A DISSERTATION ON THE EPIDEMIC CHOLERA. G4T 
As standing among the first in erudition and comprehensive 
views, appears the work of my late esteemed and early friend, 
Dr. Thomas Young, whose premature loss all true lovers of 
science must sincerely deplore ; he has, however, left behind him 
an imperishable monument of his acuteness, learning, and per¬ 
severance, in first opening the long-closed door of Egyptian 
literature by his unwearied labours with the triglyph stone, a very 
precious relic still seen among the rare treasures of our national 
museum. On this stone he first learnt to decipher the symbo¬ 
lical acrostic manner of writing, and of inscription, used by this 
ancient and wonderful people. 
In that astonishing collection of nosologic matter, his Medical 
Literature, p. 287, Dr. Young has noticed this singular disorder 
the cholera morbusj as he also terms it; and, prepossessed with 
the general feeling arising from the Greek name of it, and of the 
great medical authorities in respect to it, he fails not to appre¬ 
hend it to be a disease of entirely bilious origin and character. 
And, perhaps, in endeavouring to reduce it to some given place 
in his general system of diseases, he not impossibly felt a little 
embarrassment where to arrange, and how to dispose of, this 
three-legged monster of a disease, or under which of his genera 
he should particularly place it. Having for its characters a triple 
share, viz., vomiting, purging, and tormina. And I may also 
confess that I remember to have had myself formerly, in early 
life, an indescribable feeling of horror and confusion left in my 
mind after reading, in medical works, a description of this com¬ 
plaint. Whether such might have been his feelings or not, when 
he was measuring this disease for its place in his system, I do 
not undertake to determine; but however this might be, he at 
length makes his choice, and unfortunately fixes upon the purg¬ 
ing character of it, which leads him to place it immediately un¬ 
der the genus or order of Diarrhoea. It was evidently neces¬ 
sary to fix it somewhere, as it must inevitably belong to one of 
the three, and could not with any propriety, as we shall see here¬ 
after, constitute a class or proper genus of itself. 
His choice, how'ever, was unfortunate, inasmuch as w'e have 
already seen that the diarrhoea is not present in well-marked cases 
of this disease ; and even when it is, it is not by any means the 
leading character of it, nor of any very fatal or destructive ten¬ 
dency ; but is, indeed, almost as frequently absent as present, and 
therefore could in no respect be entitled to so predominant a dis¬ 
tinction as that of being the essential or leading character of the 
disease. 
Had he made his election upon the tormina, ^or strophic cha¬ 
racter or symptom of the disorder, it would have brought out a 
