Epidemics. 23 



most vigorous in damp, moist weather, and also from early 

 morning dews. 



An animal sarcode, or zooitic fungi, as they are here 

 called, are supposed to be chiefly concerned in such infec- 

 tious diseases as rubeola, variola, typhus, plague, spotted 

 fevers, etc. Whilst for cancer and tubercle, the degradation 

 of a higher class of tissue by some imperfect or depraved 

 form of nutriment is the supposed efficient cause of these 

 morbid growths or deposits. 



A faint outline is referred to of the epidemic era in which 

 we now live, dating from 1817 to 2457. First, as to the 

 decline and fall of blood letting, which, started in 1823, grew 

 less reckless and less, from 1833 to 1854, when as a rule, 

 in Great Britain, it was universally condemned, and is now 

 fast dying out in France, Italy, and Spain, etc. 



The great cause of this change is considered to be the 

 diminished force of the heart, as the chief organ isolated in 

 our own epidemic era, and is that organ most under the sway 

 of the metamorphosis of disease as implanted on our own 

 special era ; and because the heart, as a propelling power to 

 blood throughout the body is feebler, therefore, the tendency 

 to sthenic inflammation is less, and many surgical opera- 

 tions are much better borne on that account. In fact, the 

 European constitution is much more approaching to that 

 of Asia and Africa since 1850 than it was in 1800. 



The result of this feebler action of the heart leads more 

 to passive congestion in the capillaries, and serous, and 

 saneous exudations, and less fibrinous. 



