In the instance formerly quoted from Dr. Guthrie at Petersburg, we have a notable example of this sudden seizure by a stroke. His information was derived from the physician-general of the Russian army. This gentleman assured him, that “he had seen men, in apparent good health, instantaneously drop down, as if shot by a musket ball, by the sudden action of the pestiferous miasma, and upon duty again in 24 hours, perfectly recovered by the operation of a strong vomit.” Whether or not these men _felt_ any stroke at the instant of their falling we are not told: possibly it might be only a syncope very common in the plague, which took place at the very first invasion. Russel informs us, that “the sudden loss of strength, and disturbance of the functions attributed to the brain and heart, are reckoned, in a particular manner, symptoms of the plague. In their highest degree they distinguish the most fatal forms of the disease; and, under different modifications, adhere to all its varieties.... The early appearance of faintness was very remarkable in the plague,” &c. Thus we see that the plague attacks without fever in two different modes; one, by attacking and destroying the solid parts of the body, the other, without any disorganization of the body, attacking the vital principle itself, or rather the blood, from which this principle is derived, so that a temporary suspension of all the functions ensues. The analogy between the cause of pestilence and those visible substances called _poisons_, is very remarkable in some things, though in others it totally fails. In the Medical Repository[102] we have a dissertation upon this analogy by Dr. Edward Miller. He observes, that this analogy has been generally overlooked, chiefly on account of the invisible nature of the aerial poison, and the suddenness of death from poisons, more frequently than from pestilential diseases. This he accounts for from the largeness of the dose of poisons compared with that of contagion; “but (says he) by diminishing the quantity to an appropriate amount, these noxious substances (the poisons) may be made to exhibit the course, duration, and nearly all the phenomena, of what is called a malignant fever. But, above all, the attention of physicians has been diverted from this analogy between miasmata and poisons, by the febrile part of the character which generally belongs to pestilential diseases, and which, in common apprehension, is constantly connected with them. Yet these diseases are by no means universally accompanied with what is strictly called _fever_. There is often a degree of virulence in the Asiatic plague, in the yellow fever, and in all the other forms of pestilential and malignant diseases, which altogether transcends the process of fever, and extinguishes life in a more summary manner. In the worst cases both of poison and pestilence, the febrile part of the symptoms excites little attention.” [102] Vol. ii, p. 409.