OF GIBRALTAR. 37 



first supposed to be merely a form of fever, compli- 

 cated with inflammation or congestion of the brain ; 

 but from the suddenness of the attack, its dispo- 

 sition to terminate in paralysis, and very often in 

 death, after only a very few days' suffering ; besides, 

 from other circumstances (which would be out of 

 place to be mentioned in a work of this kind), there 

 is no doubt that the disease was the same as that 

 described by Monsieur Rollet, in the " Transactions 

 of the Royal Academy of Medicine, at Paris," viz., 

 the cerebro rachidian meningitis, or encephalo menin- 

 gitis, which had prevailed for some years past in 

 the garrisons of Versailles, Lyons, Bayonne, Groits, 

 Metz, Strasbourg, &c., where its course was as 

 destructive as it was in Gibraltar ; the epidemic, how- 

 ever, being more prevalent among the military, whilst 

 it prevailed more sparingly among the civil population 

 of the environs of these garrisons; whereas in Gibral- 

 tar it was almost confined to the civil population. At 

 the same time that the disease was also prevailing 

 among all classes in several other towns in the south 

 of Europe, I believe there is no record of a similar 

 disease having ever before appeared in the garrison 

 of Gibraltar, at least not in an epidemic form. Its 

 appearance in this instance cannot be traced to any 

 causes which are not always in operation in Gibraltar. 

 If atmospherical vicissitudes produced the disease, as 

 some would wish to infer, the soldiers, who are more 

 exposed to them, must have suffered also ; therefore 

 we are obliged to place this epidemic among many 

 others whose origin will perhaps always remain a 



