the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 419 



contagion itself; it therefore must operate equally severely under 

 the belief of contagion, whether it docs or does not exist. And 

 it must operate more severely upon those who entertain that be- , 

 lief, as the Greeks and Armenians of the Levant, than upon the 

 Turks, who do not entertain it. This also has been confirmed by 

 facts ; and it is stated by various travellers, that the Turks reco- 

 ver in a much greater number from the plague than the Chris- 

 tians who are attacked by it. Considers the date of the Council 

 of Trent to have been the period at which a belief of contagion 

 in epidemic diseases was first accredited and acted upon by any 

 public authority, with the view then of effecting the removal of 

 that Council to Bologna. It was disputed by the Cardinals 

 whether it was the plague or scarlet fever. Fracastorius said it 

 was the true plague. Has no doubt that the disease which pre- 

 vailed in Florence in 134S was the true plague. — [Being asked. 

 to state more particularly the grounds on which he rests his opi- 

 nion that the plague is not contagious,] — Thinks the plague not 

 contagious for many reasons. In the first place, tlie plague and 

 all other e])idemic diseases appear at certain periods, generally 

 speaking, and disappear at other certain periods, different in dif- 

 ferent countries ; they also cease generally at the time at which 

 the greatest number of persons are affected, as happened in the 

 plague of London in 1665, in the plague of Marseilles in 1720, and 

 it is believed in most other pestilences — facts which seem wholly 

 incompatible with the existence of contagion. Besides, they are 

 capable of affecting the same persons repeatedly, which there is 

 no proof that contagious general diseases are capable of doing. 

 Conceives the principal causes of epidemic diseases to be — the 

 epidemic constitution of the air, sudden or extreme vicissitudes 

 of temperature, deficiency of nourishment, and depression of mind. 

 The earliest epidemic season in the year is at Smyrna, where it 

 occurs from February and March to June or July ; considered 

 generally to terminate about the 2':lth of June. At Constanti- 

 nople it commences in July or August, and terminates in Novem- 

 ber or December. It commences at Cairo much about the same 

 time as at Smyrna ; seems to correspond with the rising and fall- 

 ing of the Nile. The epidemic season does not appear at all 

 connected with the change from heat to cold, except in as far as 

 sudden transitions are concerned ; it commences in England and 

 other countries in hot weather, and terminates in cold ; in 

 Egypt and Syria it commences in cold weather, and terminates 

 in hot. Conceives the clothes sold out of the Pest-hospitals could 

 not fail to produce the plag\ie, if the plague were contagious. 

 It is customary for the relations of those who die of the plague 

 in Turkey, to wear the clothes of the deceased, or to sell them 

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