sposed to regard it as a sort of
necessary evil, or, perhaps, as a divine infliction. At length a very
shrewd old gentleman told the people that the troublesome visitor was of
human and not of divine origin; and that if they would attend properly
to their cellars, sleeping-rooms, wells, etc., it would no more be heard
of. At first, they were disposed to laugh at him; but the matter was
talked of and agitated, till a work of general purgation was actually
attempted and finally accomplished. The disease has never re-appeared.
Was all this the result of mere accident? Do our diseases spring out of
the ground? Are they the result of chance or hap-hazard? or, are they
not the heaven-appointed penalties of transgression?

FOOTNOTES:

[F] Farmers, in former times, while making cider, were very slovenly.
When I observed a large amount of filth adhering to their boots and
shoes as they carried the pumice from the vat to the press, I thought of
the worms, insects, and dust, which were ground up and incorporated with
the mass, I sometimes expressed surprise. "Oh," said they, "the cider
will work itself clean!" If so, I thought, and still think, it must be
by the operation of some law not yet discovered. It may work itself
_clear_, perhaps; but to work itself _clean_, is quite another matter.

CHAPTER XLIII.

TAKING THE FEVER.

A large family, not much more careful of their habits or cleanly about
their premises than the family alluded to in the foregoing chapter, had
sickened one autumn, and one of them had died. Anxious to save the rest,
I again acted as physician and nurse both, and effected my object; or,
at least, appeared to do so. The rest of my patients ultimately
recovered.

But while thus watching these patients, by night and day, standing in
the very front of the battle, I suddenly sickened. The circumstances, as
nearly as I can recollect them, were the following:----

Among the sick of this afflicted family was one unmarried man of rather
eccentric and very unsociable habits, and exceedingly negligent both of
his person and dress. His linen, and I think also his bed-clothes, were
hardly changed once a month; at least as long as he was well. And then
he had, of course, extended the same neglect to his sick chamber. Added
to this, moreover, was a species of _necessity_ at this juncture; for so
much distressed were the family, and so difficult was it to procure aid
in the neighborhood, that a part of the ne