A.D. 1795, a severe earthquake was felt on the 17th of July at Manchester and in its neighbourhood: there was a second shock afterwards on the 18th of October. On the 6th of November, in the same year, a violent storm destroyed many lives and much property in England. On the 24th of the following month, December, a severe frost set in, and continued until the 23rd of January. Murrain committed great ravages in Lombardy amongst horned cattle. Professor Count Moscati and Drs. Deho, Bonvicini, and Gherardini published a description of its symptoms, amongst which were observable great rigidity and tension in the necks of animals, and also great sensibility along the spinal column, towards the termination of the malady. Two years after, 1797, a similar epidemic prevailed in the Venetian States, especially in Friuli: horses, sheep, and poultry suffered from this malady, as well as horned cattle. A severe earthquake, this year, 1796, destroyed the whole country between Santa Fé and Panama, including the cities of Cusco and Quito; 40,000 of the inhabitants were in one second hurled into eternity. The seasons were intemperate in the United States. Bilious remittent or yellow fever prevailed at New York, Charleston, Boston, Newburyport, Philadelphia, and in various others of the States. The year following, 1797, the epidemic continued to cause great mortality in the States, especially in Norfolk, Providence, Portland, and Savannah, and it extended thence to New Orleans: it commenced with the symptoms of common remittent fever, and increased progressively in violence, carrying off numbers of the inhabitants.

A.D. 1798. The preceding winter was severe and long. The summer, this year, was remarkably dry and sultry; the rivers afterwards inundated the adjoining country, heavy rains falling at the same time. Catarrhs, pleurisies, and sore throats prevailed, with bilious fevers. In the autumn, grasshoppers infested the country round about Pennsylvania and New England, and a pestilential fever commenced and spread dismay among the inhabitants: many were carried off by it. The citizens of New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Newport, Albany, Boston, Portsmouth, and New London, suffered greatly from this disease, which exhibited both bubo and carbuncle, with many other symptoms of the true plague. A peculiar fog or vapour was observed in New York during the most fatal period of this pestilence, especially in the month of September. Lake and marsh fevers prevailed also about this period in the low and swampy districts, such as Milford, &c. This yellow pestilence was less generally characterized by inflammatory action, and venesection was attended with less salutary effects than on former occasions.

A.D. 1799. In Barbary, 3000 died daily from severe pestilence: at Fez alone, 247,000 persons are said to have perished in consequence. In Morocco, pestilence was preceded by famine, induced by extreme elemental disturbance. At Mogador it broke out, in April, in the form of virulent small-pox; by July it had assumed the type of the most deadly species of plague: this fatal disease ceased in October, after carrying off numbers. At a small village called Diabet, situated about two miles south-east of Mogador, it raged with great violence for twenty-one days, carrying off during that period one hundred persons out of one hundred and thirty. Many populous villages, in the extensive Shellah province of Haha, suffered in a similar manner. The birds deserted their former abodes during the prevalence of this pestilence. The Emperor, it is reported, had the plague twice during the time.

The summer in the United States of America, this year, 1799, was sultry and dry, with much thunder and lightning, succeeded by deluging rains; the autumn was variable, and the winter severe; the following spring was cold and late, and yellow fever showed itself to a certain extent in many of the States.

A.D. 1800, malignant yellow fever commenced at Baltimore, and raged in Boston, and in various other of the principal districts of the Union. In the autumn of this year, Cadiz became desolate from a similar pestilence; by the middle of September the deaths amounted to 200 daily: at this period the air, from its stagnant state, says Arejula, became so vitiated, that its noxious qualities affected even the lower orders of animals: canary birds died with blood issuing from their bills; and in none of the neighbouring towns, which were afterwards infected, did any sparrows appear during the epidemic. We saw, continues Arejula, many of the domestic animals die with some of the same symptoms as those presented by persons labouring under the disease. Dogs were affected by the epidemic more than any other animals; the cats next, and the horses, then poultry and canary birds; dogs and cats were also subject to hemorrhages, but more so to the black vomit, and to dark fœtid evacuations. The horses which I saw die, he says, had that marble coldness of the extremities, or the general convulsions, so remarkable in this disease. Another author, Fellows, states that all the physicians in Cadiz and in Malaga who have written on this disorder, and with whom he had conversed, confirmed to him the facts as detailed by Arejula. The inhabitants of Xeres suffered greatly from this yellow pestilence; it also prevailed at Malaga, and in various other parts of Spain: it persisted unto 1804.

A.D. 1801, anginas, pleurisies, and yellow pestilence continued to prevail for several years in the United States of America, and in other places: typhus was rife in Ireland and England, especially in London, from which city and countries it is scarcely ever absent.

A.D. 1802, a very hot and dry summer was succeeded in November by incessant heavy rain: thick fogs spread over the country, and enveloped such places in central Germany as were inaccessible to ventilation; amongst others, the small Franconian town of Roettingen, situated on the river Tauber, and surrounded by mountains. Towards the end of the month an extremely fatal disease broke out, which was without example in the memory of its oldest inhabitants, it being totally unknown to them previously. The young and strong were suddenly seized with pain and anguish at the heart, with violent palpitations, and lacerating pains in the nape of the neck; profuse, sour, ill-smelling perspiration broke out over the entire body, and a suffering, as though a violent rheumatic fever had seized on the tendinous expansions, accompanied this terrible malady: in the worst cases a spasmodic trembling ensued, the patient fainted, the limbs became rigid, and death closed the scene, frequently within twenty-four hours from the commencement of the attack.

A.D. 1803. Influenza overspread the British Isles in the spring of this year, causing great mortality: in severity it was similar to those prevalent A.D. 1762 and 1782, as described by Sir George Baker.

Tommasini describes a yellow pestilence which raged at Leghorn and at Lucca A.D. 1804. A similar disease was also prevalent in the West Indian Islands about this period, especially in the islands of Martinique and Grenada. The year following, 1805, spotted typhus, or petechial pestilence, was rife in various parts of the United States, and caused great mortality.

A.D. 1809, epidemic pestilence suddenly made its appearance amongst the British troops occupying Portugal.

A.D. 1810, in the month of October, yellow pestilence appeared at Gibraltar: of the population of this fortress, amounting to 14,000, only twenty-eight escaped the malady; twelve of these had had the disease previously in the West Indies and elsewhere. A.D. 1811, puerperal fever was prevalent and lethal in Somersetshire.

