Epidemics. 153 



trial, after detention for a short time, have infected persons 

 listening to their trial in open court. 



Strong winds often have a most beneficial effect in pro- 

 ducing an entire change of atmosphere, and introducing one 

 free from the same morbific poison which the previous air 

 tenant possessed ; and by this means a disinfectant is 

 supplied upon a large scale, and free of cost. Hence strong 

 winds may be viewed as revivifying agents in the wheel of 

 Nature, during certain periods of endemic and epidemic in- 

 vasions, and stagnant air as a depressor of vital energy, and 

 a reservoir for retaining in suspension morbific germs of 

 disease. Cholera and scarlatina have frequently undergone 

 partial suspense for a week or two, after strong gales, over 

 any particular spot where these diseases are very prevalent ; 

 but the intermission is but for a season, and morbific poison 

 soon re-asserts its prerogative, till time has allowed it to 

 waste its native vigour, and to die a natural death. 



When local causes are cited as feeding, and, in some 

 in stances, creating endemic diseases, such as fevers, dysentery, 

 certain lung diseases, arising from given trades, as gun- 

 smiths, needle and glass-grinders, paralysis from lead, etc. 

 and due weight ought to be given to these several agencies 

 yet in the midst of these local causes we find that one leading 

 type of disease, as cholera, influenza, sweating sickness, or 

 plague embraces all trades, localities, and countries or in 

 the course of a few years half a continent, or as in cholera, 

 half the habitable portions of the globe are encompassed by 

 it then we have to appeal to some more general and 

 universal cause or causes than such as pertain to trades, 

 habits, vices, defective and bad food, over-crowding, bad 

 water, bad drainage, and defective sanitary care. 



Let infection, then, be the admitted basis of small-pox, 

 cholera, influenza, yellow fever, leprosy, and plague. 

 Granting these diseases have a more general and wider 



