MODERN IDEAS OF SAKITABT ECONOMY. 



47 



having spread among the finest minds of both the east and 

 west, produced, no doubt, a carelessness in many respects 

 among the very persons who were most likely to be careful 

 of health ; and instead of purifying by washing and by fumi- 

 gation, as their forefathers, they came to consider numerous 

 sufficiently apparent evils, as not to be remedied by a short- 

 lived race, or as purposely established as trials for our benefit. 

 Another stage of reasoning made men consider them as actual 

 benefits, capable of promoting health, till, when evil conse- 

 quences could no longer be hidden, it was said, and still is 

 said, through some abuse of a scientific idea, that the greater 

 the number, the greater the benefit, as they then tend to 

 exterminate each other. 



Although, therefore, Hippocrates had been praised for 

 fumigating the streets by fires, by the odour of flowers, and 

 by the opening of certain windows and shutting of others, 

 Sir Kenelm Digby, a long time after, when the lesson ought 

 to have been better learnt, tells us that — 



" In times of contagion or universal infection of the air, pigeons, 

 cats, dogs, and other hot animals, used to be killed, which make 

 continually a great transpiration or evaporation of spirits which issue 

 forth of evaporation ; the pestiferous atoms which are scattered in 

 the air, and accompany it, used to stick to the feathers, skins, or 

 furres." 



Yet he did not give up the fires. He says — 



"By reason of their (i.e. the fires) attraction, they used to make 



great fires where there is household stuff of men that died of the 



pestilence, to disinfect them." 



But it is curious how directly to the point, at an early time, 

 Ulysses came ; when he had killed his suitors, he fumigated 

 the place with sulphur : — 



" as e(f>aff' ov5* amdrfOT) cJuXt) rpo<^os EupuAcXcia 

 r)VfyKev S* apa imp kcu 6i]iov' avrap Odvatrevs 

 fv 8i(dfia<rfv fxeyapov km d(ii>fia Kat av\r)v." 



Horn. Odyss. book 22, L 492. 



