"The inorganic constituents," continues the same author, "if compared to the water, are during the first four hours increased, because at this time the water is passing off with great rapidity; afterwards, as the salts pass off, the disproportion is lessened, and after eighteen hours or so, the proportion of salts is greatly diminished, and, if compared with the organic constituents, the diminution is enormous. With respect to the individual salts, there is in the blood a relative preponderance of phosphates over chlorides, and of potash salts over soda salts. By the end of eighteen hours or so, the blood-corpuscles are left in a most abnormal condition; the great loss of water and of salts, especially of the chloride of potassium--a most important constituent of the blood-cells--at once leads to the conclusion that their functions must have been greatly impaired. Accordingly, Dr. Schmidt found that the amount of oxygen contained in them was lessened by one-half." Dr. Robertson affirms that the "fibrin of the blood is usually in large amount and coagulable with great firmness;" while Dr. Parkes, speaking of the same condition of the blood, and relying on the accuracy of his analysis, observes, "The presence of fibrin in the blood was not indicated by any coagulation either in or out of the body; and whether coagulated or not, the blood has usually a dark color; but it generally acquired an arterial tint when brought into contact with the air in thin layers." * * * "When we remember the great share taken by the blood-globules in the respiratory and heat-furnishing processes, it is scarcely possible to avoid concluding that their loss of salts is connected with the characteristic cyanosis and lowered temperature in cholera." "The diarrhoea coincides with the first chemical changes in the blood--the transudation of some of the constituents of the serum." Hence the phenomena of the disease may thus be traced from this process as the starting-point. All other chemical changes in the blood, and the most marked symptoms, such as the abnormal respiratory process, follow as a matter of course. Such is the theory of the nature of cholera, now advanced and sustained by the most eminent pathologists, which embraces the doctrine previously advanced that the blood is the primary seat of the disease, and becomes contaminated by the absorption of a specific poison. SECTION II.--PHENOMENA, OR SYMPTOMS.