432 Rcport^from the Select Committee appointed to consider 



they did not use any precautions. There used to be a custom, 

 as to the mode of receiving money, rather different from what it 

 is now; there was a small half tub with water inside the railing 

 in the court vard, into which the money was thrown. It was 

 supposed any thing immersed in water would be purified ; they 

 used to throw in the meat, and every thing brought in the house, 

 except the bread and flour ; the bread is considered not to be 

 capable of infection. The plague in Turkey almost always de- 

 clines suddenly. Generally prevails most towards the winter at 

 Smyrna, and Constantinople in summer. 



A notion prevailed originally that the plague of Egypt was 

 more dangerous than that which arises at Smyrna or Constan- 

 tinople; and if a case happens, of a person infected coming 

 from Egypt to Smyrna, and occasioning a foul bill of health, it has 

 been generally believed that the plague would spread ; but there 

 is an instance, just occurred, which is directly in contradiction 

 to that. About the month of November last (1818) or Decem- 

 ber, a foul bill of health was issued at Smyrna, in consequence 

 of some persons arriving from Egypt infected with the plague; 

 but instead of the plague spreading at Smyrna, the letters re- 

 ceived to the 11th February state, that the vessels which had 

 sailed a few days before had sailed with clean bills of health, and 

 that the plague had not spread. Is convinced that the plague 

 never has been brought from Turkey to this country, or to Hol- 

 land, nor ever will be, bv mere merchandize. Does not think 

 that the plague was carried to Messina nor Marseilles by mer- 

 chandize j because in both instances he had occasion to remark 

 to the Quarantine Committee in 1800, that Dr. Russel, in his 

 publication on the Plague, expressly stated, that the plague ex- 

 isted on board the ships at the time of their arrival in these places. 

 The ship that was supposed to carry the plague to Messina came 

 from the Morea, from a place where the plague had been very 

 prevalent ; some of the crew had died ; she was only 36 hours 

 coming from the Morea to Messina, and the captain himself was 

 ill at the time, and he died within a day or two after he had com- 

 munication with a person who smuggled on shore a box of jewel- 

 lery. The ship that took the plague to Marseilles had loaded at 

 a port on the coast of Syria, where the plague had not prevailed 

 for two years. A^ter she sailed from Syria a contrary wind forced 

 her into another port on the coast of Syria where the plague had 

 )R. . prevailed ; and she took on board several Arabs, passengers, mer- 

 ¥,''Chants, to take them to the island of Cyprus. Some of these 

 persons were ill of the plague at the time, and died ; after that the 

 crew, some of them, took the plague, and they had put into more 

 than one port, and had been driven from other places, and had 

 the plague on board actually at the time of her arrival at Mar- 

 seilles. 



