>
<p>The results obtained by comparing certain facts connected with
Epidemic Affections of animals, with analogous affections in plants,
afford, from the few instances I shall here notice, a very strong
presumption, that analogous causes operate in the production of these
affections. I have already quoted from Hecker, to shew that previously
to, and during the Epidemics of the Middle Ages, the minuter forms of
animal and vegetable life appeared to be called into existence, much more
abundantly than usual; that famines prevailed in consequence of failure
of cereal crops, no doubt depending then, as now, upon the various forms
of fungiferous growth. I cannot refrain quoting here, a passage or two
from our old friend Virgil; for he confirms not only the fact of peculiar
showers in <!-- Page 156 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page156"></a>{156}</span>connexion with diseases, but he also
refers to the rust of corn, thus:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>150. "Mox et frumentis labor additus; ut mala culmos</p>
<p>Esset rubigo ...</p>
<p>... Intereunt segetes."</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><i>Georg. 1.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Then:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>311. "Quid tempestates autumni et sidera dicam?</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p> . . . . . . </p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>322. "Sæpe etiam<a name="NtA61" href="#Nt61"><sup>[61]</sup></a> immensum cœlo venit agmen aquarum</p>
<p>Et fœdam glomerant tempestatem imbribus atris</p>
<p>Collectæ ex alto nubes."</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><i>Georg. 1.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The occurrence of black showers in this country has been observed
during the present year, and I understand that in the fenny countries of
the East, the corn has suffered much from the Uredo. I am not mentioning
the circumstances as cause and effect, but merely to call attention to
the fact, that unusual phenomena of this kind have been generally
associated with disease of the animal and vegetable tribes.</p>
<p>The same causes also predispose plants as well as animals, to epidemic
attacks of disease. The repeated observations in the public journals on
the subject of ventilation, drainage, and over-crowding, render all
notice from me needless, to shew that these, though they do not produce
the diseases <!-- Page 157 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page157"></a>{157}</span>treated of, yet that under the influence
of bad air, bad drainage, and over-crowding, epidemics are fostered and
spread.</p>
<p>Lastly, says the Count Philippo Ré, "I would remark that if <i>bad
cultivation, and especially bad drainage, does not produce bunt or smut,
it is certain that those fields, the worst treated in these respects,
suffer the most from these diseases</i>."</p>
<p>It has been remarked by many observers, that a greater fecundity has
attended upon Pestilences, and this has been proved by comparison, that
the births in proportion have far exceeded the ordinary limit.<a
name="NtA62" href="#Nt62"><sup>[62]</sup></a> In juxtaposition with this
observation, I will place the following, not as a proof, but as a remark
made quite independently of the subject of which I am treating. "From the
first the diseased ears are larger than the healthy ones, and are sooner
matured. What appears singular, but which I have not, perhaps,
sufficiently verified, is <i>that the seeds are more abundant than in a
sound ear</i>."</p>
<p><!-- Page 158 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>{158}</span></p>
<p>Now these are facts which require amplification, and if these two
alone should be shewn upon an extensive field of observation, to apply
not only to corn, but to other members of the vegetable kingdom, as I
doubt not will be the case, though I am not fully prepared to prove it,
it would be difficult to dissociate the fertility of the two living
kingdoms from the operations of one and the same, or an analogous
law.</p>
<p>The epidemic diseases of plants are both infectious and contagious, at
times they are observed to be endemic only, and then depending
particularly upon some local causes. This is a law of diseases which
applies equally to those of men and animals. In connexion with this law
is another, which, as far as I am aware, has not hitherto been noticed in
connexion with plants. The potato disease, which excited so much interest
and created so much anxiety for the poorer classes of society, led the
Government of this country to employ the most learned men to investigate
the subject, in the hope of propounding some reasons which should explain
the cause of the calamity, and thereby deduce a method of eradicating the
evil, or, in other words, discover a cure for the disease. Many were the
opinions as to the cause of the distemper, which it were useless here to
recount, but a method was suggested, to which most people, I believe,
looked forward with great anticipations, and this was to obtain native
seed, and to sow it on virgin soil. Was the end accomplished? No. <!--
Page 159 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page159"></a>{159}</span>For
though the seed was sown, and the plants grew, the disease still appeared
among the newly imported individuals, to as great an extent, as among the
native or domesticated plants.</p>
<p>As a parallel to this, it may be stated, that, as regards either
endemic or epidemic disease, those persons newly arrived, either in a
district or country where these prevail, are even more liable to them
than the residents.<a name="NtA63" href="#Nt63"><sup>[63]</sup></a>
Again, I have learned, that where the potato disease has been so bad as
to render the crop almost valueless, the best plan to be adopted is, to
allow the plants to remain in the earth, and thus leave such as retain
their germinating powers to come up spontaneously the following year. I
certainly saw one large field treated in this way, yield a crop almost
without disease.</p>
<p><!-- Page 160 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>{160}</span></p>
<p>The seasoning, in this instance, seems to bear a comparison with the
seasoning of animals and man, under a variety of diseases, which for a
time renders them insusceptible of another attack. It therefore does not
appear so improbable, that these affections may be regarded, as Unger,
the German botanist supposed, the Exanthemata, or Eruptive Fevers of
vegetables.</p>
<p>Another feature seems to associate the Epidemics of plants and
animals, in a manner suggestive of analogous causes operating in both
instances.</p>
<p>The lungs of animals and the leaves of vegetables, are their
respiratory organs, by means of which, the blood in the one case and the
sap in the other, derive gas from the air, and impart gas to it, each
taking what is thrown off by the other.</p>
<p>Now the epidemics among vegetables, have a remarkable tendency to
exhibit their effects primarily on the leaves, and particularly on those
parts which are appropriated to the function of respiration. It is from
the stomates that many of the fungi commence to germinate, and their
fructification may be seen sprouting from the opening composed of a
chink, surrounded by a peculiar arrangement of cells, which constitute
the breathing apparatus of their victim.</p>
<p>In the earlier epidemics, of which we read, one of the most remarkable
circumstances, was the extraordinary influence the poisonous matter
appeared to <!-- Page 161 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page161"></a>{161}</span>exercise over the lungs,<a name="NtA64"
href="#Nt64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> and they again, were the means of
propagating the disease, and spreading the contagious particles through
the atmosphere, for we read: "Thus did the plague rage in Avignon for six
or eight weeks, and the pestilential breath of the sick, who expectorated
blood, caused a terrible contagion far and near, for even the vicinity of
those who had fallen ill of plague was certain death; so that parents
abandoned their infected children, and all the ties of kindred were
dissolved."<a name="NtA65" href="#Nt65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> "The like was
seen in Egypt. Here also inflammation of the lungs was predominant."
"Here too the <i>breath</i> of the sick spread a deadly contagion."</p>
<p>It is more than probable that all infectious matter obtains an
entrance to the system through the lungs. Inspiring the air containing
the pestilential semina is, indeed, the only plausible explanation of
infection; for though the skin is indubitably an absorbing <!-- Page 162
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page162"></a>{162}</span>surface, and
capable of taking up and conveying to the blood any noxious matter
applied to it, yet it is far more probable that the lungs would effect
this process with greater rapidity. Then the stomach, the only other
absorbing surface to which extraneous matter can be applied, is not
likely to be the part where the elements of disease would obtain an
entrance to the system, for many facts prove, that infectious matter may
be swallowed without any injurious consequences, unless in a very
concentrated state. Instances are not easily found of diseased matter
having been swallowed, except where diseased vegetables have formed under
some combination of circumstances, a portion of diet.<a name="NtA66"
href="#Nt66"><sup>[66]</sup></a></p>
<p>Many facts are on record which prove the powerful effect of diseased
grain when made into bread, and taken for any length time as a principal
article of food. The history of Ergot of Rye is too fresh in the memory
of most people to require more than an allusion here. The stomach had no
power over the secale, its poisonous properties were retained, after
having been submitted to the digestive process, as was evidenced by the
abortions and gangrenes it occasioned.</p>
<p>But diseased wheat is also capable of inducing <!-- Page 163 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page163"></a>{163}</span>gangrene, and it is
more than probable, that many diseases might be traced to the use of
infected grain of various kinds. An interesting account of a family who
lived at Wattisham, near Stowmarket, in Suffolk, and all of whom suffered
more or less from living on bread made of smutty wheat, may be found in
the Philosophical Transactions. The mother of this family and five of the
children, consisting of three girls and two boys, all suffered from
gangrene of the extremities; the father lost the nails from his hands,
and had ulceration of two of his fingers.<a name="NtA67"
href="#Nt67"><sup>[67]</sup></a> Dr. Woollaston wrote thus in a letter on
this case: "The corn with which they made their bread was certainly very
bad: it was wheat that had been cut in a rainy season, and had lain on
the ground till many of the grains were black and totally decayed, but
many other poor families in the same village made use of the same corn
without receiving any injury from it. One man lost the use of his arm for
some time, and still imagines himself that he was afflicted with the same
disorder as Downing's family." It is not unlikely this was the case, for
numbness and loss of power was one of the well marked characters of the
disease.</p>
<p>What other afflictions may be due to diseased vegetation and
adulterated articles of food, and what loss of life may accrue from cheap
and adulterated <!-- Page 164 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page164"></a>{164}</span>drugs and chemicals is hardly yet dreamt
of.<a name="NtA68" href="#Nt68"><sup>[68]</sup></a> The systematic
practice of adulteration of almost every article of diet which comes to
table has become a serious question for the legislature to consider. Take
only the article of milk, upon which the young children of large towns
and cities, make their chief meals, with the addition of bread. How much
milk comes into London from the country, how much is obtained from stall
and grain-fed cows in the metropolis, and how much is said to be
consumed, would be an interesting calculation. It is pretty well known
that a mixture is sold by which a retailer of milk may increase his
supply by one-third or one-half. It was discovered in Paris that the
brains of animals, when prepared in a particular manner, formed, when
mixed with a certain proportion of milk and water, a very fine and
deceptive cream; in that city this system was carried on to a
considerable extent. I could not help alluding to these facts while
speaking of diseased grain, for who shall say to what extent a miller in
a large way of business, may be able to "work in," as it is called, a
considerable amount of smutty corn in the manufacture of flour? Now, as
diseased grain is known <!-- Page 165 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page165"></a>{165}</span>to induce abortion, it is impossible to
tell how small a portion may in some cases produce the effect; we may
therefore say with Thomas of Malmesbury, "There is no action of man in
this life which is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences,
as that no human providence is high enough to give us a prospect to the
end."<a name="NtA69" href="#Nt69"><sup>[69]</sup></a></p>
<p>To return,—associated with these observations are other facts of
considerable weight. Before and during pestilences, abortions are more
frequent than in ordinary times; infectious and contagious diseases
induce abortion; besides this, and independently of disease, conditions
of the atmosphere have been known to exist when abortion has been an
epidemic affection; of this Dr. Copland says, "to certain states of the
atmosphere only can be attributed those frequent abortions sometimes
observed which have even assumed an epidemic form, and of which
Hippocrates, Fischer, Tessier, Desormeaux, and others have made mention."
