314 The Mortality of Liverpool, | July, 
Again :—“Tf famine be the great predisposing cause of typhus, 
over-crowding is something more ; for there is much evidence to show 
that it can actually excite the disease in destitute persons. In regard 
to this, the various synonyms under which typhus has been described 
at different times are highly suggestive: the old terms—‘jail dis- 
temper,’ ‘ camp fever,’ ‘ hospital fever,’ and the like, point to instances 
in some of which, no doubt, the disease was only fostered by crowding 
and deficient ventilation, but in great numbers of which typhus was 
Soe actually bred from the circumstances of the time and 
place.’’* 
Secondly, concerning Cholera :— 
“No doubt the disease is still an opprobrium medicine,” (which 
we may venture to translate—Medical men know nothing of the 
nature of cholera; and in a popular work such as Dr. Anstie’s, they 
elect to acknowledge their ignorance in Latin!) “ Yet something 
seems to have been learned, not merely guessed, about this mysterious 
pestilence in recent years.’ + 
The following is amongst the information thus acquired :— 
*«* Neither climate, nor season, nor earth, nor ocean seem to have 
arrested its course, or to have altered its features. It was equally 
destructive at St. Petersburgh and Moscow as it was in India; as 
fierce and irresistible amongst the snows of Russia as in the sunburnt 
regions of India; as destructive in the vapoury districts of Burmah 
as in the parched provinces of Hindostan.’ (Goodeve).. . . . 
‘The most that can be said is, that the places in which the air is most 
vitiated from drains, decaying animal matter, and vegetable refuse, 
or overcrowding and concentration of human emanations, are those in 
which cholera has generally been most fatal and most widely spread.’ 
(Goodeve.)” tf 
“Tt is indisputable that cholera originates in places without its 
being possible to trace any previous communication with infected 
persons.” . . . . “Hither the outbreaks which occur in this 
remarkable way may be instances of the generation of cholera de 
nova from insanitary conditions, or we may suppose the poison to 
have been carried by currents of wind.’’§ 
The author shows that there is good reason for believing it to 
have arisen in this country from both causes; but, says Dr. 
Anstie— 
“ There can be no doubt that, in the majority of cases, the march of 
the disease follows closely the lines of most frequent human communication : 
thus it always appears first, in any country, at the sea-port towns, and 
these places form the first centres of infection.” || 
He recommends not only that vestries should be empowered, 
* Notes on Epidemics,’ pp. 45-46. t Ibid, pp. 94 and 95. 
+ Ibid., p. 90. § Ibid., p. 106. 
|| Ibid, p. 105. 
