PROFLUVIA. 321 



other cases, the disease, with moderate symptoms, continues 

 long, and ends in a diarrhoea, sometimes accompanied with 

 lienteric symptoms. 



MLXXIII. The remote causes of this disease have been 

 variously judged of. It generally arises in summer or autumn, 

 after considerable heats have prevailed for some time, and 

 especially after very warm, and at the same time very dry 

 states of the weather ; and the disease is much more frequent 

 in warm than in cooler climates. It happens, therefore, in the 

 same circumstances and seasons which considerably affect the 

 state of the bile in the human body ; but, as the cholera is 

 often without any dysenteric symptoms, and copious discharges 

 of bile have been found to relieve the symptoms of dysentery, ' 

 it is difficult to determine what connexion the disease has with 

 the state of the, bile. 



MLXXIV. It has been observed, that the effluvia from very 

 putrid animal substances readily affect the alimentary canal ; 

 and, upon some occasions, they certainly produce a diarrhoea : 

 but whether they ever produce a genuine dysentery, I have not 

 been able to learn with certainty. 



MLXXV. The dysentery does often manifestly arise from 

 the application of cold, but the disease is always contagious ; 

 and, by the propagation of such contagion, independent of cold, 

 or other exciting causes, it becomes epidemic in camps and other 

 places. It is, therefore, to be doubted if the application of cold 

 does ever produce the disease, unless where the specific conta- 

 gion has been previously received into the body : And, upon 

 the whole, it is probable that a specific contagion is to be con- 

 sidered as always the remote cause of this disease. 



MLXXVI. Whether this contagion, like many others, be of 

 a permanent nature, and only shows its effects in certain cir- 

 cumstances which render it active, or if it be occasionally pro- 

 duced, I cannot determine. Neither, if the latter supposition 

 be received, can I say by what means it may be generated. 

 As little do we know any thing of its nature, considered in itself; 

 or at most this only, that, in common with many other conta- 

 gions, it appears to be commonly of a putrid nature, and cap- 

 able of inducing a putrescent tendency in the human body. 

 This, however, does not at all explain its peculiar power in in- 



VOL. II. X 



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