DE. J. W. POUCHER. 299 



words were, " Slow fever was my continual companion.' 

 Her sisters, Emily and Anne, died in 1848 and 1849 aged 

 29 and 27, and she followed in 1855, all victims of Ha- 

 worth church-yard without a doubt. 



This contamination of wells, fountains and running 

 water, in and around cemeterif^s. is well known and may 

 extend to quite a distance and become a great source of 

 danger. This water is clear and sparkling, owing to the 

 large proportion of nitrates and nitrites which are the pro- 

 ducts of animal decomposition and are the surest carriers 

 of deadly zymotic contagion. There are many examples 

 of transmission of such diseases as typhoid fever and dys- 

 entery by water apparently pure and attractive, running 

 in or near burial grounds or places where the excreta 

 from those diseases had been thrown. In the strata of 

 air lying above a cemetery Prof. Selmi, of Bologna, dis- 

 covered an organic corpuscle (Septo-pneuma), which 

 poisons the atmosphere to the detriment of the living 

 economy. This substance he says is easy to collect, and 

 if placed in a solution of glucose produces the phenomena 

 of putrid fermentation, a process similar to butyric 

 fermentation ; but if a few drops of this solution is in- 

 jected under the skin of an animal, symptoms of typhic 

 infection occur, and death supervenes on the third day. 

 Infiltrated into air or water it is easy to see how danger- 

 ous is this substance to human life. It was this same 

 Prof. Selmi who discovered those deadly organic poisons 

 which he called ptomaines. He proved that the common 

 constituents of the body, such as brain, blood, fibrin, 

 &c., perfectly innocuous in health, may become rapidly 

 converted by decomposition into new alkaloids or 

 ptomaines exactly analogous to those of plants and 

 equally virulent. He also showed that this sometimes 

 even takes place before death, especially in diseases that 

 induce internal decomposition. Dr. Freier.of Rio Janeiro, 

 a few years ago while investigating the causes of an epi- 



237 