With this reference I will close the subject of comparison between the
affections of the breathing apparatus in animals and plants, merely
alluding to the probability that under some conditions of atmosphere,
independently of heat, &c. vegetables without any other assignable
cause will become abortive.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 166 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>{166}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION II.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THOSE POISONS WHICH MOST RESEMBLE THE MORBID POISONS IN THEIR EFFECTS ON THE BODY?</span></p>
<p>In the early part of this book, I considered the nature of poisons
generally, and had occasion to remark upon the characters which separated
poisons into two distinct classes. 1st, Those which have the power of
self multiplication; and 2nd, Those destitute of this property.</p>
<p>Of the first we have seen that the poisons of epidemic diseases
multiply both in and out of the body.</p>
<p>The poisons of infectious diseases, not usually epidemic, do the same.
Those of endemic affections, such as ague and some fevers, usually become
multiplied out of the body only, but under some circumstances, and
peculiar atmospheric conditions, they may be also multiplied within the
body. The amount of these poisons necessary to produce their specific
effects, may be inappreciable. Of the second class, there are two kinds,
those derived from the organic kingdom and those derived from the
inorganic kingdom. Of these, the amount necessary to produce their
specific effects is appreciable and pretty well known.</p>
<p>But among those poisons, consisting of organic <!-- Page 167 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>{167}</span>products, there is one
which seems to hold an intermediate place. This is derived from one of
the Fungals, and as it takes this remarkable position as a link of
connexion between the two classes of poisons, I may be excused quoting a
passage of some length upon this agent, from Dr. Lindley's Vegetable
Kingdom. "One of the most poisonous of our fungi, is the Amanita
muscaria, so called from its power of killing flies, when steeped in
milk. Even this is eaten in Kamchatka, with no other than intoxicating
effects, according to the following account by Langsdorf, as translated
by Greville. This variety of Amanita muscaria, is used by the inhabitants
of the north-eastern parts of Asia in the same manner as wine, brandy,
arrack, opium, &c. is by other nations."—"The most singular
effect of the amanita is the influence it possesses over the urine. It is
said, that from time immemorial, the inhabitants have known that the
fungus imparts an intoxicating quality to that secretion, which
<i>continues for a considerable time after taking it</i>. For instance, a
man moderately intoxicated to-day, will by the next morning have slept
himself sober, but (as is the custom) by taking a teacup of his urine, he
will be <i>more powerfully intoxicated</i> than he was the preceding day.
It is, therefore, not uncommon for confirmed drunkards to preserve their
urine, as a precious liquor against a scarcity of the fungus. The
intoxicating property of the urine <i>is capable of</i> <!-- Page 168
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>{168}</span><i>being
propagated</i>; for every one who partakes of it has his urine similarly
affected. Thus with a very few amanitæ, a party of drunkards may keep up
their debauch for a week."</p>
<p>This property of the amanita, at once places it in a separate category
from all other organic poisons, it has yet to be shewn upon what this
intoxicating fungus depends for its activity. Whether some secretion is
formed in the tissue of the plant, or whether some new arrangement of the
particles of matter or modification of the sporules, is brought about by
entering the system, it is impossible to say. Langsdorf states that the
small deep-coloured specimens of amanita, and thickly covered with warts,
are said to be more powerful than those of a larger size and paler
colour. As the effect is not produced until from one to two hours after
swallowing the bolus, and as a pleasant intoxication may be obtained by
this agent for a whole day, and from one dose only, there is a defined
line between this and the ordinary narcotics and stimulants in common
use. That the digestive powers of the stomach have no influence over the
intoxicating properties of the plant, is manifested in the fact, that the
active principle passes into the urine, not only not deteriorated but
apparently increased, for, as we have seen, a teacup of the urine from a
man, intoxicated by taking the amanita into his stomach, will cause him
to be more powerfully intoxicated than by the <!-- Page 169 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page169"></a>{169}</span>original dose. We have,
therefore, but two conjectures left for consideration, either the
original intoxicating principle is excreted from the system in a
condensed form, in which case its indestructibility by digestion, makes
it approach the ordinary organic poisons, or there must be an increase of
the toxic agent, in which case we must suppose a reproductive process
having taken place in the system. "There is," says Dr. Mitchell, "in the
wild regions of our western country, a disease called the <i>milk
sickness</i>, the <i>trembles</i>, the <i>tires</i>, the <i>slows</i>,
the <i>stiff-joints</i>, the <i>puking fever</i>, <i>&c.</i>" The
animals affected with this disease, "stray irregularly, apparently
without motive;" they lose their power of attention, and finally tremble,
stagger, and die. "When other animals—men, dogs, cats, poultry,
crows, buzzards, and hogs, drink the milk or eat the flesh of a diseased
cow, they suffer in a somewhat similar manner." This disease is
attributed by Dr. Mitchell to the animals having grazed on pasture
contaminated with mildew, and the resemblance to the effects of the
amanita, together with the persistence of the specific principle within
the fluids and tissues of the body, render it more than probable that to
some fungoid growth, is due the peculiar toxic effects here noticed.
