This altered condition and rapid change in the life-sustaining principle of the blood, the loss of nerve-power, the impaired circulation and tendency to congestion, are the proper and distinguishing features of the disease; and the term "Algide," first used by the French Pathologists, very happily describes one of the most remarkable and constant symptoms, namely, the diminution of animal heat. The loss of temperature and its consequent effects upon the circulation, depressing and prostrating the nervous power, impairing and paralyzing the respiratory organs, suspending the functions of the liver and kidneys, enfeebling the action of the heart, and causing the capillary vessels of the mucous tissues to expand and pour off the serous fluid from the blood and every muscle and tissue of the system, with great rapidity, essentially constitute the phenomena of the Cholera. The constantly increasing augmentation of the poison and its intensified effects measure the malignity, the violence, and the rapidity of the disease. It is this multiplication, and the disturbance which attaches to it, that in each case constitutes the disease and destroys life. Of this fact the circumstantial evidence is abundant and conclusive, and may account in part for the violence of the disease in its first irruption in any particular locality. The vomiting, purging, and cramps are now generally considered as secondary and non-essential phenomena, for numerous cases of cholera have occurred in every section where it has prevailed in its more violent and malignant form without exhibiting these symptoms. The poison was so potent, and its progress so rapid, that life was extinguished in a very short time. In its first irruption at Muscat, cases are reported in which only ten minutes elapsed from the first apparent seizure before life was extinct. Dr. Milroy, speaking of the violence and rapidity of the disease as it occurred in 1817, and again in 1845 and '6, at Kurrachee, observes, that "within little more than five minutes hale and hearty men were seized, cramped, collapsed, and dead." Instances of death taking place in two or three hours are extremely common. When it broke out at Teheran, in May, 1846, Dr. Milroy observes, that "those who were attacked dropped suddenly down in a state of lethargy, and at the end of two or three hours expired, without any convulsions or vomitings, but from a complete stagnation of the blood." In many places during its prevalence in 1832, and subsequently in 1834, and in 1848 and '9, the rapid fatal character of the earlier cases was observed and reported as the most severe and hopeless. In various cities and villages in our own country, cases of this description were not unfrequent. In all these the destructive nature and rapid process of the disease was so depressing and overwhelming as to prevent any effort of the "vis naturæ" to resist its progress.