"No!" replied the learned lecturer, "the body is that of my cousin and schoolfellow, Harry Welborne. I attended his funeral, at some little distance from town, a couple of days ago. My servant must have given information to the exhumer. It is clear the body was removed from the vault on the same evening."
Sir Henry Delmé briefly explained to Doctor Pormont, his purpose in sending for him. He stated that he was anxious to take his advice, as to the best mode of proceeding to Rome, and also as to the best sleeping place for the party;--that he had a wholesome dread of the malaria, but that one of his party being a female, and another an invalid, he thought it might be as well to sleep one night on the road. Regarding all this, he deferred to the advice and superior judgment of the physician.
"Judgment," said Doctor Pormont, "is two-fold. It may be defined, either as the faculty of arriving at the knowledge of things, which may be effected by the synthetic or analytic method; or it may be considered as the just perception of them, when they are fully indagated.
"Our problem seems to resolve itself into two cases.
"First: does malaria exist to an unusual and alarming extent, on the route you purpose taking?
"Secondly: the existence conceded--what is the best method to escape the evil effects that might attend its inhibition into the human system?
"Let us apply the synthetic method to our first case."
The Doctor prefaced his arguments, by a long statement, as to the gradual commencement, and progress of malaria;--showed how the atmosphere, polluted by exhalations of water, impregnated with decaying and putrified vegetable matter, gave forth miasmata; which he described as being particles of poison in a volatile state.
He alluded to the opinion held by many, that the disease owed its origin to the ravages of the barbarians, who destroying the Roman farms and villas, had made desert what were fertile regions.
He traced it from the time of the late Roman Emperors, to that of the dominion of the Popes, whose legislative enactments to arrest the malady, he failed not to comment on at length.