504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" contagium " and the " miasm," which have given rise to much mis- 

 understanding, would best be dispensed with altogether ; and that the 

 designation " infective material " (Infectionstoff), which is common to 

 both contagium and miasm, should be divided into entogen and ec- 

 togen, according as the material is obtained from the sick body or the 

 locality (soil). According to many, cholera would belong to the en- 

 togenous section, and according to others to the ectogenous division. 

 The supporters of the first view might be termed " contagionists " ; 

 the supporters of the second "localists." As is always the case in 

 medicine, the conflict of views is important, inasmuch as the meas- 

 ures to be adopted in the healing and prevention of a disease depend 

 on the theoretical conception of it. 



All readers know that cholera originated in the East Indies, and 

 most individuals are also aware that the epidemic spread into Europe 

 in the present century (1830). We shall first speak of its age in India, 

 the home of cholera. There the disease appears to have existed at 

 all times ; not only at the time of the discovery of the sea-passage 

 to India by the Portuguese, but long before, as the oldest Sanskrit 

 writings show. Many hundreds of years before the birth of Christ 

 the disease was accurately described and its epidemics spoken of as at- 

 tended with mahd mart {magna mors, great death). In these writ- 

 ings the disease appears under widely different names, which are taken 

 from the chief symptoms : 1. VishU dschikd, vomiting and sweating ; 

 2. Alasikd, cramps which bring on exhaustion and stiffness ; 3. Hilam- 

 hikd, which is perhaps best translated by the term " collapse." An- 

 other word which is often used in India is taken from the Mahratta, 

 niordeshin or mordschi, which has been translated into French as niori 

 de chien, but which also means "collapse." 



In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a. d. there are abun- 

 dant proofs and descriptions of epidemics of this disease. The dis- 

 ease is best known in Europe under the names of cholera, cholera 

 morbus, Asiatic cholera, since the epidemic of 1817 to 1819, in which 

 the English army, under the command of the Marquis of Hastings 

 during a war against the natives, was rendered unfit for fighting and 

 almost annihilated. But cholera had never visited Europe till the 

 present century, when in 1830 it appeared in Russia and spread to 

 Poland, where war was prevailing. Since that time, sometimes at 

 longer and sometimes at shorter intervals, cholera has appeared in 

 Europe. The question why cholera remained a thousand years in 

 India before it first began to migrate is one of great interest, but 

 one which can not be satisfactorily answered. The principal consid- 

 eration appears to me to be that the event happened at the time when 

 intercommunication in all directions, both by water and land, had be- 

 come more rapid. The first steamship appeared in the Indian waters 

 at the beginning of the second decade of the present century. By 

 land also intercourse was greatly accelerated. The Russians possibly 



