648 INFLUENCE OF CHOLERA ON THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
lie may be said to be actuated by a spirit of acquisitiveness ; 
while he who subjects the grain thus accumulated to the 
machinery of mental and scientific analysis — who separates 
the wheat from the chaflf — who, from a chaos of apparently 
unconnected data, evolves harmonious laws, and exhibits 
their mutual relations and significations — is the type of an 
opposite class, whose labours are guided by the spirit of in- 
ductive philosophy. So far as regards the investigation of 
the natural history of cholera, I fear w r e must meanw T hile be 
content to belong to the first class above enumerated — the 
class of observers, and gather into our public journals and 
learned societies a mass of simple facts, bearing on various 
points, which as yet are very obscure, or have not been pro- 
perly elucidated. For, with Dr. Gull, I believe firmly that, 
“ for the present, such generalizations are of little value, and 
that we arrest inquiry by their adoption.” Let us take a 
somew'hat parallel example. Look at the science of meteo- 
rology, now comparatively so perfect ; or let us consider, in 
particular, the law 7 s of the winds and waves — of marine and 
aerial currents. On how' many thousands of observations, 
noted in every part of the habitable globe for a long series 
of years, is our interpretation of these law T s founded? The 
logs of the world’s navies contain the facts simply noted by 
myriads of observers, w'ho had no fore-shadows of the im- 
portant general principles which they were contributing, in 
however great or small a degree, to evolve or deduce — ob- 
servers comparatively uneducated, and w'ho had little idea of 
the possible practical applications of science to their own art 
— the art of navigation. But from piles of apparently worth- 
less log-books, a Maury it able to deduce the most beautiful 
general law's, to interpret nature with the highest practical 
benefits. In the investigation of such a subject as that of 
cholera, we cannot each one expect to be a Maury, to be the 
means of solving the Gordian problem of the essential nature 
and cause of cholera ; but every observer may add a fact, or 
many facts, to the general fund of positive know ledge, and 
until such a fund is vast and valuable, a Maury’s labours are 
useless and out of place. 
I have spoken of the voluminous nature of the literature 
of cholera in this country, and of the undue attention de- 
voted to particular branches of its natural history, with the 
entire neglect of others. The record of illustrations of the 
influence of the cholera poison on plants and the lower ani- 
mals, is extremely meagre and unsatisfactory. This subject 
appears to me to have a most important bearing on the ad- 
vancement of our knowledge of cholera in man : and a con- 
