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LX. On Fumigation. By Dr. Thornton. 



X HE calarnities occurring in life, even the most prospe- 

 rous, are always great, and mankind, as if callous to these, 

 add those oiwar to the afflictions that arc unavoidable. In- 

 stead of t lading with each other, we see civilized, I cannot 

 call such christian* nations, weltering themselves in human 

 blood, and this man, contrary to the command of his 

 Creator, lifting up his arm to 'slay " a brother," against 

 whom, in fact, he has no ill will, — thus to make mourn a 

 wretched widow and disconsohite family. To famine, 

 usually comes in league with war dire pestilence, and we 

 in this nation have every reason to dread the arrival of this 

 impending calamity, which has already desolated America, 

 is !iow ravaging Spain, has carried off half our garrison at 

 Gibraltar, and^s very likely, from our unavoidable inter- 

 course with Spanish prisoners, to enter this country. For 

 the healthy to avoid infection, and yet maintain intercourss 

 with the s'ck in pidrid fever, has been long practised by 

 me, as physician to :; iarpe public charity, by fumigation^ 

 and is taught in the foirj'."ing part of iDy Philosophy of 

 Medicine, vol. iv, p. 385. fourth edition, publislied in 1799- 



" The commission at Mo-cow, of which Prince Oil.v 

 was at the liead, having, in the year 1770, invented a fu- 

 migation -potvihr, which, front several lesser experiments, 

 had proved etncacious in preventing the infection of the 

 plague; in order more fully to ascertain its virtue in^that 

 respect, it was determined, tow;!rds the end of the year, 

 that ten malefactors under sentence of death should, u ith- 

 out undergoing any other precautions than daily fumigations, 

 be confined three weeks in a lazaretto, be laid upon the 

 beds, and dressed in the clothes, which had been used by 

 persons sick, dying, and even dead, of the plague in that 

 hospital. The experiment was accordingly tried; and none 

 of the ten muUfactors were then i/fccted, or have leen since 

 ill. The FUMIGATION-POWDER is prepared as follows: 



'* Powder of the first strength. — ^Take leaves of juniper, 

 juniper-berries pounded, ears of wheat, guaiacum-wood 

 pounded, of each six pounds ; common saltpetre pounded, 

 eight pounds ; sulphur pounded, six pounds ; Smyrna tar, or 

 myrrh, two pounds: mix all the above ingredients toge- 

 ther; which will produce a pood of the powder of fumiga- 



• Christianity teaches us " to love one another." 



2 tion 



