IN HORSES AND EPIDEMIC CHOLERA. 
671 
them well, and will not even be incommoded ; so that, in the 
former case, it mast have been destroyed by the influence of the 
undigested matter upon the brain, acting on the nerves of the 
stomach before the other symptoms attending the suppressed act 
could have had time to display themselves. 
It may be asked, what should be the cause of this epidemic at 
this particular time, and why it should be almost wholly, if not 
quite, a human one? This 1 would not undertake to account for, 
any more than the plagues in Egypt or Jerusalem, or the causes 
of any other scourges with which the Almighty at times has as¬ 
suredly visited mankind. I can, however, in reply to it, only just 
observe, that if the atmosphere was, by any changes in it, ren¬ 
dered less stimulant to the ordinary act of human digestion, it 
would readily produce such an effect; nor could we, perhaps, by 
any analysis detect it, though it is possible that we might, if 
truly, anxiously, and industriously employed upon it. Thai the 
atmosphere, for a long time past, has been more thick, turbid, 
and hazy, than I ever remember it before, I can from frequent 
observation testify; but whether this appearance did or did not 
belong to the production of the disease, I do not undertake to 
determine, though I fully believe so : admitting, however, but for a 
moment, the position, we should then see that the w T eak, the de¬ 
bilitated, the intemperate, the drunkard, the imprudent, and the 
exposed, would be the especial objects of its visitation, as, in fact, 
they have been amongst its most frequent victims. General 
Diebitz w r as a remarkable instance of it, being a wholesale de- 
vourer of punch. 
No better account has ever yet been given of the immediate cause 
of many a pestilence, many a fever and plague, and for which we 
can only present as a cause the inapplicable general term malaria, 
or the Almighty will; and no further yet have the profoundest re¬ 
searchers into primary causes been able to get. 
One of the best related cases I have seen of the cholera, and 
most minutely detailed, was that of a gentleman at or near Glas¬ 
gow, I think, who had eaten an unusually hearty meal of pickled 
salmon, being fond of it. The mass was too considerable, either 
from the quantity itself or the debilitating influences of the mala¬ 
ria, or both, for it to pass through the usual stages of chylifica- 
tion : he was seized with what were called the genuine symptoms 
of cholera, which no one ever disputed they were, and he died. 
Now all the circumstances here could be readily explained upon 
those principles which I have laid dow’n in explaining the gripes 
of horses ; but there, in some of the most violent and rapid cases 
in their termination, we had a direct and visible cause in a chill¬ 
ing atmosphere, with or without rain, and the animal also sweat- 
