202 
THE EPIDEMIC IN BEHBICE. 
of scurvy , and therefore the idea would easily suggest itself that 
the disease now prevalent was belonging to that class : but, then, 
the redness would be of a livid hue. Here it is of a bright red. 
The petechise and bloody effusions, if the disease before us was 
scurvy, would not be confined to the intestines, as undoubtedly 
they are in our case, but the serous membranes of chest and abdo- 
men, the lungs, the heart, and other organs, would and must parti- 
cipate in the general morbid appearance, whereas in our case they 
were perfectly exempt. Nor can it be denied that, if scurvy was 
the disease, the stellated hypersemia, which forms the principal 
morbid phenomenon in this case, would have been entirely effaced 
by excessive arborisation, which, however, in our examination, was 
but scanty. 
I must confess that during the first inspection, when examining 
the intestines, I was vividly reminded of the morbid anatomy of 
yellow fever , as illustrated by numerous cases examined by me in 
the Demerara hospitals. The total absence, however, of all morbid 
signs in the liver, which in yellow fever is the throne of the disease, 
forces me to dismiss all ideas of grouping the present with that 
disease. 
If we reflect on the features of the morbid appearance as above 
detailed; — if we take the tout ensemble of the visa reperta , viz. 
the excessive stellated hypersemia throughout the large and small 
intestines — the petechise — the enlarged and hardened solitary glands 
with numerous small ulcers ; — if we consider the total absence of 
all disease in the principal abdominal and pectoral organs, and the 
enormous effusion of blood throughout the intestines, — then, I think, 
we are fully justified in concluding that the disease before us is 
Dysentery in its worst, its most aggravated form. 
The most frequent cause of dysentery is acknowledged to be 
11 malaria” Now we must bear in mind that the fatal disease at 
present prevalent in Berbice commenced about six weeks ago in 
the dry season, which has been unusually severe, the heat exces- 
sive, the drought great, and that in the present rainy season we have 
hitherto had but few heavy rains : — the consequence of these cir- 
cumstances must be a superabundance of malaria formed by the action 
of a powerful sun on the stagnant waters or the badly drained lands 
of the eastern and western coasts ; so that in the height of the dry 
season the cattle found but a scanty supply of impure water impreg- 
nated with decomposed animal and vegetable matter, rendered 
brackish by the occasional intermixture with the tide, thus forming 
a saturated solution of malaria. 
We may hence easily see why the present disease made its 
debut on, and chose its chief residence in, the swamps and savan- 
