[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 principal cause of the epidemic disease among cattle. The mildew is that which burns and dries the grass 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."—Mitchell 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 assertion 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 œsophagus 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.