Excerpt: "The Author has endeavoured to place in fair review the various opinions of the most eminent historians (professional and otherwise), and would impress on his readers, that on a subject embracing so wide a field as that of atmospheric influence, arising from elemental disturbance, together with the boundless variety in the circumstances of human society, as the exciting and predisposing cause of disease, the present volume must be read and considered as a whole; for it is only by comparison of all the phenomena displayed in the following History of Pestilences, that any thing like just or rational conclusions can be arrived at,—conclusions such as the remarkable coincidences of the observations and comments by historians, not only of the earliest ages of the world, but those of more modern times, fully warrant."