80 FOURTH REPORT — 1834. 



latina into Podolia, a distance of several hundred miles, by a suit 

 of clothes, which he had worn at Vienna while attending persons 

 sick of that disease, and had laid by for several months*. 4. Of 

 the propagation of a fever of the typhoid character by fomites, 

 Sir John Pringle has recorded a striking example. A number 

 of old tents, wliich had been used as bedding by soldiers sick of 

 low fever, were, on the disembarkation of the troops at Ghent, 

 sent to be repaired. Twenty-three Flemish workmen were em- 

 ployed in the business, out of whom seventeen took the fever 

 and died, though they had no personal communication with 

 the troopsf. 



XXIII. It has not been ascertained how long fomites may 

 retain their activity ; but there is reason to believe that in arti- 

 cles closely packed they may remain unaltered for several years. 

 Sennertus relates an instance in which, after a violent plague at 

 the city of Breslaw, in 1542, the pestilential contagion imbibed 

 by linen cloth which was kept folded up, issued forth fourteen 

 years afterwards in another city, and gave rise to a plague, which 

 caused great devastation J. In Dr. Parr's Medical J)ictionary 

 (art. Contagion), a fact is stated, which, if well authenticated, 

 would indicate a much longer period for the durability of the con- 

 tagion of plague. 



XXIV. The subject of fomites is well worthy of further in- 

 vestigation. Hitherto we have acquired no information respect- 

 ing the comparative powers of different porous bodies to absorb 

 contagion. Technical distinctions into " more or less suscep- 

 tible articles " are, it is true, recognised by the quarantine laws ; 

 but they appear to be founded on loose analogies rather than on 

 careful observations. 1. It is extremely probable that (Z?/^/*ew? 

 porous bodies vary as to their powers of absorbing the same con- 

 tagious emanation, as we know that they differ in their powers 

 of imbibing a given elastic fluid. 2. In the same porous body, 

 it is quite conceivable also, that the power of absorbing different 

 contagions may vary with its states of dryness, temperature, 

 mechanical aggregation, and other circumstances. A light 

 and spongy material will probably be found a more active ab- 

 sorbent of contagion, than the same substance when rendered 

 dense by packing or by manufacturing operations. 3. A low 

 temperature of the porous body will probably cause it to ab- 

 sorb more contagion than an elevated one ; the dryness of the 

 solid being supposed equal in both cases. When once im- 

 pregnated also, an increased temperatui-e will probably act in 



• Diet, de Medecine, Paris, 1822, art. Contagion. 

 t Pringle On the Diseases of the Army, part I. ch. iii. 

 X Quoted by Boyle, Shaw's Abridgment, vol. i. 



