the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 427 



to purify the church before the people could go in again, as well 

 as the village altogether. Leave being granted, the priest 

 went in, and touched the cloth of the great altar, so as to 

 shake it to purify it, when he was seized with the plague, be- 

 ginning with the head-ache, so as to cause him to fall on the 

 steps of the altar almost immediately; and in three hours, before 

 he could be carried to the lazaretto, he expired, with buboes 

 under the arm and livid spots over the body. Is of opinion that 

 the contagious matter of the plague must be brought either by 

 persons or in bales of goods on board ship from the Levant to 

 England ; and that persons touching the infected portion of mer- 

 chandize packed in these bales, must exhibit such phenomena in 

 the lazarettos in England, as now described to have happened in 

 the village in Corfu. Cases in point have happened at the laza- 

 retto at Leghorn since 1814; at Marseilles within fifteen years, 

 twice ; and recently, according to the dispatches of Mr. Hoppner, 

 the British consul at Venice, in October 1818. Has never heard 

 of the plague being cauglit by any of those persons appointed to 

 see the quarantine laws put in execution in the lazarettos in Eng- 

 land; but conceives that its non-appearance in England does not 

 do away with the contagious nature of the disease. Knows that 

 during the prevalence of the plague in the Levant, goods are in ge- 

 neral not allowed to be shipped for England under the quarantine 

 laws, till after the disease has ceased. If the length of time is very 

 great between the time of shipping and unloading, and if certain 

 circumstances have taken jilace, either on the removal of the 

 cargo during the voyage, or in altering it, or the vessels meeting 

 with I)ad weather and being washed over and over again, it is not 

 improbable to suppose that part of the plague-matter, if any ex- 

 isted in the cargo or attached to any part of the vessel, may have 

 been weakened in its virulence ; but begs to give that as a sup- 

 position, and not as belief, because we know that all poisons may 

 be qualified by many circumstances, so that the strongest may 

 not have effect. A barrel of gun-powder may not take fire with 

 a red-hot poker, under certain circumstances ; that is, if by mois- 

 ture you render it incapable of combustion. Thinks it scarcely 

 probable, if contagious matter is in the bales of goods, un- 

 less the period of time is very great, that it could fail to excite 

 the disease. The only way he can account for its not having 

 taken place during the last 154 years in England, is, that it was 

 never shipped from the Levant; but neither 154 years nor six 

 or seven centuries can give the hope tluit it cannot exist in a Bri- 

 tish atmosphere, when we know that such a disease existed be- 

 fore. The plague of IGGS was no doubt the plague of the Le- 

 vant, according to Dr. Mead. 



Joh?i 