Further: "The animals made sick by the beef of the first one, have been
in their turn the cause of a like affection in others; so that three or
four have thus fallen victims successively." De Graaf states, that butter
<!-- Page 170 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page170"></a>{170}</span>made from the milk of diseased cows,
though heated until it caught fire, did not lose its deleterious
properties. The urine of diseased animals, collected and reduced by
evaporation, produced the characteristic symptoms. All these facts point
to some peculiarity in the properties of matter not yet investigated or
at least not explained. If we may assume that reproduction is here an
element of the persistence and apparent multiplication of active matter,
I know only of one instance to compare with it. A gentleman about to
deliver a lecture on the properties of arsenic, and its history
generally, made two solutions of a given quantity of arsenious acid, in
the following manner. He took a certain amount of distilled water, and
the same of filtered Thames water, and made his solutions of arsenic by
separate boilings, he then as soon as possible placed the liquids in
identical bottles, carefully prepared for their reception. In the one
which contained the arsenic boiled in river water, the hygrocrocis is now
growing, while that boiled in distilled water remains perfectly limpid
and free from any vegetable production. There can scarcely be a doubt,
that the filtration of river water was not sufficiently purifying to
remove the minute spores of some lower forms of vegetation, which not
only live in arsenic but have resisted the temperature employed in
boiling an arsenical solution to saturation.</p>
<p>As to the first class, or truly reproductive and <!-- Page 171
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>{171}</span>morbid
poisons, the most heterogenous ideas have from all time existed. I have
introduced the notice of the above poisons, viz. the Amanita, and that
which engenders the milk sickness, to compare the results of the morbid
poisons on the human body with them, and also to associate them with the
effects of diseased grain. From the Amanita and that other fungoid matter
which is said to produce the milk sickness, there appears to be a purely
toxic action on the system, but in the instance of diseased grain, a
blood disease, ending in gangrene, or a specific and peculiar action of
the generative organs is the consequence, and where the latter occurs,
the poison usually expends itself on these parts, either by inducing
abortion, or augmenting the catamenial secretion.</p>
<p>Now, the morbid poisons, if studied only in their results, shew that
there is a combination of these two actions. There is usually, in the
first place, a toxic or poisonous action, and secondly, a deteriorating
or decomposing action on the blood, by which there is a tendency to low
or asthenic inflammation and gangrene. It matters not what form of fever
we take as an illustration, whether intermittent, pestilential, or
exanthematous, either will serve the purpose of shewing how completely
the effects of vegetable organic poisons resemble those which for the
sake of distinction (I suppose) have been denominated Morbid Poisons.</p>
<p>Take an attack from the paludal poison. It is <!-- Page 172 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page172"></a>{172}</span>usually ushered in with
head-ache, weariness, pains in the limbs, and thirst, with other
symptoms; all these are indicative of a poisonous agent in the blood:
then come the full phenomena of the disease at a longer or shorter
interval, and tending ultimately to destroy some organ of the body. The
mind suffers during the course of the attack, and delirium occasionally
happens. In severe cases of this disease, which were more frequent
formerly than now, coma, delirium, and frenzy were observed at the
commencement of the attack, and a tendency to rapid disorganization of
one or several of the viscera.</p>
<p>If we take the effects of poison of Erysipelas, of Scarlet Fever, or
Plague, in each we find at the onset more or less general derangement of
the system, usually with cerebral disturbance and disordered action of
all the dynamic forces of the body, which clearly indicate the action of
a poison; then, unless some favourable symptoms arise, the blood exhibits
a steady advance towards disorganization, and sphacelation of one or more
tissues or parts of the body ensues. In Erysipelas the force of the
diseased action is expended on the skin, and subcutaneous cellular
tissue; in Scarlet Fever the fauces ulcerate, and slough and the parotids
suppurate; in the Plague there is a general tendency to putrefaction, and
the formation of glandular abscesses with sphacelas. Without going any
further into this matter, for my present intention is merely to draw <!--
Page 173 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page173"></a>{173}</span>notice to certain facts, let me now ask,
whether or not, do the poisons of the Ergot, the Uredo, and the Amanita,
exhibit more analogy in their action on the nervous system, the blood and
the tissues, than any other poisonous agents with which we are
acquainted? If the whole range of the lower fungi could be examined in
reference to their operation on the blood, as decomposers of organic
compounds,—if experiments could be made, by which the properties of
fungoid matter could be detected, I would venture to say the whole of the
phenomena of these diseases could be readily comprehended and their
intricacies unravelled.</p>
<p>We know that the fungi are poisonous, that at times and seasons, and
under variations of climate, they vary in their effects, and perhaps lose
altogether these properties. We know that the fungi produce gangrene of
the tissues, and disorganization of the blood; we know that their spores
pervade the atmosphere, and are ready, under favouring conditions, to
increase and multiply; we know that they are ubiquitous, and that those
conditions most favourable to their development, are exactly such as are
proved to foster and engender disease, and above all, they have been
proved to be the elements of some diseases in man, in animals, and in
plants. Can as much be said of any other known agents, animate or
inanimate, comprised in our category?</p>
<p>It has been said, we do not see after death,—the <!-- Page 174
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page174"></a>{174}</span>interlacing
mycilium, or the sprouting pileus; therefore the fungi are not the agents
of disease—it has been said that carbonic acid and alcohol are not
found as products of diseased action—consequently disease is not a
fermentative process. "In all cases," says Liebig, "where the strictest
investigation has failed to demonstrate the presence of organic beings in
the contagion of a miasm, or contagious disease, the hypothesis that such
beings have cooperated, or do cooperate in the morbid process, must be
rejected as totally void of foundation and support." Much as I admire the
genius of this great man, it is difficult to refrain from remarking, that
I doubt if any of his great discoveries would have been made, if, in the
first instance, hypotheses had not formed the basis of all his
researches. It has been said, "that casual conjunctions in chemistry,
gave us most of our valuable discoveries:" and it is from casual
conjunctions that hypotheses are usually formed, the working out proves
either their fallacy or their truth, but to say that an hypothesis has no
foundation, until demonstrated to be true, is rather knocking down
argument. And who, let me ask, has been more prolific of hypotheses than
our continental neighbour? Yet he, according to his mode of reasoning,
would sweep away all such words from the vocabularies of philosophers.
What foundation has the chemical hypothesis of disease, when it fails to
explain the most important element <!-- Page 175 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page175"></a>{175}</span>of contagious and
infectious diseases: viz. the reproductive property of their germs?</p>
<p>It is perhaps necessary to say something in explanation of the sudden
deaths arising from morbid poisons. They may occur from two causes. One
being the result of a concentrated amount of poison germs being inhaled
into the lungs, and acting as an ordinary toxic agent; and the other,
which I put only hypothetically, the consequence of the rapid evolution
of gas in the vessels arising from a sudden decomposition of blood, as it
passes through the lungs. The only authority I have for this supposition,
is the fact that the blood after death, from pestilential affections, is
found to be far advanced towards decomposition; that in Paris last year,
two patients were bled while suffering from Cholera, and with the small
quantity of blood which flowed, bubbles of air also escaped:<a
name="NtA70" href="#Nt70"><sup>[70]</sup></a> and besides this, it was
demonstrated by Mr. Herapath, that ammonia was given off from Cholera
patients, both by the lungs and skin. These facts, though they are not
conclusive, nevertheless render it probable that such an explanation is
not entirely out of reason—especially too, when we know how fatal
are the effects of uncombined air, when it enters the vessels near to the
heart.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><!-- Page 176 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page176"></a>{176}</span></p>
<p class="cenhead">SECTION III.</p>
<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">WHAT RESULTS DO WE OBTAIN FROM THE EFFECTS OF REMEDIAL AGENTS, IN PROOF OF THE HYPOTHESIS?</span></p>
<p>I have here used the word hypothesis, because, having so far advanced
in the enquiry, I trust sufficient has been said to render the term
applicable.</p>
<p>Under the term remedial agents, I shall include all those causes,
whether natural or artificial, which tend to neutralize or destroy the
germs of infection, or miasmatic poison, whether this be effected out of
or within the body.</p>
<p>First, then, let us consider the results of drainage and cultivation
in removing the causes of endemic disease. One well authenticated case is
as good as a thousand. I will take one, which, from its source, will be
received as unexceptionable; and from its association with a very learned
and amusing book, will be accepted as an agreeable reminder of the many
pleasant hours spent in the perusal of the poet Southey's "Doctor."</p>
<p>"Doncaster is built upon a peninsula, or ridge of land, about a mile
across, having a gentle slope from east to west, and bounded on the west
by the river; this ridge is composed of three strata; to wit, of the
alluvial soil deposited by the river in former <!-- Page 177 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page177"></a>{177}</span>ages, and of limestone
on the north and west; and of sandstone to the south and east. To the
south of this neck of land, lies a tract called Potteric Carr, which is
much below the level of the river, and was a morass, or range of fens
when our Doctor first took up his abode in Doncaster. This tract extends
about four miles in length, and nearly three in breadth, and the security
which it afforded against an attack on that side, while the river
protected the peninsula by its semicircular bend on the other, was
evidently one reason why the Romans fixed upon the site of Doncaster for
a station. In Brockett's Glossary of North Country words, Carr is
interpreted to mean 'flat marshy land,' 'a pool or lake;' but the
etymology of the word is yet to be discovered.</p>
<p>"These fens were drained and enclosed pursuant to an Act of
Parliament, which was obtained for that purpose in the year 1766. Three
principal drains were then cut, fourteen feet wide, and about four miles
long, into which the water was conducted from every part of the Carr
southward, to the little river Torne, at Rossington Bridge, whence it
flows into the Trent. Before these drainings, the ground was liable to
frequent inundations; and about the centre there was a decoy for wild
ducks; there is still a deep water there of considerable extent, in which
very large pike and eels are found. The soil, which was so boggy at first
that horses were lost in attempting to drink at the drains, has been
brought <!-- Page 178 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page178"></a>{178}</span>into good cultivation, (as all such ground
may be) to the great improvement of the district; for till this
improvement was effected, <i>intermittent fevers and sore throats were
prevalent there, and they have ceased from the time the land was
drained</i>. The most unhealthy season now, is the spring, when cold
winds, from the north and north-east, usually prevail during some six
weeks; at other times Doncaster is considered to be a healthy place. It
has been observed that when endemic(?) diseases arrive there, they
uniformly come from the south; and that the state of the weather may be
foretold from a knowledge of what it has been at a given time in London,
making an allowance of about three days, for the chance of winds. Here,
as in all places which lie upon a great and frequented road, the
transmission of disease has been greatly facilitated by the increase of
travelling."</p>
<p>I feel certain of being excused for transcribing this long passage
from Southey. It would have been impossible to convey its whole meaning
without giving it entire. The continuation of the chapter is no less
instructive and applicable to our subject, though more particularly so to
an extension of the enquiry. The sore throats and intermittents, from
which Doncaster has been freed, by the drainage of Potteric Carr, informs
us at once that decomposing matter is the material by which the poison of
fever is vivified and sustained, the wet and boggy state of the soil is
just the condition, when no drainage exists, to bring into activity the
germs of <!-- Page 179 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page179"></a>{179}</span>disease, which otherwise would lie latent.
So satisfied and acquainted are we with the elements necessary for the
production of fever, that we might as certainly bring about an endemic
intermittent by forming an artificial bog, as we could be sure of growing
mushrooms by making a bed in the manner laid down by gardeners for this
purpose. Dr. Lindley also says, "the <i>Polyporus fomentarius</i> has
been artificially produced in Germany, but merely by placing wood in a
favourable situation, and keeping it well moistened. Five or six crops
were obtained in the year."</p>
<p>Let warmth, moisture, darkness, and decaying matter be given, and
inanimate disintegrated particles will soon be converted into definite
forms and combinations instinct with life. It is by the unseen forms of
living beings, that the atmosphere is preserved from becoming charged
with deadly gases; they take the first rank in the great scheme of
animated beings, the plant first, and then the animal. "Let the earth
bring forth grass." "Let there be lights in the firmament." "Let the
waters bring forth the moving creature, and fowl that may fly," and "Let
the earth bring forth the cattle, the creeping thing, and the beast."
