CONTAINED IN PLANTS FOR ANIMALS AND MEN. 483 



The circumstance, that Japan has, as a rule, much rain in 

 summer, may account for the fact that the cholera-epidemics, so 

 frequent in Japan, rarely assume such frightful proportions as 

 are observed in certain cities in Europe, as Munich, Hamburg, 

 Marseilles, Naples or Palermo. 



One of the violent epidemics in Japan was that of 1886 in 

 Osaka and just in that summer the rains in June, July, and 

 August were very far below the average, while they were 

 much less so in the case during the three other milder epidemics 

 of 1885, 1890 and 1895. The same rule holds good further for 

 the epidemics in Tokyo, while in Nagasaki and Hiroshima the 

 four epidemics reached but small dimensions, and here the 

 meteorological tables again show that the average amount of 

 rain in June, July, and August never sank so far below the 

 average as was the^case in the year 1886 in Osaka. We may 

 therefore conclude that Pettenkofer s conclusions are confirmed 

 by the observations in Japan.'" 



(I) As in spring and summer of 1896 numerous and heavy rains fell in Tokyo, 

 I predicted that a cholera-epidemic would not take place in the following autumn. 

 And indeed during the months of August and September the number of cholera cases 

 for every week were restricted to an average of three or four, gradually disappearing 

 antirely in October. O. Loew. 



