558 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



fever, among horses, cows, and sheep were recorded. Nor 

 did its ravages confine themselves to the animal world, for 

 during the time and in the district referred to, five hundred 

 and twenty-eight human beings perished in the agonies of 

 the same disease. 



A description of the fever will help you to come to a 

 right decision on the point which I wish to submit to your 

 consideration. " An animal," says Dr. Bnrdon Sanderson, 

 " which perhaps for the previous day has declined food, 

 and shown signs of general disturbance, begins to shudder 

 and to have twitches of the muscles of the back, and soon 

 after becomes weak and listless. In the meantime the 

 respiration becomes frequent and often difficult, and the 

 temperature rises three or four degrees above the normal; 

 but soon convulsions, affecting chiefly the muscles of the 

 back and loins, usher in the final collapse of which the 

 progress is marked by the loss of all power of moving the 

 trunk or extremities, diminution of temperature, mucous 

 and sanguinolent alvine evacuations, and similar discharges 

 from the mouth and nose." In a single district of Russia, 

 as above remarked, fifty-six thousand horses, cows, and 

 sheep, and five hundred and twenty-eight men and women, 

 perished in this way during a period of two or three years. 

 What the annual fatality is throughout Europe I have no 

 means of knowing. Doubtless it must be very great. 

 The question, then, which I wish to submit to your judg- 

 ment is this: Is the knowledge which reveals to us the 

 nature, and which assures the extirpation, of a disorder so 

 virulent and so vile, worth the price paid for it? It is 

 exceedingly important that assemblies like the present 

 should see clearly the issues at stake in such questions as 

 this, and that the properly informed sense of the commu- 

 nity should temper, if not restrain, the rashness of those 

 who, meaning to be tender, become agents of cruelty by 

 the imposition of short-sighted restrictions upon physio- 

 logical investigations. It is a modern instance of zeal for 

 God, but not according to knowledge, the excesses of 

 which must be corrected by an instructed public opinion. 



And now let us cast a backward glance on the field we 

 have traversed, and try to extract from our labors such 

 further profit as they can yield. For more than two 

 thousand years the attraction of light bodies by amber was 