This is the order of creation, of living things, and the earth was
prepared by vegetation for the animal world. The work of conversion is
accomplished by vegetation; and this is consumed for the construction of
higher organizations.</p>
<p>The laws which govern and control the universe, <!-- Page 180 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page180"></a>{180}</span>are as definite and as
wonderful among invisible atoms, as those which regulate the enormous
masses floating in space; and the time will come when the advancing
intellect of man will measure and weigh the morbid poisons, as he
measures and weighs the stars. Why should the laws of Epidemics be less
understood, than the laws which govern the course of comets? The
aspirations of man have led him to penetrate the heavens, which charm and
inspire him; he studies rather the more violent disturbing elements of
nature, the thunder-cloud and the fire of heaven, than the silent
pestilence which steals over the earth. I cannot conceive it possible
that the Intellects, which are occupied in procuring means for the
Majesty of this empire to issue her mandates with the velocity of a
spirit to the nethermost parts of the earth, should be incapable of
solving so deeply interesting a mystery as the causes and nature of
pestilential diseases. It would seem that man prefers to issue a mandate
of destruction many thousand miles distant, than to disarm the pestilence
at his door. It is barely a century since Galvani observed the twitchings
in the muscles of a frog's leg, and the battery, still named after him,
has already become an agent of instantaneous communication between places
many miles distant. But how many centuries have passed away, each one
succeeding the other, with its millions of victims to epidemics? And
where are the remedies for the evils? Drainage and cleanliness, with all
their advantages, were better understood and more fully carried out by
the ancient <!-- Page 181 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page181"></a>{181}</span>Romans than by ourselves; there are
monuments, though crumbling to decay, to tell us of the vast enterprise
of these people and of the value they set upon a healthy and vigorous
constitution, and how well they understood the means of warding of
disease.</p>
<p>Cultivation and drainage are now fully understood to be the basis by
which a healthy condition of air is to be obtained, next to that,
cleanliness and ventilation; if either be neglected a sickly, mouldy, and
unwholesome contamination of atmosphere ensues; the odour of a bog is
proverbially mouldy, and so is that of an ill-ventilated house or cellar;
dryness, or the fresh pleasant scent of clean water, are the antagonists
of these; the aromatic odours of vegetation are opponents of
putrefaction, and consequently of the development of the lower forms of
life. All empyreumatic matters prevent mouldiness and decomposition; and
odours arrest and prevent the growth of mouldiness. The oil of birch,
with which the Russia leather is impregnated, and which gives it so
pleasant an odour, effectually prevents mouldiness, and consequently
decay.</p>
<p>Lindley says, "It is a most remarkable circumstance, and one which
<i>deserves particular enquiry</i>, that the growth of the <i>minute
fungi</i>, which constitute what is called mouldiness, is <i>effectually
prevented</i> by any kind of perfume."<a name="NtA71"
href="#Nt71"><sup>[71]</sup></a> Cedar has <!-- Page 182 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page182"></a>{182}</span>been used, from time
immemorial, for a like purpose; and I doubt not the recommendation of
Virgil, before quoted, in reference to the burning of cedar, was founded
on some practical utility of this kind, though its <i>modus operandi</i>
was unknown to him. Allied to these is a curious circumstance, and worthy
attention. I copy the following from an old work on Pestilences. "It is
remarkable that when the Plague raged in London, Bucklersbury, which
stood in the very heart of the city, was free from that distemper; the
reason given for it is, that it was chiefly inhabited by druggists and
apothecaries, the scent of whose drugs kept away the infection, which
were so unnatural to the pestilential insects, that they were killed or
driven away by the strong smell of some sorts of them." "The smell of
<i>rue</i>, and the smoke of tobacco, were prescribed as remedies against
the infection; but especially tar and pitch barrels, which it was
imagined preserved Limehouse, and some of the dock-yards from
infection."<a name="NtA72" href="#Nt72"><sup>[72]</sup></a></p>
<p>Pitch and tar dealers are everywhere spoken of as being remarkably
exempt from infectious diseases.</p>
<p>Cold infusion of tar was used in our colonies as a prophylactic
against the Small Pox. Bishop <!-- Page 183 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page183"></a>{183}</span>Berkeley was induced to try it when this
disease raged in his neighbourhood. The trial fully answered
expectation—for all those who took tar-water, either escaped the
disease, or had it very slightly.</p>
<p>Tan yards and places in the immediate vicinity, are said to be free
from pestilences. The tanners of Bermondsey are said to have escaped the
Plague of London, and one person only died in Gutter Lane, where was a
tan yard. The tanners of Rome are also stated to have been free from
Plague. Dr. M‘Lean refers to the exemption of tanners at Cairo.
<i>Tannin is prejudicial to most vegetables</i>,—but Dr. Lindley
says it is not always so to fungi. "A species of Rhizomorpha is often
developed in tan pits." I should imagine that neither plants nor insects
would be found very abundantly, where tannin prevails; yet we find that
the gall-nut is formed for the protection of an insect from injury by
weather, and as a temporary means of sustenance.</p>
<p>The custom of fumigating with odoriferous substances, does not
therefore appear upon this view of the matter to be destitute of
importance; indeed, the universal practice stamps it at once, as an
efficacious remedy for the purposes of disinfection. The introduction of
chlorine fumigation, seems to have superseded, in a great measure, the
use of fragrant herbs and woods; and it is questionable whether the
substitution be altogether desirable or <!-- Page 184 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page184"></a>{184}</span>advantageous. Many
scents may be agreeably and usefully employed, with much less chance of
annoyance to the patient, and considerably less injury to articles of
furniture, &c.</p>
<p>The fumigations of sulphurous acid and chlorine are, perhaps, more
adapted as disinfectants in uninhabited apartments;—their power to
destroy vegetation, is well known. They have been used, chiefly, with the
idea of neutralizing gaseous exhalations, particularly chlorine, as it
tends to combine with hydrogen, to form hydrochloric acid, and then to
unite with ammoniacal matters, forming hydrochlorate of ammonia. This,
supposing noxious or pestilential effluvia consisted of the ammoniacal
exudations variously combined, was an exceedingly efficacious method of
rendering them inert; but as we feel convinced that no ammoniacal
compound could possibly be the cause of infection, we must look to the
influence these gases possess over other forms of matter, and as they are
so destructive, even in minute quantities, to vegetable existence, it is
possible that their beneficial effects may be due to this property. The
immediate neighbourhood of gas works is prejudicial to vegetation, I
imagine, from the amount of sulphurous vapours, and to this has been
attributed the exemption of persons employed in these works. Many other
instances might be cited of a similar nature.</p>
<p>I have now to speak of medicinal agents, and here comes a considerable
difficulty. <!-- Page 185 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page185"></a>{185}</span></p>
<p>If we might believe all that has been written on the sure and certain
remedies for the "ills that man is heir to," we should be led to
acknowledge that both nature and art were prodigal in antidotes and
specifics. The all-bountiful hand of nature, I do not doubt, has at the
same time scattered the seeds of good and of evil. The fertilizing
showers fall to irrigate the soil, and produce food and nourishment to
man; here and there is the reeking morass "feeding unnatural vegetation,"
and if man takes up his abode in its vicinity, the rains which made it
unhealthy, have also made it highly fertile; by labour and cultivation he
may convert the mephitic bog into a waving corn-field, and the seeds of
life and sustenance be made to supplant the seeds of death and
corruption.</p>
<p>It is generally believed, that where there are particular and specific
diseases, there also may be found appropriate and specific remedies; the
discoveries of chemistry, it is not improbable, may in some respects have
retarded the progress of natural medicine. In the early ages of the
world, the "healing plant" must have formed the staple of medical
commerce, for though Tubal Cain<a name="NtA73"
href="#Nt73"><sup>[73]</sup></a> has been considered as the first
surgical instrument maker, because he was the first artificer in brass
and iron, we have not discovered that chemical compounds entered into the
composition of physic, till very <!-- Page 186 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page186"></a>{186}</span>many years after his
time. To the alchemists we owe the science of chemistry, and much of the
physic of the present day may be traced to them. The multiplicity of
ingredients which at one time entered into the composition of one dose of
physic could only be spoken of under the title of "legion." Who shall
specify the active and curative ingredient (if there be one), when from
five to a hundred may have been exhibited at the same time? It has been
the pride of our physicians, that the pharmacopœia has been
simplified; it has not reached its most simple form yet. That many simple
plants have specific and wonderful power over disease, is an indubitable
fact, but I firmly believe that the laudable, though mistaken efforts of
physicians to improve their effect by various combinations, have been the
means of throwing many valuable medicines into oblivion; I must also add,
that cheap physic and adulterations have had no small share too in the
banishment of much valuable physic from ordinary practice. It has been
believed, and I think with much reason, that a thorough search into the
qualities of plants, would shew that "they are capable of affording not
only great relief, but also effectual and specific remedies." "That they
are not already found, is rather an argument that we have not been
sufficiently inquisitive, than that there are no such plants endued with
these virtues."</p>
<p>Of the result obtained by medical treatment, in cases of epidemic or
infectious disease, it is most <!-- Page 187 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page187"></a>{187}</span>difficult to speak, but as my province
here is only to shew that living germs are the morbific agents, I have
but to refer to such remedies as have been most extolled in controlling
these affections. The disinfectants have already been mentioned in a
cursory manner. An enumeration only of simple medicines used during the
