326 THE CONTAGIOUS TYPHUS 



first began to provide us with the means 

 of investigation, it would now be so impo- 

 tent? Epizootias and epidemics would not 

 thus flout us as they do ; the cholera would no 

 longer be an enigma, nor the ox typhus so 

 incurable. No ! a hundred times no ! Medical 

 science would not be helpless and impotent in 

 our day, had our forerunners been more mind- 

 ful and provident. 



But, instead of this, the science for which 

 we plead would have done good work. It 

 would have made and confirmed an infinite 

 variety of observations on the brute creation ; 

 it would have transmitted our diseases to them 

 as they transmit their diseases to us ; it would 

 have treated and cured these diseases, and 

 every such cure would have been a new tri- 

 umph, a new victory for mankind. 



For instance, during an outbreak of cholera, 

 this science would have been ready and pre- 

 pared to try different experiments on men and 

 animals ; it would first have communicated 

 the cholera to animals, and then submitted 

 them to a variety of experimental treatments. 

 This cholera, which is not an infectious fever, 

 with its regular and assigned periods, like 



