hydrogen was the pivot (if such a term is appli- cable to a gas) round which it revolved. Since Vogel showed the blood corpuscles to be dis- organized in typhus fever, Dr. Webb assumed they must be so in plague even to a greater extent. These and analogous diseases he grouped as organic diseases of the blood, differentiating them from functional diseases of the blood " which present a state of blood, like that which follows excessive pei-spiration from exercise, or after excessive spirituous potation, wherein the blood corpuscles are found dark and wrinkled, such are functional changes in the blood. Cholera and sweating sickness I call functional diseases of the blood." In them the functions of the corpuscles are only perverted, and he thinks "we may reason inductively thus ; - that which we see take place in animal mem- branes by applying sulphuretted hydrogen, may take place in the vesicular envelope of the blood corpuscles, and blood capillaries, thus endosmosis may be inverted. That which we see take place in one capillary tube, attached to a vessel full of water, and charged with only one kind of electricity, may take place throughout all the capillary pores of our bodies; and they may exude out their contents with preter- natural rapidity. Cholera may, and probably does, arise in both ways."
According to this theory the first effect of sulphuretted hydrogen is to invert the endos- motic action of the corpuscles, hence cholera often glides into typhus, and typhus into cholera. The second effect of sulphuretted hydrogen is to burst and destroy the corpuscles^ and so typhus fever is an intermediate condition that may merge into plague, while both are said to be closely related to the condition of the blood produced by the poison of the rattlesnake. Even the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta are adduced as examples of this beautifully simple theory, the chaotic inconsistencies of which it were fruitless to discuss. The attention of the pathologist is invited to this tragic event, " for it affords proof invaluable, that fever, gangrene, and plague, may all result from the same Polluted Air." Again, it is laid down that cholera may approach in character typhus and plague on the one hand, and colic and sweating sickness on the other. Recalls them "transition-forms of epidemic diseases, which yet are essentially the same disorder of the blood ; the blood cor- puscles having their vital endosmotic action reversed: — general filtration outwards, or the '
passive flow of vital fluids from the skin and bowels, is originated. They have all a common origin in bad air. The country whence these diseases have spread abroad, abounds in sul* phuretted hydrogen of telluric origin, as in Sirhind, Rajpootanah, Marwar, and the whole of Sindh. It must not be supposed that Dr. Allan Webb was singular or eccentric in his views. Similar ideas obtained amongst most observers of the time. Notably a Dr. Searle, whose book was circulated to medical officers by the Court of Directors, held the same theories regarding sulphuretted hydrogen, though the conclusions he drew differed widely, as did his treatment.
In his description of Indian plague Dr. Webb stated that the Pali Plague originated in a geological tract in the North-West of India, which abounded in sulphur and sulphuretted hydrogen, and consequently in what he called SesviaHa, a term which is as little known now as malaria is well known. In addition to the Indian pestilence of l!J38 he referred to the Kach and Kathiwar epidemics in 1817-20; and to that of Mdrwfir in 1836-37. In the Pali Plague he recognised all the varieties of the Black Death except that which is now called the pneumonic type.
LONDON LETTER.
THE CASE OF MISS HICKMAN.
This case has excited a great deal of interest in this country. Miss Hickman was a lady doctor — M.D. of Brussels and L.R.C.P. & S. of Edin- burgh. H^r age was about 30, and she was a woman of strong physique, sound health, great intelligence and even, kindly disposition. She joined the Royal Free Hospital, in London on the 14th of August last, as locum tenens for one of the resident staff who had gone on holiday. About midday on the 15th of August she left the hospital, and, except that she had been seen on that day by a student of the hospital and a post- man, nothing more was heard of her till the I8th of October, when her body was found in a plant- ation of Richmond Park. The fact of her disappearance was promptly made known, de- scriptions of her person and dress were widely distributed, and a substantial reward offered for any clue to her whereabouts — alive or dead. The most careful search was made everywhere by the police and public during these two months> without the faintest re^uA^^ and eventually'