late Epidemic, shall conclude this work, as the treatment in former times
could not by any possibility furnish satisfactory information. Aromatics
and fragrant stimulants have in all times taken the foremost rank with
acids, such as vinegar, lime and lemon juice. Mr. Guthrie's adoption of
lemon juice in preference to bark, which he said made him worse while
suffering from an attack of fever, during the Peninsular campaign, and
his speedy recovery from the disease, though not from its effects, shews,
when many others can bear equal testimony to its value, that such a
remedy though simple is not to be despised.</p>
<p>But to the late Epidemic. Dr. Stevens' saline treatment, appears, on
the whole, to have been the most successful. Common salt was used both
medically and dietetically, and formed the greatest bulk of the medicine
employed. Chlorate of potash and carbonate of soda were added to the
medicine.</p>
<p>The nitro-hydrochloric acid was used with success at St. Thomas's
Hospital.</p>
<p>Dr. Copland used chlorate of potash, bicarb. soda, hydrochloric,
ether, and camphor water.</p>
<p>Dr. Ayre's calomel treatment had as many, if <!-- Page 188 --><span
class="pagenum"><a name="page188"></a>{188}</span>not more, opponents
than advocates. Phosphorus had several advocates.</p>
<p>Creasote and camphor were lauded by some. The beneficial operation of
all these remedies might be explained on the theory here supposed, that
living germs are the cause of Epidemic disease, but the specific action
of any one remedy has not yet had sufficient attention or trial to enable
me to make any deductions of a satisfactory or conclusive nature.</p>
<p>In the uncertainty which generally prevailed as to the best method of
treating Cholera patients, I was induced (for reasons stated in a
pamphlet published last year) to try the efficacy of sulphur, which had
been extolled as a specific. In its effects I was not disappointed; but
as the results are already before the public, I need not do more than
refer to it among other remedies.</p>
<p>I did not contemplate even alluding to this subject, as it would
extend far beyond my intended limits. This portion of the enquiry would
be more properly carried out by keeping records of cases, treated in
accordance with the view attempted to be established, and I have not the
slightest hesitation in saying, that the most ample success would
ultimately attend a well directed practice, based upon the principles
inculcated in these pages.</p>
<hr class="full" />
<p><!-- Page 189 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page189"></a>{189}</span></p>
<h3>CONCLUSION.</h3>
<p>In making the foregoing sketch, I have attempted to put together some
ideas on a subject, which has for the last few years been a theme for
meditation in leisure hours, viz. What are the causes of Epidemic,
Endemic, and Infectious Diseases? The occurrence of Epidemic Cholera last
year in this country, awakened a spirit of enquiry. Where there is
unrest, whatever may be the cause, there also is disquiet and discontent.
When the oracles of the age were consulted in the emergency, the
discordant answers perplexed and confused the anxious searcher after
truth. In the spring of last year, when the enemy was approaching, unseen
and unheard, and the thousands of unconscious victims, who are now lying
in their graves, were faithfully trusting and fully relying on the heads
of our profession, and the resources of our art, what was the state of
our defences, and what the nature or character of our resistance? One
considerable body of men would discharge from a little tube of glass, a
host of almost invisible globular atoms of sugar, said to be as potent
and inscrutably operative as the unseen enemy. These infinitesimal
practitioners assured the people that they "<i>had powerful means of
subduing the disease</i>," <!-- Page 190 --><span class="pagenum"><a
name="page190"></a>{190}</span>but even they differed among themselves,
though they carried out to the fullest extent the doctrine of their
leader, <i>similia similibus</i>, which we may suppose to refer in this
case to the minuteness of the opposing armamenta. Without, however,
agreeing with this school, I may quote a passage from Dr. Curie, which
is, alas! too true: "We have shewn, as they must (allopathists), and many
of them do acknowledge, that they have no fixed basis, no natural law
upon which their treatment rests."</p>
<p>Who can deny the force of this observation? Sheltered by a principle,
it matters not how fallacious, a man is placed as behind a barrier. If
with any reason it could be shewn that the infinitesimal doses, could by
no possibility effect a cure in Cholera; if it could be demonstrated by
any line of argument, that a poison, a living poison, circulates with the
blood, or lodges in the tissues, the homæopathist must fall; his
"electricity and mineral magnetism," and "<i>powerful concentration of
life power towards the digestive canal</i>," will stand for what they are
worth. That minute doses of medicine can exert an active influence over
the body is not to be denied, but these must consist of powerful drugs,
as arnica, aconite, and nux vomica, with others, and it is more than
probable, that of such medicines, an inconceivably small amount may
produce a specific effect upon some portion of the organic nervous
system.</p>
<p>How is it that a dose of nitre or digitalis, "can <!-- Page 191
--><span class="pagenum"><a name="page191"></a>{191}</span>convert
cheerfulness into low spirits," or a grain of red sulphuret of antimony,
"excite warmth and lively spirits?"<a name="NtA74"
href="#Nt74"><sup>[74]</sup></a></p>
<p>Why should indigo dyers become melancholy, and scarlet dyers
choleric?<a name="NtA75" href="#Nt75"><sup>[75]</sup></a> We do not know.
But there is one thing we most certainly do know, that a poison may be
disarmed by an antidote, and the amount of the latter must be in
proportion to that of the former, and as epidemic and contagious diseases
do most unquestionably depend upon poisons of a specific nature, and of
great amount and activity, an infinitesimal remedy, however it may claim
to direct and control the organic forces, under slight and ordinary
disturbances, can be no more effectual in destroying the poison of fever,
or small pox, than in neutralizing arsenic or prussic acid.</p>
<p>The uncertainty which generally prevails as to the treatment of
Epidemic diseases, Fevers, &c. induced me to put together the notions
which are contained in these pages, in the hope of leading to some
definite ideas of the causes of these affections, and consequently to a
more uniform and scientific mode of treating them.</p>
<p>I have endeavoured to shew that reproduction is a phenomenon
inseparable from morbific matter, and that in all probability the
vegetable kingdom is the source of the germs.</p>
<p><!-- Page 192 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page192"></a>{192}</span></p>
<p>The train of argument adopted is such as appeared to me most natural
for such an enquiry, and it rests now only with those who are capable of
deciding whether such a course, though (I am sensibly aware) not without
many faults in conception and execution, is calculated to advance the
science of medicine and the interests of mankind.</p>
<p>The real tree of knowledge, possesses in the spongioles of its roots,
an elective property, by which truth alone can enter; nourished and
sustained by this, it sends a fragrant incense and breathing odour on
high, and dispels the mists of ignorance and superstition. In natural
causes and reasonable deductions we must seek for instruction and solid
information, for in over-straining either nature or art, deformity and
error must inevitably be the result.</p>
<h3>THE END.</h3>
<p>NORMAN AND SKEEN, PRINTERS, MAIDEN LANE, COVENT GARDEN.</p>
<hr class="full" />
<h3>NOTES</h3>
<div class="note">
<p><a name="Nt1" href="#NtA1">[1]</a> "It matters little how vague and
false hypotheses may appear at first: experiment will gradually reduce
and correct them, and all that is required, is industry to elaborate the
proof, and impartiality to secure it from
distortion."—<i>Sewell</i> "On the Cultivation of the
Intellect."</p>
<p><a name="Nt2" href="#NtA2">[2]</a> It is stated by Mr. Crosse, of
Norwich, that vaccination was adopted in Denmark, and made compulsory in
1800. After the year 1808 Small Pox no longer existed there, and was a
thing totally unknown; whereas during the twelve years preceding the
introduction of the preventive disease, 5,500 persons died of the Small
Pox in Copenhagen alone.—<i>Dr. Watson's Lectures.</i></p>
<p>Dr. Blick, an intelligent Danish physician, corroborated the above
statement to Dr. Watson himself in the year 1838.</p>
<p><a name="Nt3" href="#NtA3">[3]</a> Philosophy of Life, Lecture 6,
translated by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.</p>
<p><a name="Nt4" href="#NtA4">[4]</a> The following I quote from Dr.
Fuller on Small Pox and Measles:—</p>
<p>"To this purpose some (and particularly Kircherus) are of opinion that
animalcules have been the causes of malignant and pestilential fevers in
epidemic times, which differ in essence and symptoms, according to the
nature and venoms of those creatures.</p>
<p>"Thus the atmosphere and air is filled both from above and beneath
with innumerable millions of millions of species or corpuscles,
aporrhœas, steams, vapours, fumes, dust, little insects, &c.
all which make it such a wonderful chaotic compost of things that
contains the <i>seeds</i> of good and evil to man as surpasseth the
understanding (as I suppose) of even the highest order of
archangels."</p>
<p><a name="Nt5" href="#NtA5">[5]</a> I learn from an undoubted authority
that the cow when "slack of health" eats with avidity the "field
parsley;" the sheep under similar circumstances seeks the ivy, and the
goat the plantain.</p>
<p>From an equally good source I have the following: that rabbits and
hares, when they are what is commonly called <i>pot-gutted</i>, seek the
green broom, though at a distance of <i>twenty miles</i>.</p>
<p><a name="Nt6" href="#NtA6">[6]</a> "My settled opinion is, that in
regard every effect is necessarily such as its cause; it must needs be
that every sort of venomous fevers is produced by its proper and peculiar
species of virus.</p>
<p>"And that the manner and symptoms of every such fever is not so much
from the particular constitution of the sick; as from the different
nature and genius of their specific venom which caused them.</p>
<p>"And I conceive that venomous febrile matters differ not in degree of
intenseness only, but in essence and <i>toto genere</i> also; and that
venomous fevers are for the most part contagious."—<i>Thomas
Fuller, M. D. 1730.</i> "Another important class of organic poisons are
those which when introduced in almost inappreciable quantities into the
system, seem to increase in quantity; and which when communicated in the
same inappreciable quantity from the individual poisoned to one who is
healthy, excite the same series of febrile phenomena and local
inflammation, and the same increase in the quantity of the poisonous
agent."—<i>Med. Chir. Review.</i></p>
<p>"This unseen influence working in the body, presents very striking
analogies to the modes of operation of different poisons."—<i>Dr.
