when they
limit their views to contagion alone, they have attributed powers to it,
which it never did, and never can possess. That some other principle,
besides their favourite one, must have been in operation, as well in the
field of Swedia, when it struck down the reapers, as when it blighted
our armies in the East, for these sudden bursts and explosions of
pestilence are incompatible with the laws and progress of natural
contagion,--that if, under a tropical temperature, which dissipates all
infection, there be contagion in the disease, their must also be other
powers of diffusion hitherto inscrutable, incomprehensible, and
uncontroulable,--that their doctrine of contagion exclusively, is
superficial narrow, and intolerant, and their arguments in support of
it, no more than a delusion of prejudice, a piece of consummate special
pleading to make the worse appear the better reason.[30]

[Footnote 29: The precise words are "20 peasants of Swedia, robust,
vigorous, and in the flower of life, were labouring at the harvest work,
when on the 9th. of July, at noon, one was suddenly attacked, and the
others in a short time showed symptoms of the disorder. In three hours,
the entire band was exhausted; before sunset many had ceased to live,
and by the morrow there was no survivor."]

[Footnote 30: The remainder of the paper, as presented to the Society,
treated of Typhus fever, and other matter, that had no reference to the
disease in question.]

Before concluding these observations, I would wish to make a few remarks
upon some points of the enquiry which have been either too cursorily
passed over, or not noticed at all; and first of its supposed attraction
for, and adherence to the lines and courses of rivers whether navigable
or otherwise. I do not think this quality of the disease has been
assumed on grounds sufficient to justify anything like an exclusive
preference. Along these lines, no doubt, it has very frequently been
found, because a malarious, a terrestrial, a contagious, or indeed any
other disease, would for many reasons, best prevail on the lowest levels
of the country, or the deepest lines on its surface, like the vallies of
rivers, provided the food on which it fed--population--there abounded.
It would be difficult almost anywhere to point out a populous city
unconnected with the sea, rivers, or canals, the water population of
which, from their habits of life and occupations, everywhere crowded,
dirty, care