One of the numerous eccentricities of this disease is to lie dormant in the system for many years; in my own case the “bacilli” appear to have concentrated themselves in the boil, and, after having killed it, must either have died themselves, or come bodily away with the tissues, for I have, during the past twelve years, never suffered the least approach to ague. The specific germ of this disease will, without a doubt, soon be isolated either in this country or on the Continent: there is a current idea that the mantle of medical discovery has descended upon our friends across the water to our own exclusion; an idea against which such names as Harvey and Jenner alone cry trumpet-tongued. At the same time some nicety will be requisite to distinguish between those producing quotidian, tertian, quartan and more irregular forms; how it comes to pass that these germs can be in abeyance for many years, and then return to life and activity, is so far a hard nut to crack. Heat, moisture and vegetation are a combination that produce the most virulent germs, hence the dangers attending the period in the East when the rains are drying up. Two of the three chief causes used also to operate with disastrous effect in the days before the Lincolnshire fens were drained. Just as in all countries we can estimate the character of any soil from its natural vegetation, so in India, the appearance of its inhabitants is a sure indication of the healthiness of a district. A leaden complexion, for example, betokens an enlarged spleen, due to constantly recurring attacks of ague, and where this is on the increase, the locality is an unhealthy one. Unpleasant as such an experience unquestionably is, one can scarcely help being struck by the strange symptoms produced by the circulation of this poison through the system; shivering, accompanied by icy coldness and an insatiable craving for everything warm, inside and out, is succeeded by violent perspiration, and a similar and opposite longing for everything cold. The worst of it is, too, that the germs, nowise routed by this outpour, live to fight another day! The entire phenomenon is due to a specific impression on the nervous centre, or what is popularly called the spinal marrow, the brain remaining as a general rule uninfluenced. The cellular, spongy spleen, acts as a reservoir into which the blood can flow, when driven by certain emotions from the surface; but for this, the stream would probably overwhelm what our distinguished lecturer used to call the tripod of life, viz. the heart, lungs and brain. From repeated attacks, the spleen will lose its elasticity, becoming enlarged to such an extent as to occupy the principal portion of the cavity in which it resides, and withal so exceedingly brittle, that a push or even a deep sigh will cause it to rupture, resulting in almost instantaneous death.