IV. 48.

occurrence about great cities than other parts of countries. In relation to this subject, it is very curious to observe that Esdras, solicitous of the II ESD. angel Uriel to be informed of the events to come to pass in the latter ages of the world, was, by similitude, first shown a fiery furnace, after which appeared a watery cloud, which sent down. much rain, with a storm. It is evident that storms do, and must increase in severity as the world advances in age: more latterly, no doubt, extreme distress will be occasioned by them, of which this similitude must certainly be taken to be significant, and also of that by which they have been caused.

OF THE VOLCANIC

CHAPTER VI.

PHENOMENON AS A MORBID AF

FECTION OF THE EARTH, IN RELATION

TO DISEASES OF THE ANIMAL BODY.

THE Volcanic process is a means instituted by nature for the re-establishment of the earth's fertility, or for the recovery of its healthy condition: precisely in like manner are the diseases which affect the animal body, processes which nature institutes for the casting out of matters which are injurious to the constitution, or for the throwing off of conditions which are inimical to a healthy state.

The attention of observers of nature has been particularly arrested by the close resemblance which exists between the volcanic process and the eruptive diseases of the human body; as history shows by very numerous examples.

The volcanic process commences with great agitation or quaking of the earth, followed by intense heat, succeeded by a breaking out and discharge, a subsidence of heat, and lastly, the healing up of the part, where a scar remains. So in the animal body occurs excessive agitation, and precisely similar quaking and shivering, followed by burning heat and eruption; when the heat subsides, the excoriated places heal up, and scars remain; and these scars are exactly like the vestiges left by the craters of

ancient volcanoes.

During the course of the volcanic disease there is also the same urgent demand for water or drink

to facilitate its progress, as in the animal body: this the earth generates for its own supply by bringing together the elements or parts which form water, within the cavities where the operations are going on, and over their apertures. And it is further remarkable, that the volcanic phenomenon is attended with the same putrid exhalations as during the progress of putrid diseases in man; and that human beings and animals, who may happen to be exposed to the influence of those exhalations, commonly become affected with putrid diseases, like plague and fever; as is wont to be the case with persons who have lived much in an atmosphere polluted with the exhalations arising from the bodies of those afflicted with such diseases. Thus it has always been observed that putrid fevers and plagues have been wont to follow volcanic eruptions and great earthquakes, and sometimes to precede them, of which latter, Monte Nuovo has afforded a most

fever.

remarkable example. It is related that a French French army, attempting the capture of Naples, in 1528, army delanded and encamped in the vicinity of the now stroyed by Monte Nuovo, and were, within a few days, reduced from twenty-eight thousand to four thousand men, by a putrid fever, caused by the pestilential exhalations arising from the earth, near the spot where the eruption afterwards occurred. This is the common source of great pestilences; they arise in like manner from subterraneous evolutions of mephitic vapour, aided, of course, by the superficial sources of foul air. The subterranean vapours arise most profusely in low situations, as about the sea-coasts, and along the margins of great rivers and lakes. This is, ac

D

Diseases of the

municated

to vegeta

animals.

cordingly, the precise course which pestilences pursue in their passage from one country to another, of which our two late visitations of cholera afford examples.

The earth, of course, communicates its own disearth com- eases to its vegetable and animal creatures: for the earth itself being diseased, they, from their intimate bles and connection with it, must necessarily become diseased also. Thus, when the earth is affected with subterranean inflammation, and there is a profuse generation of putrid vapour, as during volcanic operations and earthquakes, the neighbouring vegetation becomes unhealthy, and the inhabitants of the vicinity are grievously affected with putrid diseases; like the earth, their bodies also generating putrid va pour profusely; and again, similar to the inflammation of the earth, their bodies are tormented with intense burning, followed by eruptions, as in plagues, small-pox, and other pestilential diseases. This, as history shows, has always been observed to be consequent upon volcanic eruptions and great earthquakes; as, for example, was particularly the case after the earthquake which destroyed Port Royal in Jamaica, when great numbers of human beings perished by the plague of yellow fever immediately following it. For further example, Iceland, the most active focus in the world of the volcanic disease of the earth, by which, and the attendant earthquakes, it has in all known ages been desolated, has frequently been visited by the most destructive plagues. Sir George Stewart Mackenzie, in his travels, relates, that in 1402, a plague broke out in the island, and the two following years swept away nearly two

Plagues of
Iceland.

thirds of the whole population; and another pestilence occurred towards the close of the century. And in 1707, the small-pox, which is a modification of plague, and indeed, when severe, one of its most frightful forms, carried off one-fourth part of the inhabitants of the island.

Again, in other regions of the earth, where a cold morbid condition prevails, in consequence of a want of circulation and a stagnancy of its waters, it is found that the inhabitants of the neighbourhood are also wont to be affected with a disease whose symptoms are wonderfully correspondent to the conditions of the earth; I allude to ague: this disease is, like the unwholesome stagnant marshes around, characterized by a cold morbid stagnancy of the humours of the human body, which is followed by excessive heat; the disease consisting of alternations between the two extremes. The earth, of course, continues for a great number of years in the same condition, so that we are not exactly acquainted with the various changes which may be attendant upon this condition of it; but we do know that this cold condition of the earth, has, like ague, its hot stages; the ground becoming spontaneously ignited, and spreading its inflammation far around. It appears, also, that there are many other morbid conditions of the earth, less in degree, which we do not discover, but which it communicates to its inhabitants.

Where the earth is in a morbid condition, the air, which is dependant upon the earth, and arises from it, must of course also be in an unwholesome state. It is by means of the unhealthy condition of the