38 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 220. 



NON-RECURRING DISEASES. 



(Vol.viii., p. 516.) 



To give a full and satisfactory answer to the 

 questions here proposed would involve so much 

 professional and physiological detail, as would be 

 unsuited to the character of such a publication as 

 " N. & Q." I will therefore content myself with 

 short categorical replies, agreeable to the present 

 state of our knowledge of these mysteries of the 

 animal economy. It is true as a general rule that 

 the infectious diseases, particularly the exanthe- 

 mata, or those attended by eruption — the measles 

 for example — occur but once. But there are 

 exceptional cases, and the most virulent of these 

 non-recurrent diseases, such even as small-pox, 

 are sometimes taken a second time, and are then 

 sometimes, though by no means always, fatal. 



Why all the mammalia (for, be it observed, these 

 diseases are not confined to the human race) are 

 subject to these accidents, or why the animal 

 economy should be subject to such a turmoil at 

 all, or, being so subject, why the susceptibility to 

 the recurrence of the morbid action should exist, 

 or be revived in some and not in others ; and 

 why in the majority of persons it should be ex- 

 tinguished at once and for ever, remain amongst 

 the arcana of Nature, to which, as yet, the physi- 

 ology of all the Hunters, and the animal chemistry 

 of all the Liebigs, give no solution. 



Those persons who take note of the able, and 

 in general highly instructive, reports of the Re- 

 gistrar of Public Health, will observe that the 

 word zymotic is now frequently used to signify 

 the introduction into the body of some morbific 

 poisons, — such as prevail in the atmosphere, or 

 are thrown off by diseased bodies, or generated in 

 the unwholesome congregation of a crowded popu- 

 lation, which are supposed to act like yeast in a 

 beer vat, exciting ferments in the constitution, in 

 the case of the infectious diseases, similar to those 

 which gave them birth. But this explains no- 

 thing, and only shifts the difficulty and changes 

 the terms, and is no better than a modification of 

 the opinions of our forefathers, who attributed all 

 such disorders to a fermentation of the supposed 

 " humours " of the body. The essence of these 

 changes in the animal economy, like other phe- 

 nomena of the living principle, remain, and perhaps 

 ever will remain, an unfathomable mystery. It 

 is our business to investigate, as much as in our 

 power, and by a slow and cautious induction, the 

 laws by which they are governed. 



Non-recurrence, or immunity from any future 

 seizure in a person who has had an infectious 

 disease, seems derivable from some invisible and 

 unknown impression* made on the constitution. 



* This word is used for want of a better, to signify 

 some unknown change. 



There is good reason to suppose that this im- 

 pression may vary in degree in different indivi- 

 duals, and in the same individual at different 

 times ; and thence some practical inferences are 

 to be drawn which have not yet been well ad- 

 vanced into popular view, but to which I cannot 

 advert unless some reader of " N. & Q." put the 

 question. M. (2) 



MILTON S WIDOW. 



(Vol. viii., p. 594. &c.) 



Garlichithe's apologies to Mr. Hughes are 

 due, not so much for neglecting his communica- 

 tions as for misquoting them. We all owe an 

 apology to your readers for keeping up so perti- 

 naciously a subject of which I fear they will begin 

 to be tired. 



Mr. Hughes has not stated that Richard Min- 

 shull of Chester, son of Richard Minshull, the 

 writer of the letter of May 3, 1656, was born in 

 1641. What Mr. Hughes did state (Vol. viii., 

 p. 200.) was, that Mrs. Milton's brother, Richard 

 Minshull of Wistaston, was baptized on April 7 

 in that year ; and the statement is quite correct, 

 as I can vouch, from having examined the bap- 

 tismal register. Richard Minshull of Chester was 

 aged forty or forty-one at the date of his father's 

 letter, as shown below ; but even if he had been 

 aged only fifteen, as supposed by Garlichithe, I 

 do not see that there is anything in the language 

 of the letter to call for observation. He had con- 

 veyed to his father a communication from Randle 

 Holmes, and the father writes in answer, — "Deare 

 and loveing sonne, my love and best respects to 

 you and to my daughter [Garlichithe may read 

 daughter-in-law if he likes, but I see no necessity 

 for it], tendered w th trust of y r health. I have 

 reaceived Mr. Alderman Holmes his letter, to- 

 gether with y", wherin I understand that you 

 desire to know what I can say concerning our 

 coming out of Minshull House ;" and he proceeds 

 to give the information asked for. 



Garlichithe, in his former communication, 

 confounds Randle the great-grandfather with 

 Randle the great-grandson, and in his present 

 one he confounds Richard Minshull of Chester, 

 the uncle, with Richard Minshull of Wistaston, 

 the nephew. I agree with Garlichithe that 

 " he, Richard, the writer of the said letter, must 

 be fairly presumed to have been married at the 

 date of such letter," which he addresses to his 

 "Deare and loveing sonne;" but what of that? 

 Whom he married, your readers are informed at 

 p. 595. He died in the year following his letter, 

 at the ripe age of eighty-six. 



The misquotations noticed above would, if not 

 pointed out, lead to inextricable confusion of 

 facts ; and I am compelled therefore again to 



