A DISSERTATION ON THE EPIDEMIC CHOLERA. 645 
primarily induced by certain conditions of the stomach, as to 
food and of the atmosphere, as to chill or damp, fully to induce 
the access. For that cannot, at least in any proper sense of the 
term, be called a bilious disease, where this secretion, instead of 
abounding, is deficient or rendered difficult. In what sense the 
ancient Egyptians employed the term it would be now hard to 
discover ; but it is fair to conjecture, perhaps, in the same simple 
sense that we find it with the Hebrews—as a pestilence of whose 
origin they knew nothing. 
Having, in some degree, corrected the terms used, and esti¬ 
mated their proper value, we may now more safely venture to 
consider, and more usefully also, some of the less ancient writ¬ 
ings of physicians upon this complaint, and from these pass 
to the modern writers, proposing a new name afterwards, more 
expressive of the nature of the disease. 
Before, however, I quit this part of the subject, I could desire 
just to remark, that during my stay in Germany, about two years 
ago, and with this complaint raging all around me, I observed 
that the Germans pronounced the word cholera very differently 
to what we do in England, pronouncing the e long, cholerciy in¬ 
stead of short, as we do, cholera. Whether it may serve to 
guide us I do not undertake to determine, but the Greeks cer¬ 
tainly spelt it with an eta (vj) or e long; and I should therefore 
be led to believe this ought to be the normal pronunciation of it, 
and that it was so pronounced by the Eastern nations, from 
whom the Germans are more likely, from their actual locality, 
to have received it, than ourselves. It is singular, however, and 
worthy of notice, that in the foregoing quotation from Celsus, 
we see it spelt with an epsilon gravely accented, and not as we 
find it in the Greek writers generally written, which may per¬ 
haps be explained from the frequent transcriptions by the Ro¬ 
mans, and by scribes who knew not Greek, and had no letter in 
their alphabet corresponding to the eta or e long. 
Encouraged by the opportunity these splendid libraries afforded 
me, I thought it well also just to examine respecting the opinions 
of some of those physicians who succeeded at some distance those 
ancients we have lately spoken of. Alexander Irallianus was 
one of these, and appears to have lived about the reign of the 
Emperor Julian, the Apostate, and was by birth a Syrian, writ¬ 
ing in his native tongue; his works were translated into Greek, 
and afterwards published with a Latin version, by the industrious 
Germans at Andernach. He appears to have regarded the diar¬ 
rhoea, which sometimes attended this complaint, as not particu¬ 
larly proceeding from bilious discharges; and he appears also 
to have entertained very just views of the complaint itself, 
VOL. VI. 4 o 
