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occurred in the Autumn of the first year, that the
disease died out with the approach of winter, and
reappeared with comparative virulence it the later
Spring, Summer or early Autumn of the second
year, lasting for some two or three months and then
disappearing altogether. It might seem from this
that its prevalence was largely determined by
season; and indeed there is strong evidence to
show that on the whole high temperature is favourable,
and cold inimical, to its spread. Yet, on the
other hand, the disease has prevailed with the
greatest severity in Moscow, Sweden and other
northern regions in the depth of winter.
To what cause or causes is Epidemic Cholera
due? This is a question which has been the subject
of innumerable discussions and investigations during
the last fifty years. The horror which the disease
occasions, the slowness yet certainty of its onward
march, its sudden and capricious outbreaks, and
its equally sudden subsidence and then total
disappearance, all conspire to invest it with an
atmosphere of mystery. Like influenza it is the
very type of an epidemic disease, and therefore,
like epidemic diseases generally, has been largely
held to be due to some atmospheric or telluric
condition, some peculiar "epidemic constitution,"
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