WITH A VIEW TO THE PREVENTION OF PLAGUE. 309 



or alive ; silk, sponges, wrought coral ; in brief, all animal substances, whether in 

 a raw or manufactured state, not specified as belonging to either of the other 

 classes. 



2. Cotton and flax, and the vast number of fabrics made of these substances. 



3. All the various articles of equipment ; those commonly designated goods ; 

 furniture, saddlery ; every thing belonging to bedding. 



4. Candles, both wax and tallow. 



5. Hot bread. 



This class of objects, even more miscellaneous than the preceding, it can 

 hardly be doubted, was formed at the same time, and in the same rude and in- 

 exact manner, and that it is as little deserving of confidence. What a vast num- 

 ber of carefully conducted trials would be requisite to determine the quality, in 

 relation to susceptibility to convey contagion, of so many articles ! And yet, I be- 

 lieve, it may confidently be stated, that not a single article of the many has yet 

 been subjected to experiment, expressly for the purpose in question ; and, even 

 further, that those persons who are employed in carrying into effect the regula- 

 tions of quarantine have not taken advantage of the experience unavoidably col- 

 lected in lazarettos, especially in the instances of certain articles extensively ex- 

 ported from Egypt and the Levant, such as cotton and silk. Of each of these 

 articles thousands of bales are annually passed through the lazarettos of Malta, 

 Marseilles, and Trieste ; and, during the last twenty years, often at times when 

 plague prevailed in the countries from which they have been shipped. They are 

 handled in the lazarettos by men whose duty it is to expose them to the air. No 

 instance is on record of any individual so employed contracting plague. This is 

 the result of careful inquiry made in the different lazarettos of the Mediterranean. 

 Notwithstanding, cotton and silk are still retained in the list of susceptible articles, 

 and are even commonly denounced as highly susceptible. Were reason followed, 

 surely the contrary conclusion should be drawn ; and, I apprehend, it would not 

 be confined to these two substances, but would require to be extended to all the 

 so-called susceptible articles, not one of them, that I am aware, having yet been 

 proved to have been the medium of the communication of plague within the walls 

 of a lazaretto. 



Further, applying the same process of reasoning to the substances collected 

 in this class that was used to the former, I apprehend the conclusion most war- 

 ranted by analogy must be admitted to be, that the so-called susceptible articles 

 are least entitled to be so considered, are, in truth, least fitted for preserving the 

 matter of contagion in an unaltered active state. 



All very porous, spongy, fleecy objects, all that are readily and very com- 

 pressible, abound in atmospheric air, to the presence of which between their fibres 

 and particles they owe the qualities indicated in the terms expressive of them. 

 Now it is well known that the presence of atmospheric air, especially when con- 



