NOTES ON THE CHOLERA SEASONS OF 1832-4. 21 



We now proceed to enquire whether there were any peculiar features 

 in the seasons of these two years of plague, viz. : 1832 and 1834, 

 calculated to increase or diminish its virulence. It has been said that 

 cholera is more independent of climatic influences than any other 

 disease whatever. The ravages of the yellow fever, for instance, are 

 confined to a particular region, and if the traveller escapes infection 

 and reaches a certain height he is safe. Thus it has never visited the 

 City of Mexico, though the coast and neighborhood is its chosen 

 abode, but the cholera devastated both alike. Still no one can deny 

 that the effects of this as well as all other diseases must be modified 

 by the varying circumstances of climate and locality. The latter was 

 abundantly proved by undoubted facts, and the former is equally cer- 

 tain. All those deadly agents which, if they do not actually engender, 

 foster disease, are mitigated or heightened by any deviation from the 

 normal state and character of the season. The filthy elements in 

 which Little York, in common with Montreal and Quebec, abounded, 

 were made more active agents of disease and death by scorching suns, 

 heavy rains, great evaporation, and sudden and violent fluctuations of 

 temperature. Therefore the various atmospheric phenomena which 

 precede and accompany the visitation of a pestilence are surely de- 

 serving of notice. " Coming events cast their shadows before," both 

 in the natural as well as the moral world, and he must be a shallow 

 observer who fails to note their indications. 



In the bygone ages of ignorance and superstition any terrible visi- 

 tations were supposed to be heralded by supernatural appearances in 

 the heavens above and in the earth beneath. Such ideas are now 

 exploded, "They live no longer in the light of reason." But though 

 the pestilence walketh in darkness it gives sufficient tokens of its 

 approach, and without entering more fully into this part of the subject 

 it has been said, that whenever it has arrived deviations from the usual 

 conditions of the season in temperature and other features marked its 

 advent and progress To enquire whether this was the case in Canada 

 is the object of the following remarks, founded upon indisputable facts 

 of which the infant science of meteorology stands so much in need, 

 and the collection of which therefore, humble as the task may be, is 

 surely advisable. 



We will commence with December, 1831, a most remarkable month, 

 and as I can testify from personal observation, unequalled for thirty- 

 two years at least. The mean temperature of this month at 8 a. m.. 