A.D. 1812, Constantinople suffered dreadfully from plague, which carried off 160,000 persons. Since the severe winter of 1794–95, this country (England) had not experienced such an intense and continued cold as occurred during the present season, from the 30th of November, 1813, to February, 1814. The early part of December was raw, chilly, and occasionally foggy; frost, which was severe, commenced the day after Christmas-day: on the 27th it was accompanied by a thick fog, which, towards noon, became so dense as to render all objects invisible at a short distance, even with the aid of torches, so as to prevent the departure of mail-coaches and of other carriages; numerous accidents occurred in and near London. This singular and dark state of the atmosphere, which was extremely offensive both to the eyes and lungs, continued for the space of seven days, with scarcely any change, even at noon, except the appearance of a dim light during the latter; and as the frost increased, the houses, shrubs, and trees became thickly covered with the freezing humidity of the fog. This state of things terminated at the end of the week with a heavy fall of snow, which continued until the streets were covered to the depth of several feet, to the great interruption of all communication with the country for several days. In the last week of January, from a partial thaw, immense masses of ice were brought down the Thames, which, on the recurrence of frost, became so united as to be capable of supporting the weight of great multitudes of people, who were entertained in the booths erected upon the ice during the fair near Blackfriars Bridge. The wind blew almost invariably from the east and north-east, and was frequently very high, rendering the cold more intense: on many days the temperature was as low as 15° of Fahrenheit, and it was said to have fallen on some nights as low as 11°, and even lower. The effects of this severity of the cold were aggravated amongst the lower orders by the difficulty of procuring fuel, in consequence of the great scarcity of coals, which cost double the usual price. Persons of all ages suffered from severe influenza, attended with fever of a rather malignant type: children, and persons who had passed the middle period, as usual, suffered the most, from their vital powers being less energetic than during the intermediate periods of existence. During the months of October and November (1813) typhus fever became more frequent than it had been for several years previously: it prevailed mostly in the filthy courts of Saffron Hill, near Hatton Garden, which are almost exclusively inhabited by the lowest kind of Irish labourers. Scarlatina was also rife, but was not very fatal. These diseases were not, however, confined to the places where they first appeared; they soon showed themselves in the crowded districts in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the town, and in the Borough, and were greatly prevalent in the alleys about Essex Street, in Whitechapel, near Golden Lane, Old Street, and in many filthy courts about Cow Cross and Chick Lane, in the vicinity of Smithfield: they were also rife in the districts near Kent Street, in the parishes of St. George and St. Saviour, in Southwark, in the courts running into Shoe Lane, Clare Market, the Strand, at Somers Town, and, singular to say, they broke out last of all in St. Giles’, the district proverbially the receptacle of beggary and vice.

During this year (1813), yellow pestilence again made its appearance at Gibraltar; it raged from October till the month of December, when it subsided, after causing great destruction of the troops then in garrison. The civilians suffered an equal mortality. In the year following (1814), this epidemic again broke out in the month of August, and disappeared about the end of October; it was not again heard of on the rock until 1828.

A.D. 1813, plague made its appearance in the island of Malta, where it had not been known previously for 138 years,—not since the year 1675. From the month of April to that of November, 4483 persons were carried off by it; it also raged at Gozzo, Corfu, &c.

A.D. 1815, the harvest was unfavourable all over Europe, and several provinces of Naples were threatened with famine. On the 27th of December, a suspicious epidemic broke out at Noya: it consisted of a hot nervous fever, rapidly running its course, with gangrenous and malignant boils and carbuncles; women were the first and most frequent victims; children also suffered in a similar proportion; old persons were more exempt. The disease soon afterwards appeared at Cagliari, and it is stated not to have presented any of the characteristics of the plague, although it was very fatal. This pestilence was preceded by a famine, which commenced among the poor: other diseases prevailed at the same time: the prevalence of a south wind seemed to increase its propagative powers; it continued about six months, when it ceased suddenly in the following year, 1816.

About this period, A.D. 1815, pestilential disease was developed in the island of Corfu; it first made its appearance at a little village called Marathea, in the district of Lefchimo. Tully states that nothing could equal the wretched appearance of the village,—poverty, with all its miserable train of attendants, presenting itself to view at every step. Near this village stagnant pools and marshes everywhere presented themselves: rains set in earlier than usual, and were followed by a long drought and heat, unnatural for the advanced season of the year, with a constant sirocco or south-east wind: so rapidly fatal was this pestilence, that more than a fourth part of the inhabitants were carried off in a few days. It is recorded that out of 700 seized in this small village, only 78 recovered!

During the same year, the fall of rain in the East was remarkable, especially during the rainy season, when it was indeed excessive,—and that which rendered it the more worthy of notice was, that the Ganges, the Soane, and the Coossee rivers burst their boundaries, and destroyed a vast extent of agricultural property in the neighbouring districts. The cold season that followed was also damp, and not bracing; and again the hot or summer season that followed was also moist. The winter which followed was unfortunately also damp, and the atmosphere during the subsequent summer, A.D. 1816, was exceedingly loaded with moisture in the shape of dense fogs; drought followed, for the heat was intense; few north-westers, it is said, occurred to temper the air, and those which did were accompanied with little or no rain: towards the end of the month of May, the thermometer had risen to 98° in the shade,—a very uncommon height in Bengal. This scorching, burning weather continued uninterrupted unto the middle of June. In the remaining portion of June and in July the rains fell moderately in Calcutta and in its vicinity; but in the month following, August, the showers became scanty and rare, while the days and nights were oppressively hot. In the western part of the provinces the great drought which succeeded dried up the rivers, so that apprehensions were entertained for the safety of the rice cultivation. The 1st of September ushered in a most unexpected change: rain came down in deluges, and continued unabated during the entire month: it caused a greater and more extensive inundation than had happened within the recollection of the oldest inhabitant.

The morbid effects of a long train of anomalous weather then became evident amongst the people. Low fevers of a typhoid character prevailed, accompanied by a malignant sore-throat,—a disease previously unknown there, according to the Bengal Report.

A.D. 1817 was the commencement of a pestilential period, during which disease raged rampant all over the habitable globe, and so continued for a series of years: yellow pestilence prevailed with great violence, and caused great mortality at Savannah, New Orleans, Mobile, Natchez, the Havannah, Baltimore, Charleston, and elsewhere in the United States.

Pestilential cholera commenced and committed great ravages, especially in India, where it prevailed with an intensity and fatality equal to those of a similar malady which was fatal to thousands of the human race A.D. 260. This pestilence broke out in the month of August, it is said, at a place called Jessore, a populous town in the centre of the Delta of the Ganges, the capital of the Sunderbunds, distant from Calcutta about sixty English miles, and there it caused great mortality, proving fatal to almost all on whom it seized. Jessore is described as being a crowded, filthy place, surrounded by impenetrable and marshy jungles, and consequently exposed to all the horrors of a malarious and ill-ventilated atmosphere. In the course of a few weeks, 10,000 of the inhabitants perished in this district only. In the September following, it broke out in Calcutta, where it committed great ravages. It spread thence along the banks of the Ganges in a north-westerly direction, not then extending further to the east than Muzufferpore. It also attacked with great violence the English army assembled in Bundelcund, under the Marquess of Hastings, on the banks of the Sinde, in the most central part of India. Five thousand men perished between the 15th and 20th of November, 9000 of the troops dying altogether during this attack of the epidemic. The roads were covered with the dying and the dead.

A.D. 1818. This dreadful epidemic extended to Jaulnah, on the Madras side of the Indian peninsula, and in August of the same year it reached Bombay; in fact, it may be said to have extended itself to every part of India, and to many of the neighbouring countries, which are to this day suffering from it, but in a mitigated degree. In March, 10,000 perished from it in Banda and its environs. Hutta, Saugur, Ougein, and Kotah also suffered in a similar proportion. An equal number died of cholera in the same month in Allahabad. In April and May, Cawnpore, Meerhut, Agra, and Delhi were attacked, and the disease raged in these towns with great severity. About the same time, Lucknow and Fyzabad, cities in Oude, were ravaged by it, and 30,000 perished in Goruckpore alone. In October, the disease broke out in Madras, and in Ceylon in the following December. During this period, it proved very destructive to the inhabitants of the Mauritius, raged violently in the Burmese Empire, in the kingdom of Aracan, and in the peninsula of Molucca. Yellow pestilence also raged at the same time in the United States, and continued the two following years, 1819 and 1820, carrying off great numbers in many of the States, especially in New York and Philadelphia; it was also rife in the West Indian Islands, in Bermuda, in British Guiana, and in various parts of the South American continent.

