MODERN IDEAS OF SANITARY ECONOMY. 



57 



to have found it necessary to say, as a thing not well known 

 even then, that the vapours found in crowded places in gaols, 

 were poisonous. As a correct statement of the opinions of the 

 period in their most advanced state, or rather, as the statements 

 of a man who was beyond his time in most things, I may quote 

 the following rather interesting passages from the writings of 

 that philosopher, *•' Sylva Sylvarurriy'' 328, &c. : — 



" The inducing and accelerating of fermentation is a subject 

 of universal inquiry. The means to induce and accelerate 

 putrefaction are, — First, by adding some crude and watery 

 moisture, as in wetting of any flesh, fruit, wood, with water, 

 &c. ; for contrariwise, imctuous and oily substances, preserve. 

 The second, by invitation and excitation, as when a rotten 

 apple lieth close to that which is sound, or when dung, which 

 is a substance already putrefied, is added to other bodies. 

 And this is notably seen in church-yards, where the earth will 

 consume the corpses in far shorter time than other earth will. 

 The third is by closeness, as in corn and clothes which wax 

 musty ; and therefore open air doth preserve. Fourth, by 

 solution of continuity, as we see an apple will rot sooner if 

 it be cut or pierced, and so will wood. Fifth, by exhaling — 

 as in pestilences, where the malignity of the infecting vapour 



daunteth the principal spirits and the humours, flesh, and 



secondary spirits do dissolve and break, as in anarchy. Sixth, 

 is when a foreign spirit, stronger and more eager than the 

 spirit of the body, entereth the body, as in the stinging of 

 serpents ; and we also see the spirits coming of putrefaction 

 of humours in agues, &c. The seventh, by such a degree of 

 heat as setteth the spirits in a little motion, as is seen in flesh 

 that is kept in a room not cool ; whereas in a cool and wet 

 larder it will keep longer. 



"914. The most pernicious infection next the plague is the 

 smell of the gaol, where prisoners have been long and close 

 and nastily kept, whereof we have had in our own time expe- 

 rience twice or thrice, when both the judges that sat upon the 



I 



