Part 10 (1/2)

[11] ”Plants highly sensitive to light are those of the leguminous, or Pea kind. They always close up in the evening and clasp their two upper surfaces together, presenting only their backs to the air. Plants of pinnated leaves, as the Tansy, are more sensible than these to the effects of light. They fold up when light is too strong, as in Robinia; it produces the same effect as want of light. Its leaves close up, apparently, because they are receiving too much. So they do if a hot iron be brought near them.

They contract as if to avoid the heat. Sensitive plants, and those of the Oxalis Lent. are so sensitive that the least motion, even a breath of air, will make them close.”--_Sir J. Smith._

”The vitality of plants seems to depend upon the existence of an irritability, which although far inferior to that of animals, is nevertheless of an a.n.a.logous character.”--_Lindley's Introduction to Botany._

[12] Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. July 10th, 1850. No. xiv. p.

367. ”Practical Observations on the Vaccination Question.” By E. Oke Spooner, M. R. C. S., Blandford.

”If we examine the Cow Pox and the Small Pox microscopically, as I have done very carefully in every stage, we find that the essential character consists of a number of minute cells, not exceeding the 10,000th part of an inch in diameter, being about one-fourth smaller than the globules of the blood, containing _within their circ.u.mference many still more minute nuclei, and presenting_ beyond their circ.u.mference bud-like cells of the same size and character as those contained within the circle. They exactly resemble in everything except the size, the globules of the yeast plant, the Torula Cerevesiae. Now if we examine more circ.u.mstantially the a.n.a.logies of what I would call the Torula Variolae with the Torula Cerevesiae, we observe the following corresponding facts.

”What do we accomplish by inoculation as it is called? Simply this. We take on the top of a lancet, or an ivory point, a few of these minute cells or germs, and we put them _in their appropriate nidus_, the subcuticular tissue, where, after a few days if they find their appropriate nutrient elements, they grow and multiply.”

Simon, Chemistry of Man, vol. i. p. 127. ”Macgregor ascertained that the air expired by persons ill of confluent Small Pox, contained as much as _eight_ per cent of carbonic acid, and in proportion as health was restored the percentage was diminished to its natural standard.” Carbonic acid is also produced during the process of fermentation and germination.

[13] See History of the Jews, p. 71.

[14] It is said by Whewell, that the murrain is supposed to have fallen only on the animals which were in the open pasture.--_History of the Jews._

”J. S. Michael Leger, published at Vienna, in 1775, a treatise concerning the mildew as the princ.i.p.al cause of the epidemic disease among cattle. The mildew is that which _burns_ and _dries_ the gra.s.s and leaves. It is observed early in the morning, particularly after _thunder-storms_. Its poisonous quality, which does not last above twenty-four hours, never operates but when it is swallowed immediately after its falling.”--_Mitch.e.l.l on Fevers._

[15] ”The prevalence of the south-east wind was observed to be particularly favourable to the increase of both cholera and influenza: and I cannot but think that this had some connexion with the general tendency exhibited by the former to spread from east to west. Has the morbific property of this wind aught to do with the haziness of the air when it prevails--a haziness seen in the country remote from smoke, and quite distinct from fog? What is this haze? In the west of England a hazy day in spring is called a _blight_.”--_Dr. Williams' Principles of Medicine._

[16] We are to understand also that some peculiar operation took place of a nature difficult to comprehend, which seems also to typify reproduction, for the handfuls of ashes which Moses threw into the air _became a dust in all the land of Egypt_, thus signifying an enormous reproduction of atomic matter.

[17] The Chinese affect to trace the origin of Small Pox back to a period of at least 3000 years, or 20 years beyond the era of the Trojan war, 1212, A. C.

The Chinese pretend to discriminate no less than 40 different species of Small Pox.

”They also pretend to discover whether a person has died by violence or from natural causes, not only after the body has been some time interred and decomposition of the softer parts has commenced, but even after the total disappearance of the soft parts, and when the dry skeleton alone is left.”--For the process, see _Hamilton's History of Medicine_, vol. i. p.

31.

To give some notion of the state of Medical Science among the Chinese, I may quote the following: ”The theory of the circulation of the blood, Du Halde affirms, was known by the Chinese about 400 years after the deluge; be this a.s.sertion veracious or not, no correct knowledge up to the present day, do the nation possess of the circulating system of the human frame.”--_China and the Chinese, Henry Charles Sirr, M. A._

According to their anatomy, the trachea extends from the larynx through the lungs to the heart, whilst the oesophagus goes over them to the stomach.

[18] ”And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation: and behold the plague was begun among the people; and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed.”--_Numbers._

The practice of burning scented herbs has been observed in all times during an invasion of the plague, as a means of protection. Also wearing perfumes and aromatic preparations has been recommended. Whether they have any counteracting influence, it is impossible to say.

Virgil in the third Georgic speaks of a murrain among cattle. He says, if any wore a vestment made of wool from an infected sheep, fiery blains and filthy sweat overspread his body, and ere long a pestilential fire preyed upon his infected limbs.

In his directions for preserving the health of flocks he says--

”Disce et odoratam stabulis accendere cedrum.”

The motive for burning the fragrant cedar is not mentioned; we cannot doubt but it was a good one, and having some great practical utility, from the following line--

”Galbaneoque agitare graves nidore chelydros.”

[19] The earliest mention of this complaint upon which reliance can be placed, is an ancient Arabic MS. preserved in the public library at Leyden.

”This year, in fine, the Small Pox and Measles made their first appearance in Arabia.” The year alluded to being that of the birth of Mahomet, or the year 572 of the Christian aera.--_Hamilton's History of Medicine_, vol. i.