The year 1819 was marked by great commotions of the elements, and a general spread of epidemic pestilence all over the world; its prevalence was remarked in all the four quarters of the globe, each portion having been visited by the forms of disease peculiar to its several climates. A tract of country, the Ullah-Bund, in the Delta of the Indus, extending nearly fifty miles in length and sixteen in breadth, was upheaved ten feet; while adjoining districts were depressed, and the features of the Delta completely altered. The island of Penang, Sumatra, Singapore, the kingdom of Siam, and the isles of France and Bourbon were infected with pestilential cholera. In the single town of Bankok, the capital of Siam, 40,000 persons perished by this dire destruction.

During the year 1820 cholera extended to Tonquin, Cambogia, Cochin-China, Southern China, Canton, the Philippines, &c.

A.D. 1821, Xeres was visited by yellow pestilence; the British troops suffered severely, and the civilians in greater proportion; it prevailed also with great destruction at Cadiz, a city which had suffered between the years 1800 and 1821, from eleven epidemic pestilences of a similar type. (Vide Professor Salva, of Barcelona, on Yellow Fever.)—Sir James Fellows, in his reports on the pestilential disorders of Andalusia during these years, asserts, as before remarked, that the air from its stagnant state became so vitiated that its noxious qualities affected even dumb animals. The winter in America this year was mild until the end of December; the spring was wet and cold, and the summer dry and sultry, with uncommon heat; all vegetable productions seemed to wither, and the drought was so great that the wells or springs were dried up; the thermometer rose to 90° and 100° in May; and intermittent, remittent and bilious fevers, with dysenteries, prevailed in the swampy districts. In the month of August, yellow pestilence made its appearance at New York, and was soon rife at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and at Charleston; it was also prevalent at New Orleans, Natchez, Mobile, Alabama, and the Havannah, and extended along the low banks of the Mississippi river. From this period until 1822, the disease, although diminished in severity, yet carried off great numbers in the various districts.

Destructive cholera, which may be said not to have subsided at all, visited, this year, 1821, the island of Java, Bantam, Mendura, Borneo, and various other parts in the Indian Archipelago. In Java it is reported that 102,000 persons were carried off by it, 17,000 of whom belonged to the town of Batavia, one of the most unhealthy towns in the East. This same year, this dreadful pestilence, in the month of July, reached Muscat in Arabia, in its western course, where 10,000 persons lost their lives, and during the remainder of the year committed great ravages in various places in the Persian Gulf. In the following month, August, it appeared in Persia, and raged with violence at Bassora and at Baghdad. In Bassora, 18,000 lives, being one-third of the population, were sacrificed in eleven days, and a similarly fearful destruction befel Baghdad. In Bushire, where it broke out in July, 1821, its ravages were most fearful. The bazaars were closed, the houses abandoned, the unburied dead lay in heaps in the streets, and the surviving population sought safety in flight. In Shiraz one-eighth of the population perished.

In the years 1822–24, it revisited Tonquin and also Pekin, Central and Northern China, the Moluccas or Spice Islands, Amboyna, Macassar, Assam, and most of the other eastern countries. In Ispahan the epidemic did not inflict much damage, but at Erzeroom it attacked the army of the victorious Abbas Mirza, and swept his ranks from front to rear, the terror-stricken soldiery throwing away their arms, and flying from before the invisible destroyer. During these years, 1822–24, extending to 1827–29–30, this pestilence prevailed in many of the principal cities of Persia, and also in Chinese Tartary: it ravaged most of the populous cities of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judæa, and reached within 150 miles of the Georgian frontiers of Russia: it was also rife at Orenburg and Astrachan, beyond which it seems not to have extended until the years 1828–29, when it appeared at Orenburg, the capital of the province of that name, situated on the Tartar frontier, 400 miles north of the Caspian Sea. During this period, disease was rife in various other parts of the world.

There was a great scarcity, A.D. 1822, and epidemic typhus prevailed to a great extent in the west of Ireland, involving other parts of that unfortunate country. An awful earthquake occurred about this period at Chili, by which an immense tract of ground, 1000 square miles, was elevated from two to six feet above its original level, and a great part of the bottom of the sea remained bare and dry at high water, with beds of oysters, mussels, and other shellfish adhering to the rocks on which they grew. The fish being all dead, and exhaling most offensive effluvia, disease consequently ensued. Ordinary typhus prevailed in Paris, during which time many cases of spasmodic yellow fever, as it was termed, were observed.

A.D. 1823, the Laplanders are stated to have suffered greatly in their cattle from murrain; upwards of 5000 head were carried off,—wolves even being destroyed by it, so intense and general among the lower animals was the distemper. Yellow fever this year prevailed in Lisbon and in the Island of Ascension, and also in various settlements on the African coast, especially at Sierra Leone. The two years following, 1824–25, pestilence was rife in Lisbon. Yellow pestilence, in the latter year, devastated many places on the coast of South America, especially in the Brazils. Yellow fever prevailed at Rio de Janeiro. The drought was excessive, but was succeeded by heavy rains, common in this quarter of the globe. At one settlement alone, Aracaty, the mortality in a short time was estimated at 30,000. Great numbers died during their efforts to reach the coast for water; wild as well as domestic animals perished. The drought, with its attendant misery and deadliness, was so great, that to this day the inhabitants speak of the calamity with horror. About this period, small-pox committed great ravages in Hamburgh; and at Grand Cairo 30,000 persons died of pestilence.

A.D. 1826, epidemic typhus prevailed all over Ireland, and caused great mortality. Dr. Graves, in his Lectures, refers to very many well-marked cases of yellow fever. He says, “We have had this year numerous cases which in their symptoms and their morbid anatomy agree essentially with yellow fever,—yellow skin, black vomit, &c.”

A.D. 1827. In the early part of this year, Groningen, Friesland, North Holland, Belgium, and Lower Germany suffered from epidemic influenza. The previous summer (1826) was followed by moist weather, and the countries were damp from inundations. The epidemic raged with such mortality, that the Dutch Government found it necessary to adopt strong measures to relieve the sickness which affected nearly the whole population.

Yellow fever was prevalent in the United States; remittent fever was also rife in various parts of England; the symptoms amounted in severity to those of pestilence, and were such as had scarcely been seen in England since the days of Sydenham.

This year, a singular malady—a sort of rheumatic fever, occasioning great agony,—broke out in the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, and affected almost every one of a population amounting to 12,000 persons. It obtained from the negroes the cognomen of ‘dandy fever.’ It proved to be an exceedingly painful disease, crippling persons for weeks and months, and obliging them to move about on crutches; it was, however, rarely fatal: it spread generally all over the West Indian Islands. A similar disease prevailed the year following, A.D. 1828, in Paris, and was considered by the Parisians as being of an extraordinary character. A writer thus describes the malady:—It was generally unaccompanied with any great degree of fever, but affected the whole nervous system in a most peculiar manner; especially by a most painful sense of formication in the hands and feet, as well as a degree of numbness which seized first upon the members, and thence extended over the whole body. The formication and painful numbness of the extremities were so characteristic of the complaint, that at Paris and elsewhere in France it was known by the name of ‘mal des pieds et des mains.’

