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LXXI. Report from the Select Committee appointed to consider 

 the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 



The Select Committee appointed to consider the validity of the 

 doctrine of Contagion in the Plague; and to report their Obser- 

 vations thereupon, together with the Minutes of the Evidence 

 taken before them, to the House ; — Have considered the 

 matters to them referred, and have agreed upon the following 

 Report: 



X OUR Committee being appointed to consider the validity of the 

 received doctrines concerning the nature of contagious and in- 

 fectious diseases, as distinguished from other epidemics, have pro- 

 ceeded to examine a number of medical gentlemen, whose prac- 

 tical experience or general knowledge of the subject appeared to 

 your Committee most likely to furnish the means of acquiring the 

 most satisfactory information. They have also had the evidence 

 of a number of persons whose residence in infected countries, or 

 whose commercial or official employments, enabled them to com- 

 municate information as to facts, and on the principle and effi- 

 cacy of the laws of quarantine. All the opinions of the medical 

 men whom your Committee have examined, with the exception 

 of twoj'are in favour of the received doctrine, that the plague is a 

 disease communicable by contact only, and different in that re- 

 spect from epidemic fever ; nor do your Committee see any thing 

 in the rest of the evidence they have collected, which would in- 

 duce them to dissent from that opinion. It appears from some 

 of the evidence, that the extension and virulence of the disorder 

 is considerably modified by atmospheric influence ; and a doubt 

 has prevailed, whether under any circumstance the disease could 

 be received and propagated in the climate of Britain. No fact 

 whatever has been stated to show, that any instance of the dis- 

 order has occurred, or that it has ever been known to have been 

 brought into the lazarettos, for many years. But your Committee 

 do not think themselves warranted to infer from thence, that the 

 disease cannot exist in England; because, in the first place, a dis- 

 ease resembling in most respects the plague, is well known to 

 have prevailed here in many periods of our history, particularly in 

 lfi65-6 ; and further, it appears that in many places, and in cli- 

 mates of various nature, the plague has prevailed after intervals 

 of very considerable duration. 



Your Committee would also observe, down to the year ISOO, 

 regulations were adopted, which must have had the effect of pre- 

 venting goods infected with the plague from being shipped directly 

 for Britain ; and they abstain from giving any opinion on the na- 

 ture and a|)plication of the (juarantine regulations, a^ not falling 



Vol. 54. No. 2G0. Dec. 1819. D d within 



