These sores were often produced by the irritating bite of an insect known under the name of the tick (_ixodes_), of which there are different species, and also by the bite of the mosquito. Specimens of the larger species of tick having fastened upon animals in such places as the ear, mane, etc., where they could not be rubbed off, become gorged with blood to the size of haricot beans. Those which attack men are much smaller. Ticks have no wings, no eyes, no mouth, merely legs, a pair of sharp, delicate lancets, and a pipe or rostrum covered over externally with small reflexed teeth, which they plunge into the skin, and then suck away, holding on by their barbs. Dr. Mann, formerly superintendent of education in Natal, writes: “this much, however, must be said even for these blind, bloodthirsty insects, their reality is not so bad as their reputation;” so that again we have an instance of an enemy of man not being so black as he is painted. In 1869 I treated many cases of malarial fever in Victoria County, most of them, however, occurring close to lagoons on the coast, and though I met with other scattered cases of it in the country, this was the only outbreak which could be entitled absolutely epidemic. I recollect in May of that year I had 120 cases among the whites and coolies on a sugar estate, which was situated on the sea-coast, near the mouth of the Umgeni River; but the fever was confined to this estate and Verulam, where I had four cases, the total mortality, to the best of my recollection, numbering nine. The cases of dysentery, on the other hand, were often perfectly intractable, and would sometimes yield to no mode of treatment, and this was especially the case at the end of summer, when the experience of a sudden chill would almost certainly induce the disease. Sickness was most prevalent, if care were not taken, at the change of the seasons, and when rains of an exceptional character took place, cases both of fever and dysentery of a severe type were always expected. After the disastrous flood of August, 1868, these expectations were realized to an unusual extent. This great flood lasted from August 28th to the 31st, inclusive, the downfall of rain being greater than the oldest inhabitants could recollect, 15.60 inches falling in 48 hours, and 17.11 inches during the four days that the storm continued. I had a very narrow escape at the time, when going to visit the manager of Fenton Vacy, a sugar estate about four miles from Verulam. This gentleman had been under my care for some days, suffering from a most acute attack of dysentery, from which, I regret to say, he eventually died.