22 Introduction. 



relics of ancient astronomy are faintly glanced at, as afford- 

 ing corroborative evidence, and more to be relied upon than 

 the doubtful products of pre-historic man. 



Sir John Herschel is quoted as an author who was 

 anticipated by the builders of the great pyramid in his 

 conviction that records of science ought to be entombed in 

 imperishable monuments, which goes far to show the. 

 advanced state of civilization in ancient Egypt. 



Leaving for a while the history of epidemics we come to 

 the etiology and the poison as a material agent, which 

 constitutes the materia corporis of infection in epidemic 

 diseases. Sir H. Holland appears to have first suggested 

 an insect origin for cholera, and this was a great advance, 

 because it widened our conceptions of active agents as 

 living germs of disease. 



Upon the whole, cholera is viewed as promoted in its 

 development and spread by special kinds of fungi, whose 

 pabulum is decaying animal matter, when outside the 

 living body, and where decaying animal matter is found in a 

 moist or wet condition, then, where cholera is present, we 

 may expect its intensity to be very greatly increased. 



These fungi probably act as a catalytic on the blood, and 

 promote its decomposition, with depression of the heart and 

 small arterial muscles, or partial paralysis. Agues, it is 

 assumed, are produced in a measure by fungi also, but such 

 as feed upon moist vegetable decaying matter, and especially 

 fungi, which retain vitality in almost all seasons, but are 



