490 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 00. 
I 
special fitness inviting the attack, is consonant with the 
idea of a morbific poison, which, while it increases in 
certain foci, is capable of being scattered around them 
by means of atmospheric currents. (Dr. Daly’s Deport , 
Images 99 to 103.) 
Conclusions—I. The theory that the cause of the dis¬ 
ease is a general state of the atmosphere, or general 
atmospheric influence, or epidemic constitution, has been 
found untenable. 
II. The persistence of the epidemic for a certain 
time, even in localities of small extent, and its very 
partial distribution in a country, a town, or even parts 
of towns, are two facts which at once suggest that the 
cause of the disease is a material substance only par¬ 
tially distributed. Many spots withiu a limited area 
have remained free from it which exactly resembled 
localities attacked, in respect of the supposed localizing 
conditions. However, cholera is so far connected with 
the characters of low site and defective sanitary condi¬ 
tions that it is never very rife except where they are 
present in a marked degree. The natural inference is, 
that the matter which is the cause of cholera increases 
and finds the conditions of its action under the influence 
of foul, damp air, with the aid of some degree of warmth. 
This being premised, other facts become intelligible, 
namely, the persistence of the disease in winter in the 
interior of large establishments where there is warmth, 
together with impurity of air produced by the accumu¬ 
lation of many human beings within a limited space; 
the preference manifested throughout for low, densely- 
populated districts about the mouths of rivers; for 
crowded aud dirty ill-ventilated towns and places; and, 
likewise, its appearing generally first in places of the 
character described. 
III. A large body of evidence renders it certain that 
human intercourse has, at least, a share in the propaga¬ 
tion of the disease; aud that under certain circum¬ 
stances it is the most important if not the sole means 
of effecting its diffusion. Thus, the epidemic has pro- ■ 
gressively advanced along great lines of human traffic, I 
at a rate varying according to the activity and means 
of human intercourse in different countries, but never 1 
surpassing the rate at which men travel. In India, it has 
travelled for hundreds of miles, and for months in the I 
teeth of the monsoon, and among bodies of troops march- ' 
iug through countries till then healthy, and has con- 1 
tinued to prevail in ships for many weeks after they have 
left infected parts, appearing first at the seaports of any 
islaud or continent which it is newly invading: in a 
large proportion of cases its first appearance haviug 
been preceded by the arrival of ships from infected 
ports, and of ships actually bringing persons already 
affected with cholera. In several instances, the first 
patients attacked had had communication more or less 
immediate with sick persons brought in the ships. 
The facts, however, by no means sanction the belief 
that cholera i3 always propagated in this way; on the 
contrary, it is certain that the extension of the disease 
over large towns, if not over larger areas, may take 
place independently of communication between the sick 
and the healthy. Where human intercourse cannot 
have been the means of diffusing cholera, the agent 
most likely to have conveyed the poisou is the wind. 
IV. The propagation of the disease by human inter¬ 
course does not prove its contagious nature. If the 
poison of cholera increases in damp aud impure air, 
and is likewise capable of attaching itself to the surfaces 
of bodies, to the walls of rooms, and to furniture, it will 
also be collected by the clothes of persons living in 
infected dwellings; and wherever it meets with the 
conditions favourable to its increase aud action will 
produce fresh outbreaks. Some facts which constitute 
presumptive evidence in favour of the dependence of 
the epidemic on contagion, have been found susceptible 
of explanation in other ways, though the explanations 
offered have, in some instances, been necessarily of a 
conjectural nature. The evidence respecting the espe¬ 
cial liability of nurses and others attending the sick, 
though conflicting, is, in some ! instances, of such a 
character as to preclude the absolute rejection of the 
view that the disease has a contagious property, even 
though it does not usually spread by contagion. 
V. The cpiestion whether the cholera poison enters 
the body through the lungs, or through the alimentary 
canal, has not been conclusively solved; but no suffi¬ 
cient reasons have been found for adopting the theory 
that the poison is swallowed by the food or drink; and 
if the character of the water drunk is not altogether 
destitute of influence with reference to the diffusion of 
cholera, at least its powers and effects are very incon¬ 
siderable in comparison with those of other conditions. 
That theory, then, alone is supported by a large amount 
of evidence which regards the cause of cholera as a 
matter increasing by some process, whether chemical or 
organic, in impure and damp air, and assumes that 
although, of course diffused with the air, it is also dis¬ 
tributed and diffused by means of human intercourse. 
This theory explains much that would otherwise seem 
capricious in the course of cholera, and elucidates the 
relations subsisting between cholera and other epide¬ 
mics. The similarity of the local conditions favouring 
cholera and epidemic diseases generally, together with 
other facts, agree best with the view that these several 
diseases are caused by different poisons, all of which 
find their means of increase in similar states of atmo¬ 
sphere, though these, probably, are modifications of 
atmospheric conditions more essential to some of these 
diseases than to others. In the statement that the 
theory above indicated is the only one supported by a 
large amount of evidence, it is not implied that this 
theory is adopted to the exclusion of all others. (Dr. 
Baly's Deport' p. 214 to 224). J. J. 
A FEW WORDS ABOUT HAND-GLASSES. 
Foil many years past a notion has existed with my¬ 
self that a revolution, or rather a reconsideration, is 
necessary in the matter of garden-tools, glasses, and 
other appliances so necessary to good gardening. 1 
am, indeed, astonished—seeing what a chance offered, 
