152 Epidemics. 



events between earthquakes and epidemics (save in the 

 cases of the Athenian Plague and the Levant), are so 

 entirely deficient, as measured from this standard of order in 

 succession of events, that either, standing in relation of 

 cause and effect, must be entirely abandoned. Whether 

 Comet Wine will meet with the same respect, the announce- 

 ments of the wine merchants must settle ; but their effects 

 upon health belong entirely to the imaginations of super- 

 stitious people, and not to the close inductions of observing 

 men; for, like earthquakes, the order of succession is equal 

 to that of a cock crowing when a kite flies, or a balloon 

 mounts the air he may crow at such a time, or it is quite 

 possible he may let it alone ; but, generally speaking, neither 

 would have a very close dependency upon the other. 



Heavy falls of rain, snow, dry seasons, and over wet ones, 

 also strong winds, each have an effect upon health, but it 

 is purely endemic, and refers more to the effects of cold and 

 damp, or over heat and exhaustion from defective appetite 

 and intense thirst, which may be viewed as physical causes 

 of disease in a great measure ; but, added to heat or cold, 

 direct want of food and of clothing, and over-crowding (the 

 result of poverty), then we beget active local causes of 

 disease, each providing their own morbific poison, as shown 

 in typhoid or typhus fever, remittent fevers, dysentery a"nd 

 erysipelas, etc., etc., pneumonia, liver disease as in the 

 Irish famine of 1844 to 1846 and a host of minor affections, 

 from haemorrhoids to prurigo. But it cannot be denied that 

 in camp and jail fevers the effect of filth, over-crowding and 

 defective nourishment fevers have been gendered on the 

 spot which have acquired a true infectious character, for 

 all traces of their being imported appear to be totally in- 

 capable of demonstration, as shown in many of the visita- 

 tions and reports of prisons given by John Howard ; but 

 numerous instances are given where prisoners brought to 



