350 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
publishers have shown a wise discrimination in issuing to general readers in 
its present form. The subjects of the causes, modes of propagation, and 
methods of arresting epidemics are just those with which the public should 
be familiar, and of which unhappily they are too frequently extremely 
ignorant. The popular household treatises on medicine are at the best sorry 
instructors, since they deal rather with the treatment of disease than with 
the best means of detecting its presence ; and contain very worthless informa- 
tion as to the prevention of infectious maladies. Dr. Anstie, therefore, has 
performed a duty which the profession owed to the public, in. reprinting his 
able essay upon the subject of epidemics. No longer need it be complained 
that there is no accurate and yet untechnical treatise from which the general 
reader can learn those principles which should guide him in avoiding 
infection, and in detecting the early symptoms of disease. In all that relates 
to that wide class of affections which attack whole populations at once, and 
are therefore styled epidemics, sound knowledge and an acquaintance with 
all that recent research has taught, may be gathered from Dr. Anstie’s volume. 
The author has laid down in the clearest manner the principles which ought 
to be observed by those who desire to detect the presence of epidemics ; and 
although he is far from advising his readers to play the part of doctor, he 
shows them how they may treat the common forms of fevers, &c., satisfac- 
torily. His style, without being what is called popular, is intelligible to 
every educated reader ; his views are expressed with philosophic caution, 
and there is a careful allusion to recent discoveries, which is equally charac- 
teristic of the accomplished physician and the persevering savant. 
The diseases to which the writer especially devotes his consideration are 
the following : — Relapsing fever, typhus and typhoid fevers, Asiatic cholera, 
epidemic diarrhoea, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, small-pox, and influenza. 
All these are treated under the separate heads of cause, mode of propagation, 
method of diagnosis, treatment, and general hygienic observations. Nothing 
can be more in accordance with the philosophy of medicine than the way in 
which Dr. Anstie brings together the parts of conflicting theories which 
appear reconcilable with fact, and thus attains to truth, where a more pre- 
judiced analyst would fail to separate it from fallacy. This feature is parti- 
cularly remarkable in the author’s remarks on the various theories as to the 
origin of cholera, a portion of the work before us to which we especially 
direct the reader’s attention. There can, we think, be little doubt that 
whatever be the primary origin of cholera, its spread is chiefly effected 
through the medium of drinking water which has become polluted by the 
drainage from some sewer that, in its turn, has conveyed the discharge of 
choleraic patients. At the present time the question is one of the greatest 
moment, and we therefore quote Dr. Anstie’s account of the epidemic of Broad 
Street, Soho Square, in 1854 : — 
“ In the most crowded part of this densely-crowded parish (St. James’s), 
there occurred, on the 31st of August, no less than 31 fatal cases, all within 
an extremely narrow area ; on the following day there were 131 fatal cases 
in the same area ; on the 2nd of September, 125 ; on the 3rd, 58 ; on the 
4th, 52 ; on the 5th, 26 ; on the 6th, 28 ; on the 7th, 22 ; on the 8th, 14 
fatal attacks, all in the same space, which might be marked off by a circle 
whose centre might be at the junction of Broad Street and Cambridge Street 