The cellular tissue, in this disease, became affected after a while; the hands and feet swelled, and œdema attacked the face and several other parts of the frame: immense numbers suffered from it in France. The sensations were compared to those caused by the punctures from the points of a thousand needles, or of some such sharp instrument; an intense degree of heat aggravated the sufferings, and many could scarcely move their body or extremities without great agony; cramps and spasmodic contractions were present in many cases; the digestive organs were greatly disordered, and symptoms of cholera morbus were sometimes developed in the course of the disease; eruptions of various kinds occurred on the body; sleep was prevented by excessive pain and general disturbance of the system; delirium sometimes supervened; the sight and hearing, and the sense of smell, were altogether lost in some, but in others only partially impaired. In some, convalescence followed in a few weeks; in others, not until several months had elapsed. Great numbers fell victims to the malady, and many perished ultimately from its sequelæ.

This year, A.D. 1828, Gibraltar was again visited by yellow pestilence, which attacked both the military and civilians; it commenced in the month of September; it broke out among, and was for some time confined to, the filthiest and most crowded parts, or districts, on the rock, but it ultimately seized on all ranks and classes of society. It was observed to prevail to a greater extent and more severely in some situations than in others, particularly along the line of wall facing the sea,—few of the soldiers stationed there escaping an attack, so that it was soon found necessary to withdraw the sentries stationed in the neighbourhood. From this period to 1834, there was great famine in Italy; the seasons were moist and hot; repeated inundations occurred there, and south winds and summer fogs prevailed. The French army encamped before the city of Naples lost great numbers by pestilence. A disease called ‘la trousse galante’ carried off immense numbers in France. There were during this period great failures of the crops in England and elsewhere in Europe, occasioned by wet and mild winters, followed by hot summers: epidemic pestilence was the consequence.

The breaking out of epidemic pestilence in Orenburg, in August, A.D. 1829, was attended with some extraordinary phenomena,—the atmosphere was suddenly filled with dense masses of small green flies, which in Asia are looked upon as the forerunners of pestilence, and are therefore called plague-flies; the streets swarmed with these insects, and on quitting their houses, the inhabitants were literally covered from head to foot with them.

A.D. 1830. A blight or disease, this year, made its appearance in the potato and other crops in various parts of Germany, in Ireland, and in America. In 1832, it was more general and severe in some situations than in others.

Cholera about this period showed itself on the borders of the Black Sea, penetrating thence into the centre of European Russia, where it continued throughout the winter. Towards the beginning of autumn, it commenced with great violence in the Georgian frontier of Persia, having appeared in June, 1830, in the Persian province of Ghilan, on the Caspian shore; from the southern parts of which it extended northward, along the west Caspian shore, until it reached Baku, Tiflis, Astrachan, and numerous other places, in its progress into the very heart of the Russian empire. At Astrachan, from July to the end of August, 4000 died in the city, and 21,270 in the entire province. 2367 persons died of it in Saratov; and shortly afterwards, of 1792 Don Cossacks attacked, 1334 perished. At Penza, situate about 140 miles north of Saratov, 1200 of the population were seized in the course of a fortnight, and 800 sunk under it. At Nischnei Novgorod, where the epidemic soon afterwards broke out, 1863 persons were taken ill, of whom nearly a thousand died. The mortality in Bessarabia and Moldavia was appalling: Jassi, the capital of Moldavia, was almost depopulated. This insatiable malady continued to spread, carrying death in its course westward and northward, through Russia, Poland, Moldavia, the duchy of Posen, Silesia, and Austria, visiting Warsaw, with other towns in Poland, and extending, May, 1831, to Riga and Dantzic; and in June and July to St. Petersburgh and Cronstadt: it reached Berlin on the last day of August, Vienna in September, and Hamburgh on the 7th of October.

A.D. 1831, cholera followed the Russian army employed in the subjugation of Poland; it also proved very destructive in Warsaw and in many other places during the months of April and May. In June it prevailed in Cracow and other adjoining places, extending in its course to Gallicia, Hungary, Smyrna, and Constantinople; it raged with such intensity at Cairo, that 10,400 Mahomedans, besides Jews and Christians, were carried off. During this year, whilst cholera was progressing over the continent of Europe, it appeared at Mecca, where it proved very destructive to the ‘Hadji,’ or pilgrims. In August, it broke out at Alexandria, and nearly at the same time all the towns in the Delta of the Nile suffered from its violence. This year, when the pestilence was at its height at Baghdad, the population of the city was computed to be 80,000; of this number, 7000 perished during the first fortnight: the epidemic continued to increase in severity, until the maximum rate of mortality for some days was 5000 daily: 50,000 are supposed to have been carried off in this devoted city during the two months it was devastated by this awful pestilence. In destructiveness it was equal to any former visitation on record; it was, however, to be attributed, not so much to the effects of pestilential miasmata, as to concurring circumstances which obliged the inhabitants to congregate densely in particular parts of the city. The rivers Euphrates and Tigris are flooded twice in the year, first in the spring, from the melting of the snow in the mountains of Armenia, and afterwards in the autumn, from the periodical rains. The country round about was inundated, this year, to an uncommon degree, beyond any traditional example,—the lower part of the country particularly. At Baghdad the waters were for a time kept from bursting into the town by means of the walls, but on the night of the 26th of April a part thereof on the north-west side of the city was undermined, and fell. The waters immediately rushed in and caused the destruction of about 7000 houses, burying 15,000 persons in the ruins: many of these were lying sick of the pestilence; and there was besides a large number of unburied dead. In consequence of the daily fall or partial ruin of houses from the encroachments of the waters before their subsidence occurred, the inhabitants were crowded together, and from being deprived of their usual resources for the disposal of their dead, the sickening horrors of the pestilence were accumulated tenfold before the eyes of the unfortunate survivors, and thus constituted an additional aggravation of their sufferings. The burial-places were laid under water, and while the disposition and power lasted to bury their dead, every open space, says an eye-witness,—the streets, the courtyards of mosques, and even stables,—were turned up to furnish graves. In one stable-yard, which the terrace of our house overlooked, says the same writer, nearly one hundred graves were opened, and filled in the course of one day and a half; it was a fearful sight indeed to see the uncoffined dead brought in barrows and on the backs of asses, and laid upon the ground, till the graves were made ready for them. As the mortality increased, the dead were thrown out into the streets, and were greedily devoured by the ravenous dogs which swarm in all the cities of the East. He did much, then, who took the dead of his household to the river side and threw them in. The pressure of famine was also greatly felt,—the inundation cut off all supplies from the country round about; no fresh provisions of any kind could be had, and although the higher classes, who generally had a stock of corn on hand, were preserved from absolute want, nevertheless respectable persons were seen in crowds begging from door to door for food.

To continue: about the month of May, an epidemic disease made its appearance in Paris, which on comparison presented symptoms analogous to those of the epidemic pestilence described by Sauvages as occurring A.D. 1743, and also to that described by Ruyoux, A.D. 1762. The term ‘la grippe’ was thought applicable to it.

As occurred in the epidemics of which we have spoken, and as has been observed in former times, and noted by Rivére, Senertus, Sydenham, Loes, Huxham, and many others, a remarkable analogy was noticed between the ‘medical constitution’ which had existed for some months past, and the development of this epidemic. All authors who have given descriptions of catarrhal epidemics similar to that of which we are writing, agree in saying that they have almost invariably followed cold and moist seasons, and that they seemed more immediately to be produced by sudden atmospheric vicissitudes.

