Notices of Boohs. 
1876.] 
389 
impossible without explicit reference to some especial edition. 
Neither of these early explorers became the adbual author of an 
account of their joint expedition and its results ; but whilst 
their notes were being edited two separate and incomplete 
versions fell into the hands of publishers, and have become the 
groundwork of a number of apocryphal editions. 
The zoological portion consists of a catalogue of the mam- 
malia and birds discovered or observed by Lewis and Clarke, 
with references for each to the respective editions. 
The Cholera Epidemic 0/1873 in the United States. ByJ. M. 
Woodworth, M.D. Washington : Government Printing 
Office. 
Under this title we have a volume extending to upwards of a 
thousand pages, which, though ostensibly designed merely as an 
official report on the last epidemic of cholera in the United 
States, presents a great amount of valuable information on the 
sources, propagation, and treatment of this dreaded pestilence. 
The author does not accept the theory that cholera is transmitted 
in the atmosphere, or depends upon occult cosmic influences. 
From the fadts which have come under his observation he de- 
duces the following propositions : — 
“ I. Malignant cholera is caused by the access of a specific 
organic poison to the alimentary canal, which poison is developed 
spontaneously only in certain parts of India. 
“ II. This poison is contained primarily, so far as the world 
outside of Hindostan is concerned, in the ejections — vomit, 
stools, and urine — of a person already infedted with the disease. 
“ III. To set up anew the adtion of the poison, a certain 
period of incubation, with the presence of alkaline moisture, is 
required, which period is completed within one to three days ; a 
temperature favouring decomposition and moisture or fluid of 
decided alkaline readbion hastening the process, the reverse 
retarding. 
“ IV. The period of morbific adbivity of the poison is charac- 
terised by the presence of badteria, which appear at the end of 
the period of incubation, and disappear at the end of the period 
of morbific adtivity ; that is to say, a cholera ejedbion or material 
containing such is harmless both before the appearance and after 
the disappearance of badteria, but is adtively poisonous during 
their presence. 
“ Note . — It is not meant by this that the badteria so found are 
the cholera-poison, since they differ in no appreciable manner 
from badteria found in a variety of other fluids. Indeed 
Lebert hints that the badteria may even be the destroyers of the 
poison.” 
