Those persons who take note of the able, and in general highly instructive, reports of the Registrar of Public Health, will observe that the word zymotic is now frequently used to signify the introduction into the body of some morbific poisons,—such as prevail in the atmosphere, or are thrown off by diseased bodies, or generated in the unwholesome congregation of a crowded population, which are supposed to act like yeast in a beer vat, exciting ferments in the constitution, in the case of the infections diseases, similar to those which gave them birth. But this explains nothing, and only shifts the difficulty and changes the terms, and is no better than a modification of the opinions of our forefathers, who attributed all such disorders to a fermentation of the supposed "humours" of the body. The essence of these changes in the animal economy, like other phenomena of the living principle, remain, and perhaps ever will remain, an unfathomable mystery. It is our business to investigate, as much as in our power, and by a slow and cautious induction, the laws by which they are governed.
Non-recurrence, or immunity from any future seizure in a person who has had an infectious disease, seems derivable from some invisible and unknown impression[[4]] made on the constitution. There is good reason to suppose that this impression may vary in degree in different individuals, and in the same individual at different times; and thence some practical inferences are to be drawn which have not yet been well advanced into popular view, but to which I cannot advert unless some reader of "N. & Q." put the question.
M. (2)
Footnote 4:[(return)]
This word is used for want of a better, to signify some unknown change.
MILTON'S WIDOW.
(Vol. viii., p. 594. &c.)
Garlichithe's apologies to Mr. Hughes are due, not so much for neglecting his communications as for misquoting them. We all owe an apology to your readers for keeping up so pertinaciously a subject of which I fear they will begin to be tired.
Mr. Hughes has not stated that Richard Minshull of Chester, son of Richard Minshull, the writer of the letter of May 3, 1656, was born in 1641. What Mr. Hughes did state (Vol. viii., p. 200.) was, that Mrs. Milton's brother, Richard Minshull of Wistaston, was baptized on April 7 in that year; and the statement is quite correct, as I can vouch, from having examined the baptismal register. Richard Minshull of Chester was aged forty or forty-one at the date of his father's letter, as shown below; but even if he had been aged only fifteen, as supposed by Garlichithe, I do not see that there is anything in the language of the letter to call for observation. He had conveyed to his father a communication from Randle Holmes, and the father writes in answer,—"Deare and loveing sonne, my love and best respects to you and to my daughter [Garlichithe may read daughter-in-law if he likes, but I see no necessity for it], tendered wth trust of yr health. I have reaceived Mr. Alderman Holmes his letter, together with yrs, wherin I understand that you desire to know what I can say concerning our coming out of Minshull House;" and he proceeds to give the information asked for.