TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 

 CHOLERA EPIDEMICA. 



127 



Care should be taken to fix distinctly the time of invasion and the 

 time of recovery, whether it imply the time when the patient can first 

 digest food, or resume his ordinary occupation. The time of death is 

 easily determined. The cases of small-pox and cholera comprehend all 

 the diseases to which they give rise, or which follow in the same unm- 

 terrupted series of morbid phenomena. The nature of the consecutive 

 diseases should be recorded. The author is anxious to impress strongly 

 upon every practitioner the utility of this simple registry of diseases, fol- 

 lowing them from the beginning to the end of their course. The results 

 already obtained prove that the harvest will be rich : they show the ad- 

 vantage too of extended observations, carried on by numerous obser- 

 vers, on a uniform plan. No one person could have observed 900 cases 

 of cholera, and the law could not have been deduced from a small num- 

 ber of observations. 



Several practical inferences are suggested by this investigation. 



1 . It demonstrates the important fact, that pathological phenomena 

 are as regular in their course as physical phenomena observed in inor- 

 ganic matter ; and that the instruments of physical investigation are 

 applicable to medicine : for, after due allowance has been made for 

 errors of observation and the limited number of cases, it will be found 

 that the facts can be as exactly expressed by formulae, as any facts in 

 the province of natural philosophy. 



2. A new field will be opened to the mathematician, and many inter- 

 esting problems will arise for solution when accurate observations have 

 been°collected. If the abstract sciences are every day descending to 

 practical applications, the empirical arts are also rapidly rising into the 

 region of knowledge. 



On Sleep, and an Apparatus for promoting Artificial Respiration. By 

 John Dalziel, M.D. 



In an essay on sleep drawn up in 1833, which constitutes the first 

 part of this communication, the author directed particular attention to 

 the dependence of this state on the feeling of fatigue in the nmscles of 

 respiration. The effects which foUoAv this feeling are, diminished ac- 

 tion of the organs and function of respiration ; diminished action of the 

 organs and function of circulation ; diminished supply of arterial blood 

 in a given time to the brain ; and, finally, sleep as an immediate conse- 

 quence of the latter condition. In the subsequent part of the paper, 



