CHOLERA. 109 



numbers of cholera-patients, whilst the old inmates en- 

 joyed complete immunity, as at the Odinka, at St. Peters- 

 burgh, the diseased condition of a single vessel, the Dread- 

 naught, in the Thames, in 1837, the great exemption of 

 physicians and nurses, the attack of the old rather than of 

 the young, or of those at puberty, all militate against the 

 notion of a propagation by contagion. 



On the other hand, many cases are cited where the 

 cholera came with bodies of men, caravans, and ships, and 

 seemed to be propagated by personal communication. At 

 one time it confined itself to one wing of an army; at an- 

 other, it spread progressively from left to right, along the 

 line of encampment. Sometimes it affected but one out of 

 thirty men in each of a great number of large tents, and 

 sometimes it restricted itself to one or two such tents, 

 which it completely desolated. No wonder that men 

 were puzzled and perplexed, being contagionists at one 

 time and place, and anti-contagionists at another. No 

 wonder that Mojon and Holland should have endeavored 

 to avoid the difficulty by reverting to the exploded doc- 

 trine of Kircher and Linnaeus, the animalcular theory of 

 disease. 



The animalcular, being an organic theory, would ex- 

 plain well enough, the phenomena of progress, were it not 

 for the apparent absurdity of supposing that animalcules 

 of tropical origin could exist and procreate in a Russian 

 winter. The want of proof that aniinalculae are poison- 

 ous, or that they fulfil the conditions for such a theory, 

 has been already stated. 



But if we assume for cholera a fungous origin, all dif- 

 ficulties vanish; and, as in the case of yellow fever, an 

 easy explanation may be given of every apparent incon- 

 gruity. We have only to suppose, what is known to hap- 

 10 



