process,) the excrementitious matter is composed of secretions and disorganized matter, mixed together as an _effete_ product, and destined then for reorganization by the vegetable kingdom. Now all animals, whether they be large or small, live on organized matter,--they convert that matter into an inorganic form, and I cannot help imagining that if epidemic diseases and fevers depended upon animalcular growth and development in the blood or tissues of the body, the excretions or secretions from them would have yielded some information to the searching enquiries of the chemist, supposing that these excretions and secretions were capable of reaching to a sufficient amount in quantity, to bring about those fatal effects of poisoning, we witness in Cholera and other epidemic affections. Insects, I {131} believe are poisonous only by their secretions, and though they are known to multiply with exceeding rapidity, I can hardly imagine that by their development, however rapid, they could produce such a change in the human body, as to bring about the speedy dissolution, and generally gangrenous appearance, that has invariably been observed in those suddenly dying under the influence of epidemic poisons. The vibriones, whose destructive effects on wheat are so well known, are a genus of animalcules, which at first would seem to favour the animalcular theory in a remarkable manner; for on examining them, they do not appear to possess any other structure than a gelatinous absorbing mass, in this respect resembling a vegetable.