"After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in women was every where remarkable--a grand phenomenon, which from its occurrence after every destructive pestilence proves to conviction, if any occurrence can do so, the prevalence of a higher power in the direction of general organic life. Marriages were almost without exception prolific; and double and treble births were more frequent than at other times."--_Hecker_, p. 31. [63] It is stated that on the decline of the Plague, 1665, those who returned early to London, or new comers, were certain to be attacked. In proof of this the 1st week of November, the deaths increased 400, and "physicians reported that above 3000 fell sick that week, mostly new comers." See also Dr. Copland's Dict. Pract. Med. Epidemic and Endemic Diseases. "The hardy mountaineer is a surer victim of paludal fever, whether he visits the low countries of the tropics, or the marshes of a more temperate climate, than the feebler native of those countries."--_Dr. R. Williams on Morbid Poisons._ [64] "Substances presented to the gastro-intestinal surfaces, are mixed up with various secretions, mucus, saliva, gastric juice, bile, pancreatic liquor, and special exudations from the peculiar glands of each successive section, while aerial poisons, unmixed and unfettered, are applied at once to a surface on which, behind scarcely a shadow of a film, circulates the blood prepared, by the habitual action of the respiratory function, to absorb almost every vapour, and every odour, which may not be too irritating to pass the gates of the _glottis_."--_Mitchell on Fevers._ [65] Hecker on the "Black Death." [66] The stomach in some cases is no doubt the medium by which some diseases are contracted. It is well known, that in many places the water induces diarrhoea, the permanent residents, however, may not suffer, but all new comers are more or less affected by drinking it. [67] "Similar effects have been experienced from the use of mouldy provisions."--_Dr. Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom._ [68] "Untold numbers die of the diseases produced by scanty and _unwholesome food_."--_Southey._ A large, nay, a most extensive adulteration of flour with plaster of Paris was detected not many years since. The flour was supplied by a contractor for the manufacture of biscuits for the navy. [69] See Southey's Doctor, vol. ii. interchapter vi. p. 115, for an illustration of this subject. [70] Both these patients died. [71] "A good part of the clove trees which grew so plentifully in the island of Ternate, being felled at the solicitation of the Dutch, in order to heighten the price of that fruit, such a change ensued in the air, _as shewed the salutary effect of the effluvia of clove trees and their blossoms; the whole island, soon after they were cut down, becoming exceeding sickly_." [72] The observation is originally taken from the City Remembrancer, 133. [73] See Hamilton's History of Medicine, vol. i. p. 4.