Non-Contagion of Plague. 
dors do not leave Turkey during the 
plague; seclusion is deemed a safeguard, 
.and experience preves it to be so. 
With persons of their habits, the same 
plan was pursued in London, but with- 
out success: if seclusion be not a pro- 
tection, contagion cannot be the means 
of propagation; there cannot be influ- 
ence where there is not access. The 
habits of ambassadors and their suites 
are friendly to health, and therefore a 
corrupt atmosphere did not engender 
the disease. The habits of the citizens 
of London prepared them for disease, 
and therefore they found safety no where. 
The plague at Grand Cairo, in 1823, 
swept off 60,000 of the inhabitants; but 
a village two miles distant, in which the 
custom-house stands, was exempt: in- 
tercourse was uninterrupted—persons 
from Cairo died in the village, but the 
disease never spread—the people were 
not susceptible of infection. This fact 
does not stand alone, but is exemplified 
in the history of every plague, and con- 
firms the opinion, that those only have 
the disease, who are in circumstances 
favourable to its production, and are 
themselves prepared—intercourse with 
the infected is not the exciting cause. 
_ Evigerius relates, that many who left 
infected places were seized with the 
plague in towns to which they had re- 
tired ; while the old inhabitants of those 
towns escaped. Thuanus speaks of a 
plague in Italy, which was at Venice 
and Padua, leaving Vicenza, an inter- 
mediate town, untouched. Dr. Mead 
says, “ There are numberless instances 
where the plague has caused a great 
mortality in towns, while other towns 
and villages, very near them, have been 
entirely free.’ Sir Robert Wilson bears 
similar testimony of the capriciousness 
of the plague in Egypt, during his cam- 
paigns in that country, This evidence 
is so strong and direct, as to bear down, 
and give an air of ridicule to, the stories 
of concealed garments. 
But there is one apparently strong 
evidence of infection overlooked by Dr, 
Mead—I allude to the influence of 
lazarettos on the medical and other 
at‘endants. In the Hotel Dieu at Mar- 
seilles, in 1720, all the patients, with all 
their attendants, died. In Moscow, in 
1727, of fifteen medical attendants, 
fourteen were seized, and twelve died. 
In the French lazaretto in Egypt, eighty 
rofessional men died in one year. 
ese are striking evidences of the 
terrific nature of this disease, It is, its, 
character to be extremely ‘destructive 
« Mowaury Mac. No, 412,—Supp. 
649 
in particular places, but destructivenes 
is not an evidence of contagion. Con- 
tagion is uniform—and all small-pox 
hospitals bear testimony to the fact. 
But Dr. McLean, whose labours en- 
title him to the thanks of his country, 
relates, that of twenty persons in close 
communication with the patients sick 
of the plague, at the Pest Hospital in 
Constantinople, in 1715, only one was 
affected with the malady. In the city 
of Ferrara, in 1630, a person having died 
of the plague, his family, seven in num- 
ber, were removed to a lazaretto, all of 
whom died; but neither those who con- 
veyed them, or attended upon, or buried 
them, received the disease. Diemer- 
brach relates, that part of a family 
which removed into a town free from the 
plague, was observed by him to be taken 
ill of it; soon after, that part of the 
family left behind fell ill also. In this 
case the disease was generated before 
the separation, and illustrates the posi- 
tion, that all who reside under the same 
roof, are disposed simultaneously to 
engender the disease; being alike ex- 
posed to an influence peculiar to the 
place. 
Not any one of the lazarettos dissemi- 
nated abroad the evil which wasted 
its own inhabitants. Intercourse was 
maintained, the dead were buried, but 
the disease was not propagated. The 
deadly type must have been local, not 
contagious; hence it commenced and 
terminated within the walls of the laza- 
retto. ‘ 
Were a disease so almost certainly 
fatal as the plague, highly contaminat- 
ing, a lazaretto would become a se~ 
pulchre, and a succession of attendants 
impossible to be obtained. If infection 
and death be not the consequence of 
the service the sick require, the plague 
is not the disease Dr. Mead and the 
advocates’ of contagion describe. The 
small-pox infects all the liable that are 
exposed to its influence. The plague 
-does not thus act; consequently, the 
mortality of particular places is acci- 
dental, and the contagious influence of 
the plague the creature of the imagi- 
nation. 
But I will for a moment cede the - 
point, and admit that the plague is in- 
fectious ; still its importation into this 
country is impossible. The’ plague 
must have its own proper and ‘peculiar 
atmosphere, or its virus falls harmless. 
There must also be a preparation of 
the constitution, a capacity to receive, 
aswell as the power to impose:”: A: 
40 thousand 