Ormerod on Continued Fever.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt7" href="#NtA7">[7]</a> I am aware that the vesicle does
not here strictly bear the relation to the original germ, supposing one
active particle alone to be sufficient for its production, that the egg
does to the bird, for in the former case multitudes of active particles
may have been generated from one. I have, therefore, merely used this
expression to signify an aggregation of vital forces, such as may be
imagined to exist in the bird.</p>
<p><a name="Nt8" href="#NtA8">[8]</a> "At an early period the form of the
ovisacs is usually elliptical, and their size extremely
minute,—their long diameter measuring in the ox no more than 1/562
of an inch, so that a cubic inch would contain nearly two hundred
millions of them. They are <i>at this time</i> quite distinct from the
<i>stroma</i> of the ovarium; this forms a cavity in which they are
loosely embedded."</p>
<p><a name="Nt9" href="#NtA9">[9]</a> Coleridge, p. 56.</p>
<p><a name="Nt10" href="#NtA10">[10]</a> "All vegetables," says Sharon
Turner, "from that pettiness which escapes our natural sight, to that
magnitude which we feel to be gigantic, have these properties in common
with all animals—organization; an interior power of progressive
growth, a principle of life, with many phenomena that resemble
irritability, excitability, and susceptibility, and a self-reproductive
and multiplying faculty."—<i>Sharon Turner's Sacred
History.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt11" href="#NtA11">[11]</a> "Plants highly sensitive to
light are those of the leguminous, or Pea kind. They always close up in
the evening and clasp their two upper surfaces together, presenting only
their backs to the air. Plants of pinnated leaves, as the Tansy, are more
sensible than these to the effects of light. They fold up when light is
too strong, as in Robinia; it produces the same effect as want of light.
Its leaves close up, apparently, because they are receiving too much. So
they do if a hot iron be brought near them. They contract as if to avoid
the heat. Sensitive plants, and those of the Oxalis Lent. are so
sensitive that the least motion, even a breath of air, will make them
close."—<i>Sir J. Smith.</i></p>
<p>"The vitality of plants seems to depend upon the existence of an
irritability, which although far inferior to that of animals, is
nevertheless of an analogous character."—<i>Lindley's Introduction
to Botany.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt12" href="#NtA12">[12]</a> Provincial Medical and Surgical
Journal. July 10th, 1850. No. xiv. p. 367. "Practical Observations on the
Vaccination Question." By E. Oke Spooner, M. R. C. S., Blandford.</p>
<p>"If we examine the Cow Pox and the Small Pox microscopically, as I
have done very carefully in every stage, we find that the essential
character consists of a number of minute cells, not exceeding the
10,000th part of an inch in diameter, being about one-fourth smaller than
the globules of the blood, containing <i>within their circumference many
still more minute nuclei, and presenting</i> beyond their circumference
bud-like cells of the same size and character as those contained within
the circle. They exactly resemble in everything except the size, the
globules of the yeast plant, the Torula Cerevesiæ. Now if we examine more
circumstantially the analogies of what I would call the Torula Variolæ
with the Torula Cerevesiæ, we observe the following corresponding
facts.</p>
<p>"What do we accomplish by inoculation as it is called? Simply this. We
take on the top of a lancet, or an ivory point, a few of these minute
cells or germs, and we put them <i>in their appropriate nidus</i>, the
subcuticular tissue, where, after a few days if they find their
appropriate nutrient elements, they grow and multiply."</p>
<p>Simon, Chemistry of Man, vol. i. p. 127. "Macgregor ascertained that
the air expired by persons ill of confluent Small Pox, contained as much
as <i>eight</i> per cent of carbonic acid, and in proportion as health
was restored the percentage was diminished to its natural standard."
Carbonic acid is also produced during the process of fermentation and
germination.</p>
<p><a name="Nt13" href="#NtA13">[13]</a> See History of the Jews, p.
71.</p>
<p><a name="Nt14" href="#NtA14">[14]</a> It is said by Whewell, that the
murrain is supposed to have fallen only on the animals which were in the
open pasture.—<i>History of the Jews.</i></p>
<p>"J. S. Michael Leger, published at Vienna, in 1775, a treatise
concerning the mildew as the principal cause of the epidemic disease
among cattle. The mildew is that which <i>burns</i> and <i>dries</i> the
grass and leaves. It is observed early in the morning, particularly after
<i>thunder-storms</i>. Its poisonous quality, which does not last above
twenty-four hours, never operates but when it is swallowed immediately
after its falling."—<i>Mitchell on Fevers.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt15" href="#NtA15">[15]</a> "The prevalence of the
south-east wind was observed to be particularly favourable to the
increase of both cholera and influenza: and I cannot but think that this
had some connexion with the general tendency exhibited by the former to
spread from east to west. Has the morbific property of this wind aught to
do with the haziness of the air when it prevails—a haziness seen in
the country remote from smoke, and quite distinct from fog? What is this
haze? In the west of England a hazy day in spring is called a
<i>blight</i>."—<i>Dr. Williams' Principles of Medicine.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt16" href="#NtA16">[16]</a> We are to understand also that
some peculiar operation took place of a nature difficult to comprehend,
which seems also to typify reproduction, for the handfuls of ashes which
Moses threw into the air <i>became a dust in all the land of Egypt</i>,
thus signifying an enormous reproduction of atomic matter.</p>
<p><a name="Nt17" href="#NtA17">[17]</a> The Chinese affect to trace the
origin of Small Pox back to a period of at least 3000 years, or 20 years
beyond the era of the Trojan war, 1212, A. C.</p>
<p>The Chinese pretend to discriminate no less than 40 different species
of Small Pox.</p>
<p>"They also pretend to discover whether a person has died by violence
or from natural causes, not only after the body has been some time
interred and decomposition of the softer parts has commenced, but even
after the total disappearance of the soft parts, and when the dry
skeleton alone is left."—For the process, see <i>Hamilton's History
of Medicine</i>, vol. i. p. 31.</p>
<p>To give some notion of the state of Medical Science among the Chinese,
I may quote the following: "The theory of the circulation of the blood,
Du Halde affirms, was known by the Chinese about 400 years after the
deluge; be this assertion veracious or not, no correct knowledge up to
the present day, do the nation possess of the circulating system of the
human frame."—<i>China and the Chinese, Henry Charles Sirr, M.
A.</i></p>
<p>According to their anatomy, the trachea extends from the larynx
through the lungs to the heart, whilst the œsophagus goes over them
to the stomach.</p>
<p><a name="Nt18" href="#NtA18">[18]</a> "And Aaron took as Moses
commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation: and behold the
plague was begun among the people; and he put on incense and made an
atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living,
and the plague was stayed."—<i>Numbers.</i></p>
<p>The practice of burning scented herbs has been observed in all times
during an invasion of the plague, as a means of protection. Also wearing
perfumes and aromatic preparations has been recommended. Whether they
have any counteracting influence, it is impossible to say.</p>
<p>Virgil in the third Georgic speaks of a murrain among cattle. He says,
if any wore a vestment made of wool from an infected sheep, fiery blains
and filthy sweat overspread his body, and ere long a pestilential fire
preyed upon his infected limbs.</p>
<p>In his directions for preserving the health of flocks he
says—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="hg3">"Disce et odoratam stabulis accendere cedrum."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The motive for burning the fragrant cedar is not mentioned; we cannot
doubt but it was a good one, and having some great practical utility,
from the following line—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="hg3">"Galbaneoque agitare graves nidore chelydros."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p><a name="Nt19" href="#NtA19">[19]</a> The earliest mention of this
complaint upon which reliance can be placed, is an ancient Arabic MS.