These facts harmonize with those observed in Paris. The malady commenced with symptoms of coryza, attended by cough and snuffling; dyspnea, with severe bronchial irritation, supervened, when the paroxysm all at once became greatly aggravated. One symptom was remarked as being pretty general and prominent, viz., a feeling of lassitude and fatigue of the limbs, with more or less great moral prostration: the disease was not very fatal, and generally lasted for eight or ten days. During this period an extraordinary epidemic prevailed at a village called Mandroros, in Russia,—gangrene of the spleen. From the singular nature of this disease, a description will probably be found interesting. It commenced without any premonitory symptoms; the patient was suddenly seized with a feeling of burning at the pit of the stomach, accompanied by an insupportable pain in the left hypochondria; lassitude, with vomiting of a greenish bitter fluid, bowels naturally active, urine scanty, loss of appetite, and laborious respiration. Putrid appearances supervened in the course of a few hours, followed by meteorismus, borborygmi, yellowness of the skin, and of the scleroticæ; facies Hippocratica, cramps, cold extremities, and death. This disease, it is said, was not contagious, but epidemic, and it is further stated to have resembled that which was called ‘the plague of Siberia.’ After death, decomposition of the corpses took place rapidly, a black spot first appearing over the splenic region. Necrotomy showed the spleen in an engorged and gangrenous condition.

In October, 1831, cholera made its appearance in Sunderland, and a month after in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; it visited Houghton-le-Spring, North Shields, Tynemouth, South Shields, Gateshead, and other places. The first appearance of it in London is reported to have taken place in the following year, 1832, in the month of February, in the immediate vicinity of the shipping; but solitary cases were met with in the close filthy quarters of the very poor, early in December. In Scotland it had made its appearance previously about Christmas; and in the following January, Leith and Edinburgh suffered greatly. During this period it broke out in France, Holland, and in the peninsula generally. In the summer of 1832 cholera prevailed throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and in the Channel Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, &c., and also among the emigrants arriving at Quebec; from the latter city it extended to Montreal, Kingston on the Lake Ontario, and to the surrounding neighbourhood. Soon afterwards, New York and Albany, in the United States, were attacked, and in due time the disease extended to Philadelphia, to Newcastle on the Delaware river, and to many other parts of the United States; it raged at New Orleans, as did also yellow fever: it made its appearance at the Havannah in the month of July, 1833. During the spring of that year influenza spread over every part of Great Britain and Ireland: it had raged previously in Russia and the northern parts of Germany, where it had inflicted great mortality in its course.

On the 26th of March, Paris was again invaded by cholera, and the inhabitants of Calais also suffered greatly; in Paris, at least 20,000 persons had fallen victims to this scourge by the end of September. During this year and the following, it raged throughout Spain, and was especially destructive in Madrid. Numerous places on the borders of the Mediterranean were visited by this pestilence, and it re-appeared in London and in other places in this country, as well as in North America.

From the year 1833 to 1838, plague raged with great violence, carrying off vast numbers, in Constantinople, Cairo, Alexandria, and Smyrna.

A.D. 1834, cholera was rife at Gibraltar; it extended to the rock, and no one seems to have escaped the disease. A singular phenomenon, a shower of fish, was noticed on the 17th of May in the neighbourhood of Allahabad. The zemindars of the village have furnished the following particulars, which were confirmed by other accounts:—About noon, the wind being from the west, and a few distant clouds visible, there was a blast of high wind accompanied with much dust, of a reddish yellow colour, with which the atmosphere was greatly charged. The blast appeared to extend in breadth about 400 yards; immense trees and large buildings were thrown down, and when the storm had passed away, the ground all about the village was found strewed with small fish to the extent of two bijahs: the fish were all of the chalwa species (clopea cultrata, Shakespeare Dictionary); they were a span or rather less in length, and from one sear to one and a half in weight; when found they were all dead and dry. The Jumna runs about three miles south of the village, and the Ganges fourteen W. by E. The fish were not fit for eating, and it was said that when put in the pan for dressing they turned into blood!

The writer of a history of cholera, published in the ‘Lancet,’ says: “From the earliest times it has been a matter of common observation that plagues and murrains among the lower animals not unfrequently either preceded or accompanied the visitations to which mankind were subjected. Thus, at the siege of Troy, we are told by Homer:

In India, we are informed that poultry and dogs frequently perished during the prevalence of cholera, and with similar symptoms. At Marienburgh, in Prussia, in the year 1831, the fish in the large ponds in that government are all said to have perished during the prevalence of the epidemic, and forty tons of them were buried from the single pond of Dinperburgh. In Warsaw, some examples of a disease resembling cholera were also noticed among the lower animals.

In the beginning of this year, A.D. 1834, the Egyptian dominions of the Pasha suffered greatly from the ravages of pestilence or plague. It first appeared in Alexandria, where it was reported to have been brought from Malta: sanitary precautions were adopted, but the prejudices of the people rendered them unavailing, and they were consequently abandoned as being useless. By the end of February, the deaths in Alexandria amounted to 200 daily. The disease then extended to Grand Cairo, and soon after stretched up the valley of the Nile, sweeping off the greater part of the population. In the month of March, the deaths were computed to be from 300 to 400 daily at Cairo; in May they had increased to nearly 2000. The town of Fua, situated on the banks of the Nile, containing a population of 2500 inhabitants, was stated to have lost 1800 in a very short period. The distemper disappeared as the year advanced, but its ravages, together with the long-continued military exertions of the Pasha, left Egypt almost depopulated.

In the early part of the year 1835, there happened an eruption of Vesuvius, which has been thus described by an eye-witness:—A new crater having burst out, a stream of red-hot lava issued therefrom, in the direction of Castelmare, spreading itself over several miles in a few hours’ time, its course being marked by flames rising in volumes from the ground over which it flowed. The intense heat occasioned by this body of fire was felt at Sorrento. The same year, an earthquake was experienced in South America on the 20th of February; it caused the destruction of the cities of Talar and Carico, with the towns of Conquenes, Linares, and Chillian: not a house was left standing in a place called Conception, and the workmen who were engaged repairing the cathedral of that city were buried in the ruins. In the month of June, hail and thunderstorms did much damage in various parts of England; on the 9th, 10th, and 11th, different parts of the country suffered greatly; the destruction of glass in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, on the 9th, was estimated at £2000. In Newmarket a similar loss of property occurred. In Durham the lightning struck the western tower of the cathedral, and hurled down an immense mass of stone, which, alighting upon the pavement beneath, was dashed into innumerable fragments, at the moment when a party of students belonging to the university, who had been inspecting a monument recently erected, alarmed by the crash, rushed from the cathedral; two of the party were killed instantly by the falling ruin, and ten others were severely wounded. About this period, in the month of January, the little village of Raffhaten, on the frontiers of Wallachia, was the locality in which there occurred the singular phenomenon of a shower of meteorolites: about 6 A.M., on the 29th of January, the inhabitants were aroused from sleep by a noise as of a heavy shower of hail, which was immediately succeeded by a violent crashing of windows; great was the astonishment subsequently to find that the earth, for the space of nearly two leagues in circumference, was covered with a vast number of small stones, the smallest of them being about a quarter of an inch in diameter, while the largest were about the size of a marble; they were of a light slate colour, and very heavy, as much so as pieces of metal of the same size; when put into the fire, they burnt like coal, emitting a considerable quantity of gas at the same time.

On the 10th of August the shock of an earthquake was felt in different parts of the county of Lancaster: at Clitheroe two shocks were experienced,—the first, occurring about twelve at night, was slight; the second happened about half-past three in the morning; a rumbling noise like distant thunder was first heard, and was instantaneously followed by a violent shaking of the doors, windows, and furniture in all the houses in the district; many persons started from their beds in great terror, and rushed into the streets. It was felt at Downham, Wisewell, Pendleton, Milton, Waddington, and in all the surrounding villages to Blackpool. The shock was also felt at Liverpool, at Ulverstone, Kendal, Garstang, Preston, and Blackburn, where it caused serious and general alarm.

