48 HABITUDES 



to rise rapidly. Its channel becomes full early in the 

 month, and, at the summer solstice, it pours its waters over 

 its usual barriers. The country is covered with water 

 during the hot summer and autumn, and there is no vege- 

 tation, and no disease. 



At the winter solstice, the spring time of Egypt begins, 

 and while nature leaps into amazing activity, the husband- 

 man enters on his annual labor of sowing and planting. 

 Towards the end of January, oranges and citrons blossom, 

 and the sugar cane is cut down. In February all the fields 

 are verdant: the sowing of rice begins, the first barley 

 crop is harvested, and cabbages, cucumbers and melons 

 ripen. The sickly season of Egypt should, therefore, on 

 my view, commence in the winter or spring, and accord- 

 ingly, here as elsewhere, the ravages of disease follow the 

 decline of active vegetation, and the plague begins. In 

 1834, the deaths by plague in December were 109; Janu- 

 ary, 1835, 151; February, 821; March, 4329; April, 

 1897; May, 321; June, 41 cases. About St. John's day, 

 the country being covered with water, the plague ceases. 



We see, then, that the insalubrity of a place has the most- 

 constant relation to the habits of the living vegetation. 

 Whatever may be the temperature or humidity, the most 

 unhealthy period of the year is, in any given locality, that 

 when the phanerogamous vegetation has completed its an- 

 nual task of growth, and flowering, and fruitage, and feels 

 the weakness of an exhausting effort, and when to triumph 

 as it were over a worn out foe, the cryptogamous plants 

 plunder and destroy it. 



A reference to books, whose authors did not perhaps 

 even dream of this theory of fever, shows, that the fungi 

 are active chiefly in the end of summer and in autumn. 

 Dr. Badham observes, that, "A wet autumn is generally* 



