3 Hist. Méd. des Maladies epidémiques, Paris, 1825.
4 Lib. iv. cap. 2.
5 Lib. ii. cap. 5.
The first mention of epidemics was in the sixteenth century. Various epidemics in 1695, 1717, and 1718 in Germany were probably cholera morbus. Forestus6 reports seven observations from 1559 to 1565 of attacks due to indigestible food or drastic medicines. F. Hoffman,7 J. Frank,8 and L. Rivière speak of the benignity of the disease as contrasting it with its apparently dangerous symptoms.
6 Opera Omnia, Rothomagi, 1633, "De stomachi affectibus," lib. xxviii.
7 Medicina rationalis systemica, t. iv. pt. 3, 1734.
8 Praxeos medicæ universæ præcepta, Leipzig, 1826, p. 43.
Sydenham's9 description of the epidemics in England in 1669-72 is the earliest account of the disease in modern literature, and it was he who gave it the name cholera morbus.
9 Sydenham Soc. edition, vol. i. p. 163.
NATURE.—There prevails at the present time a great diversity of opinion in regard to its nature; the want of uniformity in the appearances presented by post-mortem examinations may in some measure account for this. The present state of our knowledge, derived both from pathological anatomy and a study of the symptoms, will not warrant a positive opinion in regard to it.