preserved in the public library at Leyden. "This year, in fine, the Small
Pox and Measles made their first appearance in Arabia." The year alluded
to being that of the birth of Mahomet, or the year 572 of the Christian
æra.—<i>Hamilton's History of Medicine</i>, vol. i. p. 215.</p>
<p><a name="Nt20" href="#NtA20">[20]</a> Dr. W. A. Greenhill's
translation.</p>
<p><a name="Nt21" href="#NtA21">[21]</a> The Black Assize at Oxford,
1572, is an instance in which a pestilential vapour suddenly appeared in
the court, "whereby the judge, several noblemen, and more than 300
others, died within three days."</p>
<p>"Of an unaccountable vapour suddenly coming, I have this relation from
Richard Humphrey, my neighbour, and a man of veracity, that on Wednesday,
April 27, 1727, as he and one Walter, were travelling a-foot from
Canterbury; when they came to Rainham, they were assaulted with such a
strong loathsome stink, as he thought was like the stench from a
corrupted human corpse. They were so offended at it, as thinking it was
from carrion in that town, that they would not stay there to rest and
refresh themselves, but travelled on for about two hours, mostly in the
stench, but sometimes out of it, till they came to the hill that leads
down to Chatham: and there they went clear out of it and smelt it no
more."—<i>Dr. Fuller</i>.</p>
<p>It appears that these persons did not fall sick of any disease, but
the fact of itself is remarkable enough.</p>
<p><a name="Nt22" href="#NtA22">[22]</a> Hamilton's History of
Medicine.</p>
<p><a name="Nt23" href="#NtA23">[23]</a> It has been said, that "an
induction once carefully drawn, is as perfect from a single instance as
it is from ten thousand, and that it is only an uncultivated mind which
requires a load and accumulation of knowledge to assist his
thoughts."—<i>Sewell</i> "on the Cultivation of the Intellect."</p>
<p><a name="Nt24" href="#NtA24">[24]</a> See Dr. Alison's Pamphlet on the
Fever in Edinburgh.</p>
<p><a name="Nt25" href="#NtA25">[25]</a> Earthquakes have in all times
been considered to have some connexion with pestilences. "A most grievous
pestilence broke out in Seleucia, which from thence to Parthia, Greece,
and Italy, spread itself through a great part of the world, from the
opening of an ancient vault in the temple of Apollo, and that it raged
with so much fury as to sweep away a third part of the inhabitants of
those countries it visited."—<i>Dr. Quincy, on the Causes of
Pestilential Disease.</i></p>
<p>"Upon an earthquake the earth sends forth noisome vapours which infect
the air; so it was observed to be at Hull in Yorkshire, by the Rev. Mr.
Banks, of that place, after a small earthquake there in 1703, it was a
most sickly time for a considerable while afterwards, and the greatest
mortality that had been known for fifteen years."—<i>Anonymous</i>,
1769.</p>
<p><a name="Nt26" href="#NtA26">[26]</a> See Sharon Turner's Sacred
History, text and notes, vol. i. p. 161 & 162.</p>
<p></p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<span class="unpoem"><a name="Nt27" href="#NtA27">[27]</a></span>
<p class="hg3">"Each seed includes a plant; that plant, again,</p>
<p>Has other seeds, which other plants contain,</p>
<p>Those other plants have all their seeds; and those</p>
<p>More plants, again, successively enclose.</p>
<p>Thus ev'ry single berry that we find,</p>
<p>Has really in itself whole forests of its kind.</p>
<p>Empire and wealth one acorn may dispense,</p>
<p>By fleets to sail a thousand ages hence;</p>
<p>Each myrtle-seed includes a thousand groves,</p>
<p>Where future bards may warble forth their loves."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p><a name="Nt28" href="#NtA28">[28]</a> "On June 5th, 1849, a man and
his son, a lad aged 14 years, left Noss to fish, and when five miles out
at sea, no vessel being in sight, they both simultaneously became aware
of a hot <i>offensive</i> stream of air passing over them. It was so
decided, that the crab pots were examined to discover if it were from
them, but it did not, and five minutes after the father's attention was
directed to the boy, who was vomiting and purging."—<i>Dr. Roe on
the Cholera at Plymouth, Med. Gaz. Aug. 24th, 1850.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt29" href="#NtA29">[29]</a> Linnæus remarked that Erigeron
Canadense was introduced into gardens near Paris from North America. The
seeds had been carried by the wind, and this plant was in the course of a
century spread over all France, Italy, Sicily and Belgium.</p>
<p><a name="Nt30" href="#NtA30">[30]</a> Hecker.</p>
<p><a name="Nt31" href="#NtA31">[31]</a> This is found most generally to
be the case where rivers flow through uncultivated tracts of country. The
Californian emigrants suffer much from diarrhœa and dysentery, if
they drink of the river and certain well waters of that gold
district.</p>
<p><a name="Nt32" href="#NtA32">[32]</a> "Purification from leprosy. As
this fearful disease was contagious and hereditary to the third and
fourth generation, the separation of lepers from the camp and
congregation, and the destruction of infected houses and clothes, was of
the utmost importance to the preservation of public health.</p>
<p>"Leprosy was of three kinds: 1st, Leprosy in man. 2nd, Leprosy in
houses. 3rd, Leprosy in clothes.</p>
<p>"Contagious or malignant leprosy was of two kinds, viz.</p>
<p>"1st. The white leprosy, or bright berat, which was the most serious
and obstinate form which leprosy assumes. It exhibited itself as a bright
white and spreading scale, on an elevated base; turning the hair white in
patches, which were continually spreading.</p>
<p>"2nd. The black leprosy, or dusky berat, which was less serious than
the foregoing. It did not change the colour of the hair, nor was there
any depression in the dusky spot; but the patches were perpetually
spreading, as in the white leprosy."—<i>Analysis and Summary of Old
Testament History.</i> <i>Oxford.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt33" href="#NtA33">[33]</a> The Mexican Aloe blows when nine
years old, and then dies. At least this is its usual course in the island
of Cuba.</p>
<p><a name="Nt34" href="#NtA34">[34]</a> "Ground that has not been
disturbed for some hundred years, on being ploughed, has frequently
surprised the cultivator by the appearance of plants which he never
sowed, and often which were then unknown to the country. The principle
has been ascertained to be capable of existing in this latent state for
above 2000 years, unextinguished, and springing again into active
vegetation, as soon as planted in a congenial soil.</p>
<p>"In boring for water near Kingston on Thames, some earth was brought
up from a depth of 360 feet, and though carefully covered with a
hand-glass to prevent the possibility of other seeds being deposited on
it, was yet in a short time covered with vegetation.</p>
<p>"Turner says, from the depth, these seeds must have been of the
diluvian age."—<i>Jesse's Gleanings.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt35" href="#NtA35">[35]</a> Hamilton's History of Medicine,
vol. ii. p. 276, note.</p>
<p><a name="Nt36" href="#NtA36">[36]</a> "What I wish you to remark is
this, that while almost all men are prone to take the disorder, large
portions of the world have remained for centuries entirely exempt from
it, until at length it was imported, and that then it infallibly diffused
and established itself in those parts."—<i>Dr. Watson on the
Principles and Practice of Physic.</i></p>
<p>Dr. R. Williams says, "The seeds of intermittent fever lay dormant for
months, it was not at all uncommon for cases of intermittent fever to be
brought into the hospital eight or ten months after the patients had
subjected themselves to the influence of paludal or marsh effluvia."</p>
<p><a name="Nt37" href="#NtA37">[37]</a> I have observed in the
hot-houses, that many of the exotic plants, which are in company with the
diseased vines, have been attacked, while others again have been entirely
free.</p>
<p><a name="Nt38" href="#NtA38">[38]</a> By causes of the greatest
variety plants may become extinct for a time. It is not very easy to
trace them, but one fact may be mentioned in proof of the statement. Dr.
Prichard states that vast forests are destroyed either for the purpose of
tillage or accidentally by conflagrations. "The same trees do not
reappear in the same spots, but they have successors, which seem
regularly to take their place. Thus the pine forests of North America
when burnt, afford room to forests of oak trees."</p>
<p><a name="Nt39" href="#NtA39">[39]</a> Hecker says of Chalin de
Vinario, that "he asserted boldly and with truth, that <i>all epidemic
diseases might become contagious, and all fevers
epidemic</i>,—which attentive observers of all subsequent ages have
confirmed." P. 60.</p>
<p><a name="Nt40" href="#NtA40">[40]</a> In 1539, the thirty-first year
of Henry the Eighth, was great death of burning agues and flixes; and
such a drought that welles and small rivers were dryed up, and many
cattle dyed for lacke of water; the salt water flowed above London
Bridge.—<i>Stowe.</i></p>
<p>In 1556, the fourth of Mary, and the third of Philip, about this time
began the burning fevers, quarterne agues, and other strange diseases,
whereof died many.—<i>Stowe.</i></p>
<p>The next winter, 1557, the quarterne agues continued in like manner,
or more vehemently than they had done the last
yere.—<i>Stowe.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt41" href="#NtA41">[41]</a> Every writer on the climate of
Egypt has remarked, that the Endemic Fever which is so frequent,
originating on the coast, particularly about Alexandria, becomes
occasionally so virulent, that it cannot be distinguished from the
<i>true Plague.</i>—<i>Robertson on the Atmosphere</i>, vol. 2. p.
384.</p>
<p>"Endemial Fevers of every situation become occasionally so aggravated,
that they cannot be distinguished from such as originate from contagion;
and in every unusual virulence of this Endemic Fever, it is probable that
it may be propagated afterwards by contagion as every epidemic."
<i>Ibid.</i> p. 388.</p>
<p><a name="Nt42" href="#NtA42">[42]</a> Dr. Ure.</p>
<p><a name="Nt43" href="#NtA43">[43]</a> "The metamorphosis of starch
into sugar depends simply, as is proved by analysis, on the addition of
the elements of water. All the carbon of the starch is found in the
sugar; none of its elements have been separated, and except the elements
of water, no foreign element has been added to it in this
transformation."—<i>Liebig</i>, <i>Organic Chemistry</i>, p.
