RELATIONS OF FOOD AND DISEASE. 
281 
But is it so in fact ? Can fifty, nay, twenty, well-marked 
instances be adduced indicating that any disease has originated 
in the child, the man, or the woman, from the use of diseased 
milk ? In what way does diseased milk act ? Grant that a 
cow has cow-pox, is there proof that the drinking of such 
cow’s milk will propagate to the drinker cow-pox, or small- 
pox, or any disease ? Grant that a cow has typhus, will her 
milk convey typhus, or a modified form of it, to the human 
subject? 
From fluid flesh to solid, — Can fifty, nay twenty, carefully 
observed instances be enumerated, in which, from the eating 
of diseased flesh, well-marked signs of any special and com- 
municable disease has originated? We have some positive 
facts about the sausage-poison ; but these, comparatively 
speaking, have sprung up accidentally. The symptoms have 
been such as isolate the cases from any general and classified 
disorder, and the poison itself is possibly generated in the 
process of decomposition in the dead substance. 
Allowing for a moment that the flesh of diseased animals 
received into the human body has the effect of operating as 
a poison, what are the modifications of symptoms which it 
induces, as compared with the original symptoms in the 
diseased animal ? What positive relations do the epidemics 
in the lower animals bear to the epidemics in man? What 
modifications in type are produced in the passage of the 
epidemic disorder from an animal of one class to an animal 
of another class? Some flickering light on this point, in refe- 
rence to smallpox and the cow, and cow-pox and man, is all 
that relieves the darkness of science here at the present time. 
Another point. We will not dream of going back to the 
efficient causes of epidemics ; but we would propound this 
first and broad inquiry. Is the propagation of epidemic 
disorders limited to the animal kingdom ? Are all the germs 
of epidemics formed and circulated only in the animal 
domain ? Or does the epidemic phenomenon take a wider 
root ? Can it be traced back to the vegetable world ? Again, 
can an epidemic arise spontaneously, as from causes external, 
i. e ., independently altogether of the idea of simple propa- 
gation of animal or vegetable transmission ? Can variations 
of heat, of electricity, of humidity, excite any special disease 
which, once communicated to man or animal, shall be com- 
municable to other men and animals ? 
In the absence of labours bearing on these all-important 
and primary inquiries, the so-called science of epidemiology 
is no science at all, but a perplexing chaotic record of 
confusion. 
XXX. 
38 
