Produced by Bryan Ness, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text. * * * * * Page numbers enclosed by curly braces (example: {25}) have been incorporated to facilitate the use of the Table of Contents. * * * * * EPIDEMICS EXAMINED AND EXPLAINED: OR, LIVING GERMS PROVED BY ANALOGY TO BE A SOURCE OF DISEASE. BY JOHN GROVE, M.R.C.S.L. AUTHOR OF "SULPHUR AS A REMEDY IN EPIDEMIC CHOLERA." LONDON: JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. MDCCCL. * * * * * "The tendencies of the mind, the turn of thought of whole ages, have frequently depended on prevailing diseases; for nothing exercises a more potent influence over man, either in disposing him to calmness and submission, or in kindling in him the wildest passions, than the proximity of inevitable and universal danger."--_Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages._ "The grand field of investigation lies immediately before us; we are trampling every hour upon things which to the ignorant seem nothing but dirt, but to the curious are precious as gold."--_Sewell on the Cultivation of the Intellect._ * * * * * TO BENJAMIN GUY BABINGTON, F.R.S., M.D., PHYSICIAN TO GUY'S HOSPITAL, AND PRESIDENT OF THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SOCIETY, ETC. ETC. THESE PAGES ARE, BY HIS KIND PERMISSION, Respectfully Dedicated, BY HIS OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. * * * * * {v} PREFACE. The following pages have been written with a view to render some aid in establishing a sound and firm basis for future research, on that absorbing topic, the Causes and Nature of Epidemic Diseases. The amount of information already published on Fevers, on the Exanthemata, and on the Plague, is truly astonishing, and the more so when it is considered, that at present no rational account or explanation is given of the causes of these affections. It appears to me but reasonable to suppose that as every thing on this earth has been created on a wise and unerring principle, Epidemic and Infectious Diseases are only indicative of some serious errors in our social arrangements and habits. The dangers and misery brought upon us by disease, may, as shewn by Dr. Spurzheim and Mr. Combe, be warnings against the infringement of the natural laws.