1 8z The Mitchillian Theory of Fever 



If fuch be the fact, it offers a folution of the queftion, 

 Whence jails, hofpitals, fhips, and other crowded places, be- 

 come infecled with noxious vapours? —The animal exha- 

 lations, excretions, &c. go through the putrefactive" procefs 

 in the fame way that dead animal fubftances would, and the 

 products are the fame. One of them, the gafeous oxyd of 

 fepton, being mifcible in water, lodges itfelf in the damp 

 walls, where, after it has faturated fuch of the fubftances it 

 meets with as have affinity for it, it keeps accumulating, till 

 fome circumftance, as hot weather for inftance, drives it out 

 with the evaporating moifture, in fuch quantity as to infeel; 

 the atmofphere. 



That combination of fepton (azote) with the acidifying 

 principle which produces the gafeous oxyd of fepton, is not 

 however considered as exclufivcly the only proportion of the 

 ingredients that produce contagion. There are an infinity 

 of gradations in the proportions in which thefe principles 

 may be united, and yield a contagious fluid — the vapours of 

 the nitric acid itfelf are not excepted. Thefe peftilcntial 

 fluids are considered as being always, even in their weakeft 

 form, fomewhat of Itinmlunts. In many inftances moffc 

 violently fo. Though their operation is modified, when in 

 a dilute form they impede relpiration, or naufeate the 

 ftomach, as they then bring on a diminution of aftion and 

 energy amounting in the cold ftage to a ftate of direct 

 debility : when applied in great quantity and force, they kill 

 inftantly; when in lefs quantity, they produce an anomalous 

 difeafe, of the form of which Chiiholm's cafes prefent in- 

 ftancesj when in a weaker ftate, a common contagious 

 catanhal affection may be the confequence; when inhaled 

 in a form yet more diluted, a remitting or intermitting fever 

 may be the difeafe induced, of the form of quotidian, tertian, 

 or quartan, or any of their varieties ; or the remitting may 

 be called jail, hoipital, fhip, camp, army, ytllow, putrid, or 

 iilious, malignant, peitilcntial, miliary, petechial, ardent, 



flow, 



