Contagion of Plague. 
tothe contrary.* After some expe- 
rience, and careful examination of the 
eircumstances’ connected with this im- 
portant subject, during some years’ resi- 
dence in different parts of the Mediter-. 
ranean, I drew \up the outline of a 
plan, in 1813, for preventing the recur- 
rence of this disease ; which, after hav- 
ing submitted to the authorities at 
home, was translated into the Italian 
and Greek. languages, and thereby dis- 
seminated through the. government 
press at Corfu. The yellow fever, as 
an epidemic, has not appeared, since 
1813, at Gibraltar. 
The. observations I have to offer on 
the opinion, of those who deny the 
existence of contagion, will, from what 
Ihave just said, be limited to the ques- 
tion as it relates to plague and ty- 
phus—as I consider that so far as re- 
lates to the cause of yellow fever the 
question is settled. It has been stated 
on a recent and prominent occasion, in 
proof of the non-contagious nature 
of the plague, that it is considered by 
some as resembling typhus :—this was 
the opinion of the celebrated Professor 
Cullen; but he considered typhus as 
always originating from contagion, and 
his experience and observation will be 
taken against any authority of the pre- 
sent day. After many years’ practice of 
my profession, I have never seen an 
instance that, in the slightest degree, 
tended to invalidate that opinion. 
Typhus fever is, comparatively, a rare 
disease to what it was, before cleanlier 
habits, better living, and more com- 
fortable cottages and dwellings for the 
poorer orders were so common; yet it 
is frequently. met with, particularly in 
remote and poor situations, where these 
advantages do not exist. 
Physicians in charge of hospitals 
have declared, that although fever is a 
common disease under their care; yet 
contagious fever, they say, is never met 
with in their wards. It would be, to 
me, a wonder if it was, even were typhus 
raging without the walls of an hospital, 
provided due attention is paid to the 
usual instructions in admitting patients 
under that disease. Therefore this as- 
sertion goes for nothing in deciding 
upon the contagious or non-contagious 
nature of typhus fever. But the fol- 
lowing case, which came within my 
own knowledge, seems to me to con- 
firm the opinion of its contagious na- 
* See Trattato della Febre Gialla del Dot- 
tore Carlo Gemmalaro. 
653 
ture. A boy surreptitiously got admit- 
ted into the convalescent ward of a 
public, institution, where typhus was 
prevailing among the inmates. On the 
same evening he sickened: on the fourth 
day after, he was carried, about twenty 
miles, into a healthy part of the coun- 
try, where he communicated the dis- 
ease to several of the family, of whom 
one died; and the disease was, from 
thence, carried to different families 
situated distantly, whose inmates had 
communicated with that in which the 
boy lay sick. It is not because every 
severe case of marsh or sporadic fever, 
so common every where, is denominated 
typhus, that, of necessity, it must be 
that disease ; or because typhus is not 
met with in the wards of a well-re- 
gulated-hospital—that, consequently, it 
has no existence. Better arguments 
and facts, more strictly to the purpose 
than any that have hitherto been ad- 
duced, must be brought forward in 
refutation of the contagious nature of 
typhus, before that opinion will be re- 
signed by men of experience, and with- 
out bias; even had they no other au- 
thority than what is given by Dr. C. 
Smith, on the gaol distemper at Win- 
chester. 
Those who deny that the plague is 
propagated by contagion, strongly ad- 
here to the indisputed fact, in support 
of this opinion, upon the instances of 
two people sleeping in the same bed: 
and that one of them should take the 
disease, while the other continued in 
health; but this anomaly is frequently 
met with, not only in febrile contagions, 
but in chronic infectious diseases also. 
In the course of my professional ex- 
perience, I have seen, at two different 
periods, the small-pox prevalent, over a 
district of country, as an epidemic, and, 
on both occasions, similar exceptions to 
the above were then remarked in those 
labouring under, and others exposed to, 
variolous contagion. Every one has 
met with such exceptions, in schools 
and in private families, on the occur- 
rence of scarlatina, The same thing 
occasionally happens in the itch; in 
Cephalonia one frequently sees certain 
members of a family labouring under 
that loathsome disease for years, with- 
out communicating its infection to all 
those with whom they are in the daily 
habit of domestic intercourse; and then 
the disease is so common, that no par- 
ticular care seems to be taken in guard- 
ing against its effects, There are innu- 
merable instances of people who are 
seemingly 
