434 Report from the Select Committee appointed to consider 



quarantine, in the other 40. The internal part of every bale is 

 not exposed ; but certain articles are ordered to be emptied out 

 of the packages : supposing a ship comes with a foul bill of 

 health ; supposing goat wool, the order is to emj)ty it entirely, 

 so that they ventilate the articles in bulk ; but the bales that 

 have been ripped open on one side, continue so for a certain 

 number of days, when the side is sewed up again ; and the other 

 side of the bale is ripped open and exposed for a certain number 

 of days, in like manner. Tiie people who manage the expurga- 

 tion of goods there, are ordered to push their arms in as far as 

 they can ; it is done for the express purpose of ascertaining 

 whether there is infection. Corn is under a different direction. 

 It is subject only to a nominal quarantine; they let it be taken 

 out of the ships directly ; they order a grating for the corn to 

 pass through, in order that, if there is any loose rag, it should be 

 stopped. The practice is this; the ship remains a certain num- 

 ber of days, and if all is well, they discharge the goods ; -and if 

 there are bags or mats, they are taken out. Thinks that if goods 

 which arrive are capable of communicating infection, it is not 

 possible the exjuirgators could escape it ; and that no infection 

 could liave existed for the last 200 years in England. Is of opi- 

 nion that the typhus fever is the plague in a less degree. Looks 

 upon it, it is the same disease, only tliat in Turkey, from the dif- 

 ferent habits of the people, there it acquires more violence : they 

 live upon fruits, cucumbers, melons ; eat very little animal food, 

 and drink chiefly water, which in summer time is stagnant. Con- 

 stantinople is supplied by water from a lake at a village called 

 Belgrade, about IG miles from Constantinople, by mean? of aque- 

 ducts, tubes or pipes underground, that were constructed by the 

 Greeks and Romans. In the summer time that lake is very much 

 tlried up and exhausted; and the water becomes so bad in the 

 public fountains, that very often the Turks come to beg rain wa- 

 ter from the tanks of the Christian merchants; rain water that they 

 had saved. Recollects about 1 800 or 1 SO 1 , thei e were three ships' 

 cargoes sunk at the Nore. The circumstances were these: the 

 ships had loaded at Mogadore, where ihb plague prevailed to a 

 violent degree, so much as almost to have depopulated the place ; 

 and the cargoes consisted chiefly of goat skins, which had been 

 collcctt-d during tl e time of the [)lague ; they were turned with 

 the hair inside, and they were packed in bales. Remembers 

 •stating at the time, that he conceived, if danger of the plague 

 could exist at all in merchandize, it would certainly be in these 

 goat skins, as they were incapable of being opened and aired 

 unless every skin was turned out again, which would have been 

 a very dangerous operation ; and therefore, as they could not be 

 expurgated by the existing regulations of quarantine, he sub- 



jnitted. 



