610 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



higher rank, which occasioned a 

 general alarm of danger, as all 

 were then manifestly exposed to 

 it. On that occasion I proposed 

 to receive patients ill of typhus 

 into separate wards of the Ches- 

 ter Infirmary, and to cleanse their 

 houses from all contagious dirt. 

 This measure has been accom- 

 plished with complete success. 

 In this manner, typhus has been 

 exterminated from Chester for 35 

 years, though frequently, as above 

 explained, brought thither by 

 persons infected in other places. 

 In October 1817, Dr. Edward 

 Percival visited the fever wards of 

 the Chester Infirmary, where he 

 found only two patients, and one 

 of them was ill of an inflammation 

 of the lungs. He asked whether 

 there were not usually more 

 patients in these wards, and was 

 answered in the negative. Many 

 towns have followed the exam- 

 ple of Chester, in establishing 

 fever hospitals ; but, so far as I 

 know, few or none of them have 

 completely executed the incom- 

 parably more important regula- 

 tions of cleansing the dwellings 

 of poor patients from contagious 

 dirt. In towns where even fever 

 hospitals themselves are not kept 

 clean, nor supplied with fresh air, 

 no hope whatever can be enter- 

 tained that the infectious habita- 

 tions of the lower orders of peo- 

 ple will receive the benefit of the 

 proposed salutary purification. A 

 most intelligent medical friend of 

 mine viewed the fever hospital at 

 Liverpool in October 1817, and 

 found it so close, and smelled so 

 offensively, as to express to me 

 repeatedly, his apprehensions, 

 that he had, by that visit, exposed 

 himself to much danger of infec- 



tion. The newspapers have since 

 announced that a physician of 

 this hospital, Dr. Barrow, had 

 caught and died of a typhus 

 fever. Dr. Carson, the other 

 physician of this hospital, has 

 since that time, had a fever, from 

 which he recovered. In the 

 same town Dr. Goldsmith and 

 Mr. Carter, surgeon apothecary 

 to the dispensary, have lately 

 died of the typhus fever. These 

 events prove how truly and how 

 accurately an estimate of danger 

 from infection, had been formed 

 by my medical friend. In a 

 Dublin hospital, containing many 

 more patients ill of typhus, he 

 had for 5 years attended his daily 

 duty as a physician, without any 

 injury or apprehension of danger, 

 merely by requiring strict atten- 

 tion to cleanliness and ventila- 

 tion. 



The Rules and Regulations, 

 above given, do not depend upon 

 conjecture, but on much more 

 convincing evidence than most 

 other kinds of medical and philo- 

 sophical knowledge. They are 

 founded upon facts, observed by 

 myself and confirmed by the 

 testimony of many impartial and 

 intelligent medical witnesses; and 

 upon the uniformity of the laws 

 by which contagion spreads among 

 mankind. Upon these data cal- 

 culations are instituted to prove 

 the truth of these practical prin- 

 ciples to the high probability of 

 hundreds, indeed many hundreds 

 to one. These facts, and con- 

 clusions deduced from them were 

 published in my " Letter to the 

 late Dr. Thomas Percival, of 

 Manchester, oft the Preve7ition of 

 iiifeciious Fever, in 1801." Sub- 

 sequent facts have occurr,ed to 



