It resembled nothing of which I had ever before been sensible.

Many odours had been met with, even since my arrival in the city, less supportable than this.
I seemed not so much to smell as to taste the element that now encompassed me.

I felt as if I had inhaled a poisonous and subtle fluid, whose power instantly bereft my stomach of all vigour.

Some fatal influence appeared to seize upon my vitals, and the work of corrosion and decomposition to be busily begun.
For a moment, I doubted whether imagination had not some share in producing my sensation; but I had not been previously panic-struck; and even now I attended to my own sensations without mental discomposure.
That I had imbibed this disease was not to be questioned.

So far the chances in my favour were annihilated.