Madden's Travels in Turkey , #c. 123 



by which the poisonous matter, thus eliminated, reaches the 

 human body. He goes a step further, however, than this. 

 Common malaria he believes to be formed from the decompo- 

 sition of vegetable matter contained in the soil. Plague 

 miasma, again, originates in the putrefaction of animal mat- 

 ter, the production of both depending on certain states of 

 moisture and heat. But while the author is thus clear in at- 

 tributing to plague an endemial origin, he is perfectly satisfied 

 that it is also a contagious disorder, and that the contagious 

 emanations from the bodies of the sick may produce the disease 

 in others, in three different ways: — first, by contact; secondly, 

 by means of the breath ; and thirdly, by woollen clothes and 

 other fomites, which have become saturated with contami- 

 nated air. The contagion of plague, according to Mr. Mad- 

 den, requires to be in a certain state of intensity to produce 

 the disorder in others. Hence it is, that with proper precau- 

 tion, a pest hospital may be visited with impunity. 



" In a word, plague under all circumstances is contagious, but 

 under some, far more so than under others. In a well-ventilated 

 chamber, where the bed-clothes are shifted daily, where the floor is 

 washed daily, and a fire kept constantly in the apartment {this I 

 consider the most important agent of all in carrying off the foul air) 

 there is hardly any peril in approaching the bedside of the sick, 

 avoiding his breath, and suffering no part of one's dress to touch 

 the bedclothes. At four feet from the bed of the plague patient, in 

 an airy room, there is no danger whatever. The miasma, I have 

 ascertained, by much observation, (so far as an invisible agent is 

 amenable to observation or experience) does not extend beyond a 

 very few feet from its source ; I would say, not four feet from the 

 bedside, and then it becomes so diluted by the surrounding atmos- 

 phere as to prove innoxious." 



From these statements it appears that the plague is, in the 

 author's notion, more allied to typhus fever and to ague, 

 than it is to small-pox and measles. It is held by the best 

 physicians, that the two latter diseases are entirely the produce 

 of vital actions, and that no combination of agents, exterior to 

 the human frame, can give rise to them. The complete ex- 

 emption of the world from these complaints for so many hun- 

 dred years, and the fact that at St. Helena they are invariably 

 imported, are decisive, we think, in favour of this doctrine. 



On this point then we are perfectly agreed with the author. 

 But we have our doubts how far he is right in attributing the 

 origin of plague so exclusively to animal decomposition. He 

 strives to account for it thus : — In Turkish towns the butchers 

 kill their meat in the public streets. The streets are never 