Cholera, this year, 1835, was rife at Leghorn, where it carried off sixty or seventy persons daily. On the 25th of August, Odessa suffered from a severe shock of an earthquake; it was first felt about five in the afternoon, when a thick smoke of vapour arose at the foot of Mount Ard-scheh (on the side of which Kassarich is situated), from which columns of flames burst with a tremendous noise; it was like the eruption of a volcano. At the same moment the earth was felt to rock, and a terrible earthquake began, the shocks of which continued for seven successive hours, accompanied with heavy thunder; persons felt as though they were on the ocean when agitated violently by a storm: about two thousand houses were thrown down; confusion and terror were at their height; the inhabitants fled into the country, but many were overtaken in their flight and buried in the ruins: an incredible number thus perished. Up to the 1st of September, there were three or four shocks daily, but of a trifling nature, doing but little mischief. About this time the inhabitants of Kassarich, who had taken up their abode in the fields, or fled into the villages, were able to return to the town; all the villages to the distance of more than 140 miles had suffered dreadfully; a great number of lives had been lost in most of them, and many houses and other property had been destroyed. The following are those who suffered the most;—at Tanlusia upwards of sixty houses were thrown down, and many lives lost; great numbers were killed at Tapirarchi, and Kerwer suffered greatly. The village of Mantzofir was that which suffered the most. In Welekes only one house was left standing, and great numbers lost their lives. Wersan was completely swallowed up, as was also Kumetzi, on the site of which a great lake afterwards arose. This year, 1835, may be said to have been marked by a series of commotions; for in the month of November, in the middle of the night, an earthquake was felt generally throughout Calabria, Citra, &c.; it was followed by ten shocks at intervals. In the midst of these commotions, Castiglioni, a commune in the district of Cosenza, was levelled with the ground, and the greater part of the population met an untimely death. The small village of Bonello shared a similar fate. In Leppano, in Ronda, in Casole, and various other places, great sufferings from the falling of the houses were endured. Epidemics were prevalent all this year and the year following, 1836, in various parts of the globe. In Europe, America (North and South), and in the greater part of the West Indian Islands, an apoplectic, pernicious fever, as it was termed, was prevalent in the northern hemisphere.

A.D. 1836. For two days the weather was exceedingly boisterous, and the wind blowing hard from the north-east. On Sunday, the 1st of May, the stormy winds increased, the land was darkened with heavy clouds of dust, and the Thames all day appeared as rough as a troubled sea. The effects of the storm were visible both on the land and sea: numbers of houses were unroofed, and nursery gardens, with other property, destroyed.

On the 18th of October, at about eight in the evening, the heavens presented one of the most splendid of those phenomena known as the ‘auroræ boreales,’ or northern lights. There first appeared a large luminous arch extending nearly from north to south, from which streamers extended very low in the sky, running from north-east to south-west, and increasing in number until they began to approach the zenith, apparently with an accelerated velocity. Suddenly the whole hemisphere was covered with them. This splendid scene, however, lasted only about forty seconds: the variety of colours disappeared, and the beams lost their lateral motion, and were converted, as is usual, into flashing radiations, which kept diminishing in splendour until the whole disappeared, leaving only a pale white light near the horizon.

A.D. 1837, cholera prevailed at Rome, causing great mortality, from 200 to 300 dying daily. Of the frightful mortality of this dire scourge one writer states, that in the Indian peninsula, from the years 1817 to 1830, of a population numbering somewhat more than 4,000,000, 1,800,000 became victims. Another author gives the following summary of the numbers carried off during this pestilential period:—

At Erivan and Tauris one-fourth of the population were destroyed. In Syria its ravages were extremely varied; in some localities, one-half of the populace were carried off; whilst in others, as in Tripoli, only one in about 200 died. At Tiflis, three-fourths of those seized perished; at Astrachan, two-thirds were carried off. Out of 16,000 attacked in the province of Caucasus, 10,000 fell victims; at Moscow, one-half, and at Orenburg only one-fifth of the inhabitants perished. Out of 54,000 and upwards attacked in the Russian provinces, more than 31,000 died. In Hungary, 400,000 were said to have been seized, and more than half were destroyed. In this country (England) and in Wales, according to the Tables furnished by Dr. Merriman, from the Reports sent in for the Privy Council, out of 62,000 attacked, 20,578 died. In Ireland, out of 54,552 who were taken ill, 21,171 fell victims. In the countries of Asia not subject to European dominion, the data respecting the ravages of this disease were extremely vague and scanty, although there is reason to believe that in some of them they were more extensive than in India.

Yellow fever prevailed in various parts of the United States from the year 1834 until 1839, especially in Charleston. The causes were supposed to have been dependent on the extreme heat of the summer,—the elevation of temperature having been greatly beyond what was ever before known. The town was also crowded by strangers, who were employed to rebuild the city after its conflagration: they were badly lodged; and, in consequence of the high wages that were given, an immense number of dissolute and intemperate persons were attracted to the city. It was chiefly among this class that the disease prevailed.

A.D. 1837, influenza appeared in London in the first week in January, the weather during the preceding four months having been singularly wet, cold, and stormy; large quantities of snow having fallen and collected on the ground, even in the streets of London, where it lay for weeks together. The evaporation of the cold water, the result of the succeeding thaw, rendered the air cold and damp for a long time. In the month of November, this year, a hurricane of great violence occurred from the south-west. On Christmas-day there was a storm of wind and snow simultaneously all over the west of Europe,—snow having fallen even in the streets of Lisbon and Palermo: it fell so heavily in England, that it impeded intercourse throughout the country. It was remarkable that snow fell at Canton in February, a thing unknown to the oldest inhabitants. The French army marching upon Constantina, in Algiers, suffered severely from three days of incessant snow. Tremendous hurricanes were experienced about this period over every part of the European and American seas. The weather in England was uncertain and fluctuating from Christmas to the middle of February, when influenza broke out: its duration in London was six or seven weeks; half the population were attacked, and the ordinary rates of mortality during this time were very nearly doubled. The aged and the very young were those who principally suffered. The inhabitants of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark suffered greatly. In Copenhagen, according to Dr. Otto, at least 30,000 were labouring under the disease at one time, in the month of January. Influenza was rife also in Scotland, where it was observed earlier than in England, and it broke out generally in the northern and eastern parts of England before it showed itself in the southern and western. Paris was visited by this epidemic a month later than London, the disease having previously prevailed in Calais and other intervening places. It broke out with great severity in the northern coast of Spain, being aggravated by the events of the civil war then raging in Biscay and Navarre. An epidemic having the character of the influenza of the northern hemisphere was also rife at Sydney and the Cape of Good Hope in the latter part of the year 1836.

Towards the latter end of March, 1838, yellow fever broke out among the garrison and the inhabitants in the island of Ascension, and committed great ravages. The disease was preceded by heavy rains for several days: large collections of water formed in consequence, which evaporated under the influence of a burning sun. One of the most extensive of these occurred in a foul and offensive site, surrounded by low dwelling-houses occupied by Portuguese prisoners, the majority of whom were attacked. The men employed in pumping out this water, complained much of its offensive effluvium; they also suffered from the fever, and that most severely. The epidemic extended to the crews of several ships of war which touched at the island, and many of the seamen and officers perished.

