420 Report from the Select Committee appointed to consider 



in the public bazaar or market-place ; they are in constant cir- 

 culation. Used to walk into the city of Constantinople every day, 

 sometimes even after he had the disease, and go through the 

 thickest of the people along with his interpreter, visiting the cof- 

 fee-houses and other frequented places. The people knew they 

 were making experiments in the plague hospital, and none of the 

 Mahometans ever avoided them on that account, nor was the dis- 

 ease by that means propagated. The purveyor and other agents 

 of the hospital walked every day to the open market to buy their 

 supply of victuals for the hospital ; they came openly among the 

 people without any precaution, 



Thomas Foster, M.D. — Conceives the plague under certain 

 circumstances is contagious ; for instance, wherever there is close 

 confinement in a chamber in which atmospheric air is not freely 

 admitted ; but if atmospheric air be freely admitted into the cham- 

 ber of the patient, the attendant will be, generally speaking, free 

 from contagion. Considers that we have had no cases of the 

 Levant plague in England. Does not think the plague of 1665 

 was the Levant plague. Could never find any evidence of a 

 plague case existing any where in England. Believes that con- 

 tagious diseases can attack persons more than once. Considers 

 contagious diseases such as are capable of being communicated 

 by contact and inoculation ; infectious diseases, such as arise 

 from the infecting state of the atmosphere. Has considered the 

 quarantine establishments as they related to the medical ques- 

 tion, in what manner the plague is capable of being communi- 

 cated ; and the result of his inquiries has been satisfactory to 

 himself, that the free admission of atmospheric air into chambers 

 was, in general, a preventive against the propagation of the dis- 

 ease. Thinks that if bale goods be capable of receiving the in- 

 fection in the Levant, so as to convey it all the way to London, 

 the short time limited for quarantine would be insufficient to pre- 

 vent the danger; that the cause of pestilential diseases consists in 

 the infectious qualities of the air, which are capable of exciting the 

 disease on predisposed constitutions ; that those peculiar qualities 

 of the air operate in some instances locally and continually in 

 particular regions : moreover, that unhealthy qualities of the air 

 occur in all plixes casually, and excite prevailing epidemics and 

 influenzas in particular seasons, which the predisposed soonest 

 fall a prey to. 



Dr. James Johnson. — Has not personally seen the plague, but 

 has served in the Mediterranean, where he has had opportunities 

 of acquiring information. Has not the least doubt of its being- 

 contagious through the medium of contact, near approxima- 

 tion, or exhalation, and fomites. Considers articles of cargo not 



so 



