Page:Short account of the origin and progress of the cholera morbus.pdf/7

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stirring up soeiety to its very lowest depths, and evoking the worst passions of the human bosom. The one party spoke of the pestilenee that the attention of the people might be attraeted to it and away from reform; while the other first denied the existence of the disease, and then ascribed it to the wieked device of their opponents. Amid the contentions of political partisanship, the judgments of heaven were tossed about like a straw on the foaming surge. But God was not to be mocked. He hath bent his bow and fitted to the string his arrow; and his deadly shafts were to be lodged in many a bosom. Suddenly it diffused itself throughout the country—appearing in various plaees at the same time—as if Moses had again sprinkled a bandful of his pestilential ashes in the winds of heaven. Cholera was soon acknowledged to be no humbug, but an awful reality. Even medieal men said it was a frightful disorder. The prostration of strength was nearly as rapid as if a laneet had been applied to the arm, and the stream of blood had been allowed to flow. In a few hours, it induced the thin visage, and the erisped features, and the eold tongue, and the hollow voice, and the black-sunken eye, and the feeble pulse, and the incessant thirst, and the sinking heart—he that laid the eold elay of his departed relative in the grave, might also prepare for the same doom.

Cholera having made its appearance at Sunderland, reached Newcastle on December 7, and on the 17th it was diseovered at Haddington. January 14, it visited Tranent and Musselburgh, where it was very virulent; on the 31st the Edinburgh papers report three cases in that eity. It appeared at the same time at Kirkintulloeh, taking a leap of fifty miles at once. About 12th February, it reached Glasgow Paisley, and London. March 14, it appeared at Paris, when 23000 persons died in the eourse of one month. In April it passed over into Ireland, and reaehed the north of Seotland. May 12, it appeared in Liverpool. July 3, at Carlysle; about the same time at Kendal, Maryport, Penrith, and Ayr with great severity. At Tongueland, and at Spriughill, Annandale, and, in September, in the village of Penpont, there were four cases and three deaths.