A.D. 1839. In the month of February, an epidemic pestilence broke out, and proceeded with the rapidity of lightning at Mount St. Bernard. It was characterized by typhoid symptoms, and attended by a lengthened delirium, with occasional short, lucid intervals; out of one family consisting of twenty-one individuals, three only survived: it was confined exclusively to those living on the mountain. Epidemic erysipelas raged with great intensity at Algiers during this period; epidemic disease also prevailed in the district of Coulommiers in France, termed ‘sudor miliaris.’ The premonitory symptoms varied very generally: some of those attacked, when they awoke, found themselves inundated with perspiration; in some, the disease was preceded for some days by prostration of strength, with pains in the joints, &c.: a prominent symptom was a pain and sensation of smothering in the epigastric region; this feeling was greater or less in proportion to the quantity of perspiration, which in some was so profuse that on lifting up the bed-clothes a dense vapour was seen to arise: an eruption appeared after the third or fourth day; ten days after, the epidermis became wrinkled and fell off in the shape of scaly furfuraceous matter. The most fatal cases were those in which agonizing pains were experienced at the epigastrium. The autopsiæ exhibited vesicular eruptions in the intestinal canal. Petechial fever was very prevalent at St. Petersburgh this year (1839); it affected persons in a peculiar manner; during their illness, there was no delirium or appearance of disorder of the intellectual faculties; they spoke and acted sensibly, but after the subsidence of the malady, towards the end of the third or fourth week, they awoke as it were to a consciousness of their condition. Measles also raged epidemically. Yellow fever, this year (1839), was very destructive at Galveston in the republic of Texas.

A.D. 1840, blight appeared in Germany among the crops, especially the potato; it prevailed to so great an extent, Dr. Martius reports, as to cause a very serious alarm, and even to threaten the total extinction of that esculent. At the same time, the island of Arran, with other parts of the Highlands of Scotland, suffered from a similar disease among the potato crops: it prevailed there from 1839 to 1842, destroying at least half the vegetation.

A.D. 1841, plague raged in Syria, and at Erzeroum with great violence. During this period, extending to the year following, 1842, an epidemic religious ecstasy, as it was called, prevailed in Sweden. This singular epidemic malady was distinguished by two prominent and remarkable symptoms,—one physical, consisting of spasm, or involuntary contractions or contortions, &c.; the other, mental, being an ecstasy, more or less involuntary, during which the patients fancied themselves divinely inspired, and felt impelled to speak of supernatural things which they fancied they saw; they were occasionally moved to preach. It was the female portion of the community that suffered most. Anything offensive to the mind re-acted convulsively on the body, causing a sort of chorea, which it was attempted to distinguish or divide into two distinct forms of the disease, called mental and physical chorea. Several thousand persons were attacked by the disease; it was rarely fatal. Persons who had been affected, when convalescing, felt languid and debilitated, both in body and mind. Yellow fever at this period was fatal at Key West, East Florida, in the United States. Early in 1841 remittent fever occurred among the crew of the ‘Wanderer’ a ship belonging to the Royal Navy, chiefly among the boats’ crews who had been employed in the rivers Nunez and Pongos. Seventy persons were taken ill, and nine died. In the course of this year, remittent fever prevailed in many other Queen’s ships employed on the African coast to put down the slave trade.

A.D. 1843. Blight seized on the potato crop this year throughout the United States, and also in British America. Epidemic erysipelas, known by the popular name of ‘the black tongue,’ broke out in November, 1843, in Ripley county, United States, and traversed most of the townships of the Delaware, Dearborn county, &c. This disease, Dr. Sutton says, “has either assumed several characters, or we have several epidemics traversing the country together: one was erysipelas connected with cynanche tonsillaris, or swelling of some of the lymphatic glands in the throat; and another was considered to be a typhoid pneumonia, sometimes accompanied by enlargement of the axillary glands. These two diseases,” continued the writer, “have been so intimately connected in my practice, that it has been a question to me whether the last was not a pulmonic erysipelas, the premonitory symptoms in each disease being alike, the character of the fever in each being the same, and it was often the case that one form of the disease changed into that of the other. The disease was not generally fatal.” Boston, in the autumn of this year, was visited by an epidemic fever; it prevailed also at a place called Erie in the county of New York, during the months of October and November. This little town, or rather settlement, Erie, is made up of some half-dozen houses, containing a population of forty-three persons, of which number twenty-eight were seized between the 19th November and 7th December, ten of them dying of the disease. Some disputes existed in this little community, and the generality of them were of opinion that the wells had been poisoned by some evil-disposed persons: there was not, however, the least foundation for any such supposition. The disease commenced with rigors, chills, pain in the loins and head; typhoid symptoms supervened, the tongue becoming brown and dry; low muttering delirium was noticed, also a cough, with expectoration of a muco-purulent character. Another small town which about this period was visited by a very fatal disease, yellow fever, is an inland settlement in Wilkinson county, Mississippi, containing a population of 750 inhabitants. It is situated about forty miles from Natchez, on high ground, 340 feet above the level or bank of the Mississippi with a gradual slope in all directions; there is no creek, pond, or low land near the town,—in short, on a review of the town and surrounding country, it would be pronounced to be one of the most eligible sites in the south for a healthy settlement. At the time there was no yellow fever prevalent at New Orleans,—in fact, there had not been any case of the disease in any place along the river; consequently it could not have been imported. Nearly every one in the town was seized; and the mortality was great, seven to ten dying daily in so small a population for the first week. The disease was very rapid in its progress; the patients were suddenly seized with violent pains in the head and loins, and with burning fever; in a short time vomiting of a blackish fluid, similar to coffee-grounds, ensued, and in a few hours death closed the scene.

A.D. 1842 and 1843, cholera in a sporadic form raged with considerable violence in many parts of Persia, continuing at intervals during the two subsequent years.

A.D. 1844, yellow pestilence committed great ravages at Goree, in Senegal.

During the year 1845, the blight among the potatoes spread rapidly through Germany, Holland, Belgium, the northern parts of France, and over the greater portion of England, Scotland, and Ireland. This pestilence re-appeared the year following, 1846. A phenomenon worthy of notice was observed during the prevalence of this disease,—to wit, the existence of a mist or fogs immediately previous to the blight in the crops. In Holland, a thick stinking mist, which extended very widely, was observed in 1845, antecedent to the potato blight. M. Petit states that it was generally remarked in France that the disease made its appearance after a fog. In England the same phenomenon was observed.

In the spring of 1845 remittent fever broke out on board the ‘Eclair,’ while on the coast of Africa; the first persons attacked being those who had been engaged in boat-service. The vessel at the time lay off the Sherbro’ river, and the boats had been employed for some time exploring its creeks, and those in the Seabar branch of that river. The disease continued to spread among the boats’ crews; and after a while those seamen who had not been out of the ship became subject to the fever, which committed such fearful ravages among them that at last the ‘Eclair’ was ordered home as a dernier ressort. The disease then presented all the characters of genuine yellow fever. On the voyage, the ‘Eclair,’ after having been refused pratique at Goree, put in at Boa Vista, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, where the crew were landed, and stayed some days; but the epidemic continued to seize its victims, and the crew consequently, both the sick and sound, were again received on board, and the vessel got under weigh for England. Before she reached Madeira, Captain Estcourt, Dr. M’Clure, and Mr. Hartmann, the assistant surgeon, died, Mr. Machonchy, the surgeon to the ship, expiring the day after. Mr. Sydney Bernard, assistant surgeon of the ‘Growler,’ having volunteered his services, was appointed in Mr. Machonchy’s place, and performed his duties to the last. On the arrival of this floating pest-house in England, pratique was refused, and the healthy, the sick, and the dying were all kept on board. The result was the loss of several more lives, the disease not ceasing until about a fortnight after her arrival at the Motherbank. Mr. Sydney Bernard and Lieutenant Isaacson, the officer in command, were among its latest victims. The deaths on board from the endemic, from first to last, amounted to seventy-four. Fever prevailed very extensively in Boa Vista, after the departure of the ‘Eclair,’ and was very fatal; great numbers of the inhabitants were attacked.

