Note 5 — Chapter II · THEORIES OF MACCULLOCH.

The late Dr. Macculloch was a distinguished geologist in the employment of Government, representing in himself the department which has now swelled out into the Metropolitan School of Practical Geology, the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn-street, the geological department in connexion with the Ordnance, &c. &c. He resided mostly in London, and moved in the best circles. Though a strictly scientific man, he was a professor also of the conjectural art, having been educated as a medical man. Soon after publishing his first essays on malaria, thrown out as feelers to the profession and the public, he had his misgivings as to the safety of the course he was pursuing. To denounce open sewers, undrained streets, untrapped cesspools, and overflowing dead-wells, was clearly an attack on the proprietors of London houses; and he called one morning in great haste on a distinguished barrister, to consult him as to the possibility of a passage in one of his essays being construed into a ground for an action for libel! How changed now are the views of society in respect of all such matters.