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18
of a sudden inflammatory affection of the membranes
of the brain and spinal cord, causing extreme pain
and violent convulsions; and the mortality from it
was so large as to create alarm. The conditions of
its existence are not well known, for the malady
has only been recognised during the last fifty years.
It is probable, however, that it is determined by
controllable causes.
And with respect to another cause of alarm— I
have had to report to you of the existence of cholera
in an epidemic form in the towns and villages upon
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and of the
fears which were entertained of its appearance in
England. But in tracing the origin of the disease
among the pilgrims at Mecca, some of whom had
come from the infected districts of India, and
following it along its unusual course to Alexandria,
and thence to Cairo, and across the eastern arm of
the Mediterranean to Smyrna, Constantinople, and
the villages of the Bosphorus, it did not seem to me
probable that it would make a serious advance into
Europe until the coming spring. It is true that
many places upon the European side of the Mediterranean
were visited with some severity by the
disease, and that it had even reached the capital
of France; but the progress of the malady
was so different from its former visitations, that I
entertained no fear of its appearing in England