THE INFLUENZA IN HOUSES. 265 
sure, by the increased attraction exercised on the earth 
because of the temporary relations of the planetary bodies, 
by inclemency of the seasons, or by excess of putrefying 
elements of the atmosphere. Now, if these conditions can 
be brought into extensive operation in a new locality by the 
mere arrival of a sick or infected animal—if it can be shown 
that the malady is communicated from one animal to 
another, and that it will spread rapidly in a new locality from 
a newly imported sick animal as a centre—we can only con¬ 
clude that the malady is caused by a specific poison, of 
which the diseased system is at once the storehouse and the 
field for its fertile reproduction. Some of the conditions 
above referred to might serve to charge the body of the 
diseased animal with deleterious gases or vapours ; but these, 
passing from the body in a healthy atmosphere, would be 
speedily diffused and rendered inert. The rapid and wide 
extension of the disease from a sick animal as a centre can 
only be explained on the theory that there exists a specific 
disease poison, capable of unlimited increase when it finds 
the proper food for its nourishment and growth in the bodies 
of susceptible subjects. 
The important question then is as to the transmissibility 
of the disease from the sick to the healthy. Many and 
high authorities disbelieve its transmissibility. They see it 
breaking out where contact was impossible, and they see a 
wide area prostrated in a few hours or a day, and conclude 
that the disease is altogether atmospheric in its cause. But 
its progress is not like the progress of the wind, but way¬ 
ward and peculiar. It shows a preference for places situated 
in the direct track of commerce, in the present outbreak, for 
example, for the towns on the New York Central and Erie 
Railways, while places a little aside are respected for some 
days later. It even shows a preference for the larger and 
more important cities, which have the most active com¬ 
mercial relations, as its first victims, while the smaller cities 
temporarily escape. It appears in London and Edinburgh 
long before the intermediate provincial cities are affected. 
It spreads throughout the Dominion of Canada ere it has 
much more than surmounted the barrier of the American 
frontier. It attacks Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, 
New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Boston, while as yet 
unknown in many of the smaller cities and towns along the 
channel of infection. It prevails in the larger cities of 
Washington, Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, before it has 
reached many of the smaller towns in New York, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and the New England States. Some of the best 
