the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 421 



so likely to be infected as clothes ; considers packages not to be 

 near so likely to transmit or bring contagion, as articles of dirty 

 apparel. In woollen clothes the fomites of contagions is more 

 generally retained than in any other substances. — Supposing one 

 of the most likely articles to communicate the plague to be in- 

 fected, such as wool, silk, or cotton; considers that in order to 

 purify those articles, nothing moie is necessary than ventila- 

 tion ; free ventilation, and opening them out to the action of the 

 sun and air. Thinks it is extremely seldom that contagion is 

 brought in goods ; but that the purification is more frequently a 

 process of safe precaution than of actual dispersion of the con- 

 tagion. Considers the quarantine laws too rigid ; the time is too 

 long, and probably the process too complicated. Would not consi- 

 der the fact of there not having occurred a plague case at any la- 

 zaretto for 50 or 100 years, sufficient to inspire confidence to con- 

 template the doing away quarantine establishments, because he 

 knows thnt the contagion of plague is very considerably under 

 atmospheric influence ; and consequently, that a very long period 

 may occur in which that peculiar constitution of the air is absent 

 which gives activity to the matter of contagion. Adduces as 

 particular circumstances in proof that the plague is contagious 

 or infectious ; First, the authority of those who have written with- 

 out bias on the subject ; for instance Russel, and most of those 

 who have seen it. Secondly, its being an eruptive disease; be- 

 cause we know that all eruptive diseases arise from specific con- 

 tagions, or poisons as they are called ; buboes and carbuncles are 

 as commonly seen in the plague, as pustules in the small- pox. 

 Considers the malignant fevers incident to Trincomalee, Batavia, 

 and Diamond Harbour, to be a class totally diff'erent to the plague, 

 as it exists in Turkey, Egypt, and in the African states, both in 

 their nature and causes. Believes these violent epidemics in In- 

 dia depend principally for their origin upon the miasmata ex- 

 haling from the marshy soils of these regions, which miasmata are 

 influenced by the state of the atmosphere, and that the diseases 

 are not in their own nature contagious ; but that under particular 

 states, as from accumulation of filth and want of ventilation, they 

 do occasionally assume a contagious character. Considers that 

 all fevers, whether originally contagious or not, may become so 

 by the patients being too much crowded, by want of cleanliness, 

 or want of ventilation. Believes the remittent and what are called 

 Yellow fevers, more properly called Endemic fevers, are not con- 

 tagious. Was at Gibraltar in 1800 ; the fever was not epidemic 

 then ; there were sporadic cases, which he considered as of local 

 origin ; they were produced by causes generated in the surface of 

 the rock, and atmospheric causes— not imported. By the term 

 sporadic means wandering cases, not generally epidemic; a cas? 



D d 3 happening 



