A work has recently been
published in Europe, in which representations of these various
microscopic plants generated in the fluids of the diseased persons are
exhibited, enlarged several hundred times by the microscope. All
diseases that exhibit these microscopic plants are classed together,
and are called _Zymotic_, from a Greek word signifying _to ferment_.
These zymotic diseases sometimes have a _local_ origin, as in the case
of ague caused by miasma of swamps; and then they are named _endemic_.
In other cases, they are caused by personal contact with the diseased
body or its clothing, as the itch or small-pox; or else by effluvia from
the sick, as in measles. Such are called _contagious_ or _infectious_.
In other cases, diseases result from some unknown cause in the
atmosphere, and affect numbers of people at the same time, as in
influenza or scarlet fever, and these are called _epidemics_.
It is now regarded as probable that most of these diseases are generated
by the microscopic plants which float in an impure or miasmatic
atmosphere, and are taken into the blood by breathing.
Recent scientific investigations in Great Britain and other countries
prove that the _power of resisting_ these diseases depends upon the
purity of the air which has been _habitually_ inspired.
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