From the passages we have cited, it is quite evident that Drs. Johnson, Bell, Parkes, Reid, Wallis, Maxwell, Massy, and many others, admit this congestive character and impeded circulation of the blood to be the result, or consequent of a primary affection of the blood, as we have already observed in a former paper. The _term_ "Algide" is peculiarly expressive of the diminished animal heat, and, as Dr. Bell represents, it is the cold stage which is alone essential, and is the physiological cause of the subsequent stages. It is the specific disease-poison, so often referred to, that has been inhaled, the leaven that has effected such obvious changes in the blood. The poison, virulent, and subtle, and unknown, so marvelously active in its operations, that is exhibited so prominently in all the works we have perused as the one great, mysterious, and efficient cause which produces the disease called cholera, and all the phenomena of its development. To its direct and specific action, therefore, must be attributed all the phenomena of the disease as the resulting subsequent consequences. It is also further evident, from the pathological facts and arguments adduced in support of this theory of congestion, that the abnormal condition or state of the blood-vessels is the result and the product of the activity of the primary or final cause, and must be regarded in relation to it as cause and effect. On this principle alone, the thickening of the blood, the contraction of the left ventricle of the heart, and of the capillary and pulmonary arteries, assigned by some as the cause of choleraic collapse, must be accounted for. These effects are not and cannot be from a process independent and outside of the primary disease action, but are the result of such primary action. Again, it is evident, from the views and doctrines cited above, that the disease is decidedly congestive in its tendency and character from its very commencement. The impeded flow of the blood--the comparative emptiness of the left ventricle of the heart and arteries--and the excessive loss of temperature, all indicate a rapid process of congestion attending the progress of disease. This is one of the peculiar and prominent features of cholera, and is strikingly exhibited in the morbid appearances observed in all those instances where death has occurred within a few minutes from the first indications of attack.