We have abundant reason for the belief that nothing is fortuitous; but, on the contrary, that everything in this world of ours is the effect of design; all things around us bearing evident stamp of the skill and beneficence of its Omnipotent Author.

The histories of epidemic pestilences or diseases—because of the vast numbers of persons on whom they seize at one and the same time, and also because of their intensity and destructiveness,—are not only of greater importance to mankind than are the generality of maladies, but they are also of deep interest in as far as concerns questions of pathology. Epidemics are also exceedingly interesting in a physical and moral point of view,—their histories, and the investigation of their causes, leading to an insight into the organism of the world, in which the sum of organic life is subjected to the greater powers of nature; for it would appear, as far as human knowledge extends, that all organized bodies, from a variety of causes as dissimilar as they are complicated and numerous, are more or less susceptible of change and decay. Thus we see disease assail and carry off mankind at all times and in all regions: murrain is destructive of dumb animals, while blight spares not the vegetable kingdom, from the sturdiest oak to the most diminutive herbage; in fine, all nature is subjected, in various degrees, to the devastating tendency of the elements in their general evolutions in the mundane economy, based on immutable laws, arising from original and supreme provision:

Considering that epidemic pestilences or diseases have been from time immemorial more destructive of mankind than all other maladies, or than even famine and the sword combined, it is somewhat surprising that a comprehensive and efficient investigation of such an important class of diseases, founded on enlarged and scientific views, has never yet been made,—in fact, has scarcely ever been attempted. Such apathy to minute enquiry into the nature and causes of epidemics, and the indifference evinced to every-day occurrences, so much attended to by the ancients, is culpable in the extreme; for nothing can be more injurious to the cause of truth, or tend more to retard scientific pursuits, than such disregard of the nature of things, for daily experience alone is sufficient to show that every effect in the physical world has an antecedent cause, which is at all times open to experiment and investigation, and which, however obscure at first, may often be explained and understood by means of close observation and steady perseverance in our researches.

Epidemics are acute diseases which run through their stages with rapidity, consequently making it absolutely necessary that we should be prepared not only to relieve those attacked with promptitude, but, if possible, to prevent others being affected, which can only be done by attending to the results of an unprejudiced investigation concerning all that is known of the laws by which they are governed—the causes whence they arise, and their mode of extension.

To the ancients, who were accurate observers of nature and of nature’s laws, we are indebted for much valuable information as regards the universal distempers termed Epidemic Pestilences,[2] and although amongst their writings we may not at first sight recognize many diseases according to our modern nomenclature, nevertheless by careful perusal and investigation we shall be enabled to identify some of them sufficiently to show the wisdom and the superiority of the arrangements of our predecessors, when compared with the confusion and worse than uselessness of many of the nosological distinctions and classifications made since the days of Hippocrates, tending, as they do, not only to divert us from the true character of disease, but also to mislead us in our practical views.

The records of antiquity show that all kinds of pestilences, including febrile diseases, have been known under various appellations from the earliest ages of the world. From the beginning of the Jewish nation,—from the first settlement of the Israelites in unhealthy Egypt to the present day, we find noticed a series of plagues or pestilences overspreading the various parts of the habitable globe, and destroying millions of the human species; and if we refer to the histories of ancient nations, as well as to the modern annals of medicine, we shall find therein recorded the same character of diseases, arising from like causes, occurring during similar seasons, happening in similar localities, and marked pretty generally by the same circumstances. The assumption, therefore, of the existence of any new disease, as propounded by some modern authorities, would represent the Divine Power as dispensing with the laws of nature,—in short, would imply nothing less than the suspension or alteration of the operation of those laws which the Almighty in his wisdom imposed on nature at the creation;

—laws which the pious Psalmist of Israel in his contemplations on the divine goodness and greatness of Jehovah, as displayed in the kingdom of Nature, describes as the admirable chain of natural causes and effects formed and preserved by him in this lower world:—whatsoever the Lord pleaseth, He doeth in heaven and in the earth, in the sea, and in all deep places. He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth, He maketh the lightnings for the rains, He bringeth the wind out of his treasure, He smote the first-born of Egypt from man to beast, He covereth the heaven with clouds, He prepareth the rain for the earth, &c.—The supposition of the existence of any new disease in our day is consequently untenable, but to be accounted for because of our inability to trace diseases under the same names and precise characteristic symptoms described by our predecessors in the study of nature; in fact, the comparatively modern origin of some diseases may be said to rest on the absence or deficiency of distinct and express notice of them in the writings of the ancients, arising in some measure from false or imperfect translations from the original, and from the practice of the ancients in referring different malignant maladies to the same pestilential constitution; for be it remembered that they considered all febrile diseases bore such affinity to each other, that they classed all pestilential epidemic distempers under one general head or term, viz., PESTILENCE, PLAGUE, or FEVER; under the head of consumption, they noted all chronic diseases; and boils, scabs, pustules, blotches, carbuncles, &c., were included under that of skin diseases.

Further, with reference to modern nomenclature, we now hear pestilence called plague in Egypt, yellow fever in America and elsewhere, bilious remittent and intermittent, and also yellow fever in the West Indies, and typhus or nervous fever in Great Britain: we read also of the same epidemics which the ancients called pimples, pustules, apostemes, and gangrenous sores, now being called distinct and confluent small-pox, carbuncles, &c.: and I repeat that the perusal of ancient writings, both sacred and profane, not only affords us ample evidence of the origin, nature, causes, progress, and violence of such maladies in the primitive ages of the world, but they also demonstrate the identity of ancient pestilence and modern plague,—the resemblance of ancient and modern fevers,—the similitude of burning boils and modern carbuncle,—the like appearance of pustules and small-pox,—all tending to prove that no material alteration in the nature of any diseases, or of their causes, has taken place since the first population of the world; and, above all, that they display the perpetual uniformity of Providence in the entire operations of Nature’s works.