50 



berger, one of the members of the International 

 Veterinary Congress, thought that the Siberian pest 

 is caused by subterranean waters. Many really 

 scientific medical men assert that cholera comes 

 from the mud of the Ganges, and Oriental plague 

 from the mud of the Nile. Now I don't believe 

 one word of all this. These theories really mean 

 nothing 1 but this : " I am too stupid to see that 

 men are so ignorant, dirty, covetous, vicious, 

 ambitious, luxurious, and indolent, that they pre- 

 pare themselves to contract these diseases ; and if 

 there is anything- in the matter besides this, I have 

 too much pride and vanity to confess, that I do not 

 understand what it is." Take gout as another 

 instance. No doubt there is sometimes hereditary 

 predisposition; for the sins of the fathers, un- 

 doubtedly, visit the children unto the third and fourth 

 generation. There is no escape from that law of 

 nature. Still in the majority of cases, the explana- 

 tion is more simple. But people are for some reason, 

 scrupulous about saying, " I have been eating and 

 drinking too much ;" or, " I have been indolent and 

 luxurious ;" so they say, " I inherit the disease from 

 my poor dear great grandfather, who was a 

 martyr," &c. 



I say I do not believe that God manufactures 

 mud on the Nile and Ganges, in order to send 

 forth emanations from it to decimate the creatures 

 he has made. Probably the question is incapable of 

 proof one way or another. Still the ing-enuity of 



