132 FUNGI OF SANDY PLAINS. 



founded on proper principles, into a loose and dangerous 

 empiricism. For the same reason, are they disposed, at a 

 later period of the attack, to rely upon means of cure ob- 

 viously inert, or improper, because, the lessened mortality 

 smiles an approval. Let any one found his treatment 

 from the first, upon a proper knowledge of the pathology, 

 and a decent regard to prominent symptoms, and he will 

 succeed in the end, not only much better, but also much 

 more satisfactorily to himself, than those who lower them- 

 selves to the level of mere empirics. The deaths are at 

 first owing, not to the greater potency of the cause, but 

 to the keener susceptibility of the recipient of disease. 

 While it increases the severity of the cases, this suscepti- 

 bility is not greater for our remedies, and therefore we 

 must necessarily have, at the outset, less success. 



The malarious diseases commonly found in the rich 

 alluvial courses of rivers, or shores of lakes, sometimes 

 abound on sandy plains. Several writers describe the 

 sickly plains of Brabant as superficially dry and almost 

 bare of vegetation, and Dr. Ferguson informs us of the 

 desolate aspect of Rosen thai and Oosterhout, in South 

 Holland, where a level sandy plain bore nothing save 

 some stunted heath-plants. Beneath the surface, was 

 found at no great depth clear potable water. The plain 

 on the side of the river opposite to Lisbon, dreaded for its 

 pestilential character, is also dry and sandy. Here no 

 -ordinary vegetation, no decomposition, can explain to us 

 the cause of this malign power. But there is a teeming 

 vegetation beneath, and almost at, the surface of such 

 places, to which alone can we attribute their diseases. 

 Truffles, a species of mushrooms, grow prodigiously in 

 such places. They delight in sandy plains, and their 

 microscopic congeners are also there in abundance. Such 



