162 THE CONTAGIOUS TYPHUS 



such a distemper, which reason assures him 

 must eventually lead to the cure and eradica- 

 tion of the same complaint in the human 

 species ? 



From a cause which as yet has been indis- 

 tinguishable and imponderable, what im- 

 portant, what marvellous results loom in the 

 future ! The air seems to us pure and whole- 

 some, yet it conceals a typhic miasma of the 

 most deadly kind ; it carries this pernicious 

 principle into the richest meadows, where we 

 see feeding flocks and herds which to us seem 

 exuberant with health. Then this miasma is 

 inhaled and absorbed, and it meets in the 

 frame the special and indispensable organic 

 element which is needed for its multiplication ; 

 there it undergoes certain latent transforma- 

 tions, and a fermentation, a germination, which 

 we call incubation, in order to explain a process 

 which we cannot understand. Then fever is 

 kindled, all the functions are disturbed, and 

 the sick animal is struck down, leaving us 

 wondering, ignorant, and powerless spectators 

 in the presence of phenomena which, never- 

 theless, are the eternal work of nature and 

 have endured through all time. But if 



