260 FIRESIDE SCIENCE. 



the blood, and soon produce a kind of fermentation, 

 which results in high fever preceded by a chill. 

 After this is over, the poison is spent in part ; but 

 during the remission of from one to three days, 

 sufficient is* reproduced to go through the same 

 action again. This remarkable poison, producing 

 intermittent chill and fever, will work on, unless 

 utterly destroyed by medication, until the victim 

 is so far weakened as to falter and die. The ague 

 ferment is totally unlike that producing small-pox 

 and measles, for by the action of the latter the 

 textures of the body are so changed that they are 

 incapable of going through the same process again ; 

 but one can have ague a dozen or more times in 

 the course of his life. It is indeed a great mercy 

 that some of our worst zymotic or infectious* dis- 

 eases can attack us but once. 



We might as well expect to learn the nature 

 of soul or spirit, as to expect to obtain any precise 

 knowledge of the chemical differences in the germ 

 poisons which affect men and animals. How can 

 we ever know anything regarding the actual differ- 

 ence between a germ producing pleuro-pneumonia 

 or disorganization of the lungs in a cow or ox, and 

 one producing suppurating sores and ugly ulcers 

 in the mouths and hoofs of the animals ? Both 

 are specific poisons, exerting specific action upon 

 different parts of the animal organization. It is 