71.</p>
<p><a name="Nt44" href="#NtA44">[44]</a> As regards starch there appears
to be some peculiar faculty regarding it. It is converted into sugar
during the ripening of fruit, and it is just possible that being as it is
of a cellular nature, the property of vitality may attach to it until it
has, by being converted into sugar, fulfilled its destination.</p>
<p><a name="Nt45" href="#NtA45">[45]</a> Though I do not consider that
the fermentation process is a fac-simile of diseased action, yet I think
its phenomena generally afford an apt illustration of the changes which
may be effected by living germs. Many able chemists still maintain the
entire dependence of fermentation upon the Torula: "M. Blondeau propounds
the view that <i>every kind</i> of fermentation is <i>caused</i> by the
development of fungi."</p>
<p>The varieties of opinions found in the literature of this subject,
forms a curious specimen of scientific enquiry, and is sufficient alone
to convince us of its vast importance and extensive relations.</p>
<p><a name="Nt46" href="#NtA46">[46]</a> By Dr. Mantell.</p>
<p><a name="Nt47" href="#NtA47">[47]</a> Mitchell on Fevers.</p>
<p><a name="Nt48" href="#NtA48">[48]</a> We wonder, and ask ourselves:
"What does <span class="scac">SMALL</span> mean in
Nature?"—<i>Schleiden's Lectures on Botany.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt49" href="#NtA49">[49]</a> Speaking of the bunt in wheat:
"It appears certainly to be contagious, from numerous experiments, which
shew that the contagious principle lasts a long time. I have tried it
myself; some, however, doubt it, but it cannot be denied, that seed sown,
infected with bunt, produces plants similarly affected; every one who has
had the slightest experience must be convinced of it."—<i>Essay on
the Diseases of Plants.</i> <i>Count Ré.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt50" href="#NtA50">[50]</a> We have already spoken of the
effects of these poisons, and have stated that the amount of each poison
capable of destroying the body is pretty accurately known.</p>
<p><a name="Nt51" href="#NtA51">[51]</a> The italics are my own.</p>
<p><a name="Nt52" href="#NtA52">[52]</a> Gmelin says: "But the mode of
action in these transformations, sometimes admits of other explanations;
and when this is not the case, our conception of it is by no means
sufficiently clear to justify the positive assumption of this, so called
contact-action or catalytic force, which, after all, merely states the
fact without explaining it"—<i>Gmelin's Hand-book of Chemistry</i>,
vol. i. p. 115.</p>
<p><a name="Nt53" href="#NtA53">[53]</a> The history and symptoms of some
epidemic diseases, such as cholera and influenza, are not inconsistent
with the hypothesis that they are caused by the sudden development of
animalcules from ova in the blood. But there is a total want of direct
observation in support of this hypothesis.—<i>Dr. Williams'
Principles of Medicine.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt54" href="#NtA54">[54]</a> Since writing the above, I have
referred for information on this subject, and find, that the Anguillula
aceti exhibits sexual distinctions; and that the ovaries of the females
are situated on each side of the alimentary canal.—<i>Cyclo. Anat.
and Phys. Art. Entozoa.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt55" href="#NtA55">[55]</a> Speaking of the examination of
the infusory animalcules—Mr. Kirby says: "But to us the wondrous
spectacle is seen, and known only in part; for those that still escape
all our methods of assisting sight, and remain members of the invisible
world, may probably <i>far exceed those that we
know</i>."—<i>Bridgewater Treatise</i>, vol. i. p. 158.</p>
<p><a name="Nt56" href="#NtA56">[56]</a> Mr. Owen has added another
class, as the first, called Protelmintha, which comprises the cercariadæ
and vibrionidæ.</p>
<p><a name="Nt57" href="#NtA57">[57]</a> "It is probable that in the
waters of our globe an infinity of animal and vegetable molecules are
suspended, that are too minute to form the food of even the lowest and
minute animals of the visible creation: and therefore an infinite host of
invisibles was necessary to remove them as
nuisances."—<i>Bridgewater Treatise</i>, vol. i. p. 159.</p>
<p>"When Creative Wisdom covered the earth with plants, and peopled it
with animals, He laid the foundations of the vegetable and animal
kingdoms with such as were most easily convertible into nutriment for the
tribes immediately above them. The first plants, and the first animals,
are scarcely more than animated molecules,* and appear analogues of each
other; and those above them in each kingdom represent jointed
fibrils."†—<i>Bridgewater Treatise</i>, vol. i. p. 162.</p>
<p>* Globulina and Monus. †
Oscillatoria and Vibrio.</p>
<p><a name="Nt58" href="#NtA58">[58]</a> "A treatise which should present
a systematic arrangement of all the diseases of plants, giving in detail
the exact history of each, and adding the means of preventing and curing
them, would certainly be of the greatest utility to agriculture."
—<i>Essay on the Diseases of Plants, Count Philippo Ré, translated
into Gardener's Chron.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt59" href="#NtA59">[59]</a> "Plenck published a treatise on
Vegetable Pathology, in which he divided diseases into eight classes: 1.
External injuries; 2. Flux of juices; 3. Debility; 4. Cachexies; 5.
Putrefactions; 6. Excrescences; 7. Monstrosities; and 8. Sterility. And
he concludes with an enumeration of the animals which injure
plants."—<i>Essay on the Diseases of Plants, Gardener's
Chronicle.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt60" href="#NtA60">[60]</a> The Bunt. "This disease appears
at the moment of the germination of the plant. The affected individuals
are of a dark green, and the stem is discoloured. As the ears are issuing
from the sheaths, their stalks are of a dark green, but very slender.
When the ear has fully grown out, its dull, dirty colour, causes it to be
immediately distinguished from the healthy ones, and it soon turns
white."—<i>Essay on the Diseases of Plants.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt61" href="#NtA61">[61]</a> <i>Vidi</i> understood.</p>
<p><a name="Nt62" href="#NtA62">[62]</a> "At the close of the year 1665,"
says Dr. Hodges, "even women, before deemed barren, were said to prove
prolific."</p>
<p>"After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in women
was every where remarkable—a grand phenomenon, which from its
occurrence after every destructive pestilence proves to conviction, if
any occurrence can do so, the prevalence of a higher power in the
direction of general organic life. Marriages were almost without
exception prolific; and double and treble births were more frequent than
at other times."—<i>Hecker</i>, p. 31.</p>
<p><a name="Nt63" href="#NtA63">[63]</a> It is stated that on the decline
of the Plague, 1665, those who returned early to London, or new comers,
were certain to be attacked. In proof of this the 1st week of November,
the deaths increased 400, and "physicians reported that above 3000 fell
sick that week, mostly new comers."</p>
<p>See also Dr. Copland's Dict. Pract. Med. Epidemic and Endemic
Diseases.</p>
<p>"The hardy mountaineer is a surer victim of paludal fever, whether he
visits the low countries of the tropics, or the marshes of a more
temperate climate, than the feebler native of those
countries."—<i>Dr. R. Williams on Morbid Poisons.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt64" href="#NtA64">[64]</a> "Substances presented to the
gastro-intestinal surfaces, are mixed up with various secretions, mucus,
saliva, gastric juice, bile, pancreatic liquor, and special exudations
from the peculiar glands of each successive section, while aerial
poisons, unmixed and unfettered, are applied at once to a surface on
which, behind scarcely a shadow of a film, circulates the blood prepared,
by the habitual action of the respiratory function, to absorb almost
every vapour, and every odour, which may not be too irritating to pass
the gates of the <i>glottis</i>."—<i>Mitchell on Fevers.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt65" href="#NtA65">[65]</a> Hecker on the "Black Death."</p>
<p><a name="Nt66" href="#NtA66">[66]</a> The stomach in some cases is no
doubt the medium by which some diseases are contracted. It is well known,
that in many places the water induces diarrhœa, the permanent
residents, however, may not suffer, but all new comers are more or less
affected by drinking it.</p>
<p><a name="Nt67" href="#NtA67">[67]</a> "Similar effects have been
experienced from the use of mouldy provisions."—<i>Dr. Lindley's
Vegetable Kingdom.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt68" href="#NtA68">[68]</a> "Untold numbers die of the
diseases produced by scanty and <i>unwholesome
food</i>."—<i>Southey.</i></p>
<p>A large, nay, a most extensive adulteration of flour with plaster of
Paris was detected not many years since. The flour was supplied by a
contractor for the manufacture of biscuits for the navy.</p>
<p><a name="Nt69" href="#NtA69">[69]</a> See Southey's Doctor, vol. ii.
interchapter vi. p. 115, for an illustration of this subject.</p>
<p><a name="Nt70" href="#NtA70">[70]</a> Both these patients died.</p>
<p><a name="Nt71" href="#NtA71">[71]</a> "A good part of the clove trees
which grew so plentifully in the island of Ternate, being felled at the
solicitation of the Dutch, in order to heighten the price of that fruit,
such a change ensued in the air, <i>as shewed the salutary effect of the
effluvia of clove trees and their blossoms; the whole island, soon after
they were cut down, becoming exceeding sickly</i>."</p>
<p><a name="Nt72" href="#NtA72">[72]</a> The observation is originally
taken from the City Remembrancer, 133.</p>
<p><a name="Nt73" href="#NtA73">[73]</a> See Hamilton's History of
Medicine, vol. i. p. 4.</p>
<p><a name="Nt74" href="#NtA74">[74]</a> Feuchtersleben's Medical
Psychology, p. 176, 177.</p>
<p><a name="Nt75" href="#NtA75">[75]</a> Ibid. p. 321.</p>
</div>
<pre>
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