THE PREVENTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE. 4! I 



accustomed and perfectly suitable method of 

 nourishment because of fright at the outbreak 

 of an epidemic. 



In contrast to presumably unreasoning ani- 

 mals, the human being, who is supposed to be 

 capable of reasoning, has frequently, strange 

 to say, behaved himself most foolishly in the 

 matter of food and has accentuated this fault 

 by his lack of sense in the matter of drink. It 

 is everywhere observed that the misuse of al- 

 cohol increases the danger of cholera infection, 

 and if, as H. Weyl believes, brewers are ex- 

 empt from this rule the fact may well be due 

 to the circumstance that people of this class 

 are picked for their vigor and are large eaters. 

 Where inordinate abstemiousness exists as the 

 result of poverty, the trouble may be remedied 

 by proper interposition, as is seen for example 

 in the success which has attended the feeding 

 of poor school children. Hunger is a power- 

 ful aid to cholera, and it may well be supposed 

 that the first pandemic of cholera, so pregnant 

 with ill for the future, arose from the circum- 

 stance that the seemingly insignificant en- 

 demic disease happened to coincide with one 

 of those great famines that occur in India from 

 time to time. 



The whimsical misconceptions about such 

 matters which usually prevail among us in 



