The Common Nature of Epidemics, and their relation to climate and civilization

Excerpt from the Introduction--"Never was a country guided through the perils of an Epidemic with greater wisdom and energy than Great Britain during the Cholera of 1848-9. The master spirit on that occasion was Dr Southwood Smith. Long previous to that time this great man had had a more extended experience of the nature, causes, and treatment of Zymotic diseases than perhaps any physician before or since. He had made them his special study, and applied the great powers of his clear, reasoning, and philosophic mind, to the discovery of their causes, and the best means of arresting their progress."