A.D. 1840, blight appeared in Germany among the crops, especially the potato; it prevailed to so great an extent, Dr. Martius reports, as to cause a very serious alarm, and even to threaten the total extinction of that esculent. At the same time, the island of Arran, with other parts of the Highlands of Scotland, suffered from a similar disease among the potato crops: it prevailed there from 1839 to 1842, destroying at least half the vegetation. A.D. 1841, plague raged in Syria, and at Erzeroum with great violence. During this period, extending to the year following, 1842, an epidemic religious ecstasy, as it was called, prevailed in Sweden. This singular epidemic malady was distinguished by two prominent and remarkable symptoms,--one physical, consisting of spasm, or involuntary contractions or contortions, &c.; the other, mental, being an ecstasy, more or less involuntary, during which the patients fancied themselves divinely inspired, and felt impelled to speak of supernatural things which they fancied they saw; they were occasionally moved to preach. It was the female portion of the community that suffered most. Anything offensive to the mind re-acted convulsively on the body, causing a sort of chorea, which it was attempted to distinguish or divide into two distinct forms of the disease, called mental and physical chorea. Several thousand persons were attacked by the disease; it was rarely fatal. Persons who had been affected, when convalescing, felt languid and debilitated, both in body and mind. Yellow fever at this period was fatal at Key West, East Florida, in the United States. Early in 1841 remittent fever occurred among the crew of the ‘Wanderer’ a ship belonging to the Royal Navy, chiefly among the boats’ crews who had been employed in the rivers Nunez and Pongos. Seventy persons were taken ill, and nine died. In the course of this year, remittent fever prevailed in many other Queen’s ships employed on the African coast to put down the slave trade.