In 1846, during the march of the Mormon worshippers across the desert, on their road to the new state of Deseret or Utah, after their expulsion from Nauvoo, they were greatly afflicted by endemic disease, chiefly remittent and yellow fevers. In one camp alone, 31 per cent. suffered, and the road was marked throughout with the graves of those who perished. They also suffered much from a kind of strange scorbutic disease, which they named the ‘black canker,’ and which was frequently fatal.

At this time it was remarked, a few days before disease fastened on the potatoes, that a dense cloud, resembling a thick fog, overspread the entire country; it differed from a common fog in being quite dry and having a disagreeable odour.

To continue: this year and the following, 1847, epidemic remittent fever was prevalent in Scotland. In Glasgow it was noticed that a remarkable change had taken place in the epidemic constitution. Exanthematous typhus—a sort of continued fever, characterized along with other symptoms by an eruption over the body resembling measles, running a course on an average of twenty-one days, carrying off about 10 per cent.,—was supplanted by a remittent fever, sometimes attended with petechiæ, but not with the measly eruption: it was also often accompanied by jaundice. Epistaxis was very frequent; when the disease occurred in women about the menstrual period, the discharge was universally copious, and very many women in a state of pregnancy, who were seized with the malady, aborted; a crisis generally was formed on the seventh day; relapses were frequent,—in fact, almost invariable under any and every precaution: the mortality amounted to about 3½ per cent.; about 15,000 persons fell victims to this disease, principally those residing in the ill-ventilated and filthy parts of the town,—the poor and distressed. The smallness of the mortality compared with the severity of the symptoms, and the debility it left behind, was a matter of surprise. This malady appears to have been very similar to that which prevailed in Dublin in 1826. Rutty, in his diseases of Dublin during forty years, mentions several epidemics which resembled the malady at Glasgow. They occurred in 1740, 1745, 1764, and 1765. There is also some resemblance between this fever and that which prevailed in Dublin in 1816, as reported by Dr. Stokes.

In the early part of 1845 cholera prevailed with great violence along the banks of the Indus, and about the same period proved very destructive in Afghanistan. Thence it extended into Persia, traversing that country from east to west, spread northwards into Tartary, and southwards into Kurdistan, and also into the pashalic of Baghdad. In September it prevailed at Herat and Samarcand, and in the November following at Bokhara. The extreme malignancy of the disease may be understood by the description given of many of the cases. “Those who were attacked dropped suddenly down in a state of lethargy, and at the end of two or three hours expired without any convulsions or vomiting, but from complete stagnation of the blood, which no remedies could restore to circulation.”

During this period there took place in Kurrachee, near the mouth of the Indus, the most terrific outburst of the pestilence that can be conceived, which in the course of a few days swept off 8000 victims. The description given by an eye-witness of the scene at Kurrachee, as Dr. Gavin Milroy says (in his very excellent pamphlet on cholera), is so full of fearful and instructive interest, as regards some of the most striking characters of pestilential visitations, that we cannot withhold a brief account of its leading particulars:—

The heat had been intense during the first fortnight in June, but the station remained tolerably healthy. On Sunday, the 14th, the atmosphere was more than usually stagnant and oppressive; one correspondent who was present says, “The very heavens seemed drawn down upon our shoulders; the feeling was suffocating.” A dark portentous-looking cloud crept up the sky as the troops were proceeding to church, and a sudden gust of wind threatened the building: it passed away almost as suddenly as it came; and when the worshippers retired, the air was as still as when they assembled. At the same hour did the pestilence appear; before midnight nine soldiers of the 86th regiment were dead, and men began to be brought to the hospital in such numbers, that it was difficult to make arrangements for their reception; it was a fearful night. With morning, came the tidings that the pestilence was overspreading the town, and that fifty persons had already fallen victims to its deadly poison. How awful must have been the rapidity of the attack, when we learn that sometimes, within little more than five minutes, hale and hearty men were seized, cramped, collapsed, and dead! Men attending the burial of their comrades were attacked, carried to the hospital, and were themselves buried the next morning. Pits were dug in the churchyard, morning and evening; sewn up in their bedding, and coffinless, the dead were laid side by side, one service being read over all! For the next five days it raged with appalling fury; it then abated in its intensity, but continued to hover about the place for another week. Within less than a fortnight, 900 Europeans, including 815 fighting men, were swept away. Besides these, 600 native soldiers and 7000 of the camp-followers and inhabitants of the town had been hurried into eternity. About this time, a virulent fever raged at Sukkur, about 180 miles from Kurrachee, which proved fatal in a few hours. Hyderabad, intermediate between the two places, was visited almost immediately afterwards by cholera. Mr. Alexander Thom, surgeon of the 86th regiment, at the time of the explosion at Kurrachee, thus expresses himself: “I have witnessed disease of a severe and fatal kind, and cholera itself in an apparently grave form, but I never could have anticipated, even in India, its appearance in so appalling a shape as that in which it was recently developed in the 86th regiment: it burst forth almost literally like a thunder-clap, followed by a lethiferous blast, proving almost instantaneously fatal.”

A.D. 1846, fearful mortality from famine and epidemic pestilence occurred in Gallicia: during the first half-year, 1234 deaths occurred, and for the like period in the subsequent year the mortality was 5188! During this time the weather was distressingly hot in Canada, North America, the thermometer frequently standing 96° and 98°; numbers were carried off daily by fever. Epidemic cholera, after raging with very great violence for two years in Persia, towards the end of the summer of 1846, broke out at Tauris and Teheran, and during the autumn advanced to places nearer to the Russian frontiers. On the 16th of November, 1846, cases occurred at the village of Ialiany, and also in the same month at Leukoran; and it is worthy of remark, that these were the places first attacked in 1830. The disease also appeared at Bakrou, and advanced in December to Schêmakha and Derbent; and in the month of February, 1847, to the town of Konba. Its appearance at Ialiany and in the district of Talysch was marked with that malignity which for the most part characterizes the commencement of cholera. We observe at Ialiany a remarkable instance of the influence of the trade and locality tending to foster it, selecting for its victims those who had but recently recovered from the fever of the country: the cholera almost invariably carried off every one attacked, nine-tenths falling victims to the disease. In the localities of the trans-Caucasian provinces, the attacks became less violent, and without the towns the disease no longer presented a malignant type. Towards the end of February, it was supposed that the disease had ceased, but in the following month, March, it recommenced with redoubled violence, and in April spread destruction with fearful rapidity. Traversing the shores of the Caspian sea, it reached Tiflis in May. It also appeared in this month on the other side of the Caucasus, at Kizliar, whence, re-ascending the Terek, it penetrated to Mozdok, at the end of June to Piatigorsk and to Georgierk, and entered Staowpol in the first week of July.