176 THE CONTAGIOUS TYPHUS 



dread a still greater extension of the contagion ; 

 for the virulent character of the epizootia 

 appears to be of an exceptional intensity, and 

 we may perhaps compare it with the famous 

 epizootia of the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, which for ten years afflicted all Europe 

 with its ravages, striking down six millions of 

 horned cattle. . 



Let the reader cast an eye over the extracts 

 borrowed from the physicians of the principal 

 faculties who have described this typhus, and 

 which we have reproduced in the first part of 

 this book relating to its history, and he will 

 then be convinced that the disease is abso- 

 lutely the same as that which then raged so 

 fiercely. And if that is the case, we must an- 

 ticipate that it will extend its ravages whilst 

 prolonging its duration. Already it has spread 

 to Holland and Belgium ; Hungary and other 

 provinces in the south-east of Germany a fact 

 much less surprising are likewise smitten with 

 it; and now we hear the news that France, 

 though so vigilantly on her guard, has seen 

 her frontiers passed over. In spite of the cordon 

 sanitairc which she had prudently established 



