DUST AND DISEASE. 299 



they plant themselves at distinct foci among populations 

 subjected to the same atmospheric influences, just as grains 

 of corn might be carried in the pocket and sown. Hilde- 

 brand, to whose remarkable work, Du Typhus Contagieux, 

 Dr. de Mussy has directed my attention, gives the following 

 striking case, both of the durability and the transport of 

 the virus of scarlatina : " Un habit noir que j'avais en visi- 

 tant une malade attaquee de scarlatine, et que je portai de 

 Vienne de Podolie, sans l'avoir mis depuis plus d'un an et 

 demi, me communiqua, des que je fus arrive, cette maladie 

 contagieuse, que je repandis ensuite dans cette province, oil 

 elle etait jusqu'alors presque inconnue." Some years ago 

 Dr. de Mussy himself was summoned to a country-house in 

 Surrey to see a young lady who w T as suffering from a dropsy, 

 evidently the consequence of scarlatina. The original dis- 

 ease being of a very mild character had been quite over- 

 looked, but circumstances were recorded which could leave 

 no doubt upon the mind as to the nature and cause of the 

 complaint. But then the question arose, how did the young 

 lady catch the scarlatina ? She had come there on a visit 

 two months previously, and it was only after she had been 

 a month in the house that she was taken ill. The house- 

 keeper at once cleared up the mystery. The young lady 

 on her arrival had expressed a particular wish to occupy a 

 nice room in an isolated tower, and in that room six months 

 previously a visitor had been confined with an attack of 

 scarlatina. The room had been swept and whitewashed, 

 but the carpets had been permitted to remain. 



Thousands of cases could probably be cited in which 

 the disease has shown itself in this mysterious way, but 

 where a strict examination has revealed its true parentage 

 and extraction. Is it then philosophical to take refuge in 

 the fortuitous concourse of atoms as a cause of specific dis- 

 ease, merely because in special cases the parentage may be 

 indistinct? Those best acquainted with atomic Nature, 



