32 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 20. 
The deciduous trees—the Vine and the Fig—are 
spoken of as being “ dried-up” and “ languishing,” but 
the evergreens—tbe Pomegranate, the Palm, and the 
! Tap-punch —“ as withered.” 
That the Citron was a fruit in general use among the 
Jews, even at a very early period, appears from the nar¬ 
rative related by Josephus of their pelting King Alex¬ 
ander Jannoeus with those which they carried, “accord¬ 
ing to the law,” at the Feast of Tabernacles ( Antiq . 1. 13, 
c 13, s. 5). This use of the Citron at their feasts is 
still continued, and Dr. Russell says the fruit is brought 
on those occasions from Jerusalem to Aleppo.* That it 
was produced plentifully in certain districts, appears 
from towns in Manasseh and Judah being named after 
it ( Joshua xv. 34 ; xvii. 12). 
As further evidence how appropriate tbe scriptural 
allusions to the Tappuach are also to the Citron, we will 
conclude with a notice of it by a modern botanist 
! (Dr. Lindley), who, probably, had nothing less present 
to his mind when lie wrote than illustrating texts of the 
Bible. “ The Citron ( Citrus Medico), supposed to be 
| the Median, Assyrian, or Persian Apple of the Greeks, 
j is, probably, the most beautiful species of the genus. 
It is described by Risso as having a majestic port, shin- 
j iug leaves, and rosy flowers, which are succeeded by 
' fruit whose beauty and size astonish the observer at the 
same time that their sweet odour gratifies his senses. 
The trees are constantly in vegetation, the flowers appear 
even in midwinter, and there is so continual a succes- 
! sion of them that flowers, young fruit, and ripe fruit, 
' may always bo seen together at the same time.” 
| A more fitting object for use by the Hebrew poet and 
in festal processions it would be difficult even to 
imagine. 
In drawing a parallel between the functions of the skin 
in plunts and in animals after our own fashion, we 
have pointed out the importance of attending to the 
skin in cholera, and in fevers, as a means of preserving the 
general health, as a sure and certain index of the state 
ot the health; and, likewise, we have noted the close 
connexion of the skin with the whole inner covering of 
the bowels and lungs. 
In confirmed cholera the whole skin will become 
so shrunken and livid as to age the poor patient 
apparently thirty years in as many hours. In fevers, 
a well-marked shivering fit is often the first notice 
a man gets that he is ill. The existence of some 
; form of rash has commonly been found to charac¬ 
terise all the more grave forms of epidemic. Accor- 
i dingly the cholera rash, “ exanthem,” has at length been 
made out, and is described by Dr. Babington, and 
others; and from the accounts of those who have ex¬ 
amined the bodies of persons recently dead of the com¬ 
plaint, an intense redness of the whole surface of the 
lining membrane of the bowels has been invariably 
* In Leviticus xxiii. 40 , the sentence “ boughs of goodly trees,” is 
more correctly translated “fruit of goodly trees,” and is understood by 
the Jews Jo be the Citron, which at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles 
is in perfection. 
observed a few hours after death. Inasmuch as the 
prostration of the nervous system is of itself enough to 
account for these and other symptoms, are we justified 
in regarding these appearances as more than secondary; 
are they not the effects rather than the- causes of the 
general depression ? 
Withoutpresuming to answer this question, we would 
venture to lay before our readers the subjoined obser¬ 
vations on the so-called nervous system of plants, which 
are interesting enough of themselves, and which go 
some way to justify the expectation, that facts may yet 
be gathered from the history of the life of the town 
animals, and even of plants, which will throw some 
light on the study of disease. 
As each successive stage of the earliest formation and 
growth of that wondrous thing which is to become a 
perfect man, we leave behind us the type of some 
humbler form of existence, and are endued, one by one, 
with the attributes of superior created beings, and be¬ 
come, afterwards, more and more instinct with energy, 
and more independent of mere physical laws. But, 
alas! for our frail bodies—there comes, sooner or later, a 
change, and a reversed movement, the very opposite of j 
all this As the lamp of life wanes in age, or is eclipsed [ 
in time of “ plague, pestilence, and famine,” we are 
again lowered in the scale, and again become obnoxious 
to external agencies and influences which, it would be 
uo contradiction to say, exercise no power at all over 
the human constitution in its natural healthy state. 
The familiar expression, that such a one (the same not 
being one of our readers) is reduced to a mere vegetable 
existence, or that another (a novel reader, perhaps) is a 
sensitive plant, conveys a moral along with it, as we 
shall presently see. 
In health we are accustomed to consider the brain 
and spinal chord as the one great centre to which all 
our external impressions are conveyed, and from which 
alone we derive the legitimate impulses of our acts, and ' 
all our sufferings. But we are not, therefore, to con- I 
elude, that in disease, when all the powers are in j 
abeyance, the skin and the extreme parts of the nervous 
system may not at once, and directly, be impressed by 
the external forces to which they are subjected. 
The breaking up of the bodily frame resembles the 
disorganisation of a great state. In a strong centralised 
government each department is drilled into an exact 
obedience to the ruling power. But this state of tilings 
lasts only for a time. The fall of great states usually 
begins with an inability to control or to protect an 
enormous extent of frontier. 
In troublous times the borderers of remote marches 
and principalities will set up some system of their own, 
and will get into all manner of mischief, without so 
much as, “ by your leave; ’’and the more timid and de¬ 
generate will fail to hold their own against the first 
invader, and there is no help for them. 
The following observations may serve to point out 
one way, at least, in which we may hereafter find that 
an atmosphere charged with poisonous matter can 
attack the human frame, by making an impression on 
