122 VOLCANIC EPIDEMICS. 



commercial value is upwards of 2000?. sterling. (10,000 

 dollars.) But the fresh funguses form only a small part 

 of the whole consumption, to which must be added the 

 dried, the pickled, and the preserved." 



Thus about 140,000 pounds of mushrooms are sold in 

 Rome, a weight equal to that of 175 oxen. 



A reference to the fungiferous power of the tufas ena- 

 bles us to explain a hitherto most puzzling fact, as recorded 

 by many authors, and as specifically treated by writers 

 on epidemics. It is remarked by Webster, and Hecker, 

 as well as by other writers, that volcanic eruptions and 

 earthquakes, when productive of disease, do not cause it 

 immediately, nor even in the current year, but usually in 

 that which follows it. If mephitic vapors or gases were 

 the cause of the epidemics in such cases, immediate con- 

 sequences should ensue ; but if the volcanic ashes, or the 

 sulphur and calcareous products, excite the disease by 

 evoking excessively the common cryptogamic growths, or 

 exciting into action, the long slumbering spores of new or 

 unusual protophytes, we ought to find their record in the 

 morbid history of the succeeding year or years. So we 

 learn that the year 79 of our era, was marked ly no un- 

 usual mortality, although Vesuvius darkened, by its ejected 

 ashes, the sun itself, and scattered its products through 

 the atmosphere even to Syria and Africa. Herculaneum 

 and Pompeii were so deeply buried as to be lost for nearly 

 1700 years, and the soil of Italy, from the Alps to Sicily, 

 was dusted with the furnace-formed products of the vol- 

 cano. But in the following year, when the now acknow- 

 ledged fungiferous properties of the tufous ashes could 

 exert on the soil their stimulating influence, disease deso- 

 lated Italy, and a plague raged with resistless power. 

 That fatal epidemic destroyed daily, for a prolonged sea- 

 son, 10,000 inhabitants of Rome. (Webster.) 



