648 
none more to the point than those I 
have quoted :—I have done him justice. 
The pamphlet is dedicated to the Right 
Honourable James Craggs, one of His 
Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State; 
and is followed, in the Doctor’s works, 
by an Essay on the Influence of the 
Sun and Moon! 
On this evidence the Government 
have acted, and the public given credit 
to the contagious influence of the 
plague—evidence which, if it has not 
the air of a fable, has not the force of 
truth. 
The Anti-contagionists advance boldly 
to the question, and ask, What is con- 
tagion?—is it the communicating of 
disease from one person to another b 
intercourse? “Then,” they reply, “the 
plague is not infectious, The small-pox 
spreads, by this mean, but the plague 
does not. Witness the entire history of 
the disease!—witness the streets of 
Constantinople!—where, if some in- 
fected and houseless individual lay 
down to die, although no one may stop 
from compassion, no one will step aside 
from fear: he dies, and the servants of 
the police strip off his tattered garments, 
and sell them in the market, when they 
become the dress of the purchaser: or 
should a bed have been the scene of his 
last agonies, this, too, is not long with- 
out a new and fearless occupant.” 
But it may be said, that the Turks 
are fatalists, and therefore are regardless 
of infection. Granted—such is their 
profession; but, they retreat when 
worsted in battle; and discovered, and 
practise, inoculation for the small-pox, 
that they may lessen its violence, and 
escape its power. Do they shrink back 
with fear from this disease, and not 
from the plague?—is the one shunned 
and avoided, and the other approached 
and assisted? This discrimination stamps 
on their conduct a character which is 
conclusive. They are not heedless af 
danger—they are not careless of infec- 
tion: but, while they keep at a distance 
from any suffering under the small-pox, 
they support in their arms the frend 
who is dying of the plague. One such 
fact outweighs all circuitous evidence... 
The garment must be harmless, if the 
body itself does not contaminate. Con- 
jecture, and only conjecture, gives in- 
fection to the property of the deceased ; 
while the evidence is positive and sub- 
stantial, that from himself no danger 
arose. 
The family of the galley-slave died of 
the plague, but it was when the disease 
Non-Contagion of Plague. 
raged in the country, and when persons 
of their station were much exposed to 
its origimating influence. The waist- 
coat had traversed many leagues. of 
country, without infection having been 
communicated ; the people of the village 
were surprised at the disease breaking 
out so far from Marseilles, without an 
intermediate link; and as they never 
apprehended its origin to have been 
among themselves, the credulous sought 
for, and were satisfied with, the story of 
the waistcoat; and similar stories have 
been invented and told, and gained 
credit in every place where the plague 
has broken out. 
The plague at Marseilles in 1720, 
from Dr. Mead’s own shewing, existed 
before the suspected ship arrived from 
the Levant. The attempt of the Doctor 
to impose this story as an evidence of 
contagion, lessens his credibility. What 
could he mean by fever with eruptions 
but the plague ?—And yet we must, on 
his authority, believe it to have been 
imported from the Levant. The Doctor 
is indeed a weak advocate, but I know 
of no better. . The stories he relates as 
evidence, outrage common sense, and 
cannot be received. He is satisfied with 
gossips’ tales of mysterious arrivals, and 
secreted bags of cotton: he no where 
relates, that an individual dying of the 
disease arrived in a village, and that, 
where he travelled and where he slept, he 
gave evidence of the contagious nature 
of his malady. The small-pox may be 
so traced—and such would be the only 
kind of evidence advanced of its con- 
tagious nature: circumstantial evidence 
is never .offered, where direct can be 
obtained. 
The Anti-contagionists decline to 
answer the stories that are promulgated, 
because no adequate and direct autho- 
rity is produced in their support: to 
attack a phantom, is not to gain a vic- 
tory. The only course, therefore, they 
can adopt, is to prove by facts the posi- 
tion they advocate. 
The plague of 1665 was believed to 
be highly infectious: many fled the city, 
and various precautions were used to 
prevent its spreading among those who 
remained; but in one night 4,000 died: 
a fact almost conclusive against the 
contagious nature of the disease; for 
no disease spreads so rapidly by such 
means. The small-pox is less guarded 
against; but it is no where recorded 
that a proportionate number of those 
liable to the disease were ever at the 
same time affected. Foreign ambassa- 
dors 
