the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 437 

 ]>laoue is generated or produced by a contagion sui generis, quite 

 peculiar and specific, and that it is communicated only by con- 

 tact or close association with the person or thing infected. U 

 was communicated in the first instance to the Island ot Malta, 

 in the direct line of contact. It could be traced to have been pro- 

 pagated in the direct line of contact, in the city of Valetta, and 

 from the citv into most of the cassals or villages, where any his- 

 tory could be obtained of its introduction. The first case ot the 

 communication of the plague was, in his opinion, from a vessel, 

 the San Nicola, in the harbour, to the family of a person ot the 

 name of Salvator Rorg. The vessel was lying in the harbour 

 contiguous to the citv of Valetta; the harbour is called Marsa- 

 muchetts The daughter of Salvator Borg died with well marked 

 «vmptonis of the disease on the 19th April. Two other persons 

 of the same family died on the 2d May, all with well marked 

 symptoms of the disease. From the family of Borg it made its 

 way in a direct line into the family of one Maria Agius, a school- 

 mistress, who, together with others she immediately communi- 

 cated svith, were attacked by the plague, and all of whom (with 

 some of her scholars) were seized or perished with well-marked 

 symptoms of the disease. The foci of contagion became so ra- 

 pidly multiplied, that it appeared impossible to carry the mvesti- 

 gation in a direct line any further. The means ot its communi- 

 cation to the small contiguous island of Gozo, at a late period ot 

 the calamity, can be distinctly made out. A man belonging to 

 an infected 'family in one of the cassals, made his escape with a 

 box of clothes into a neighbouring cottage ; it was speedily found 

 out that he had escaped, and he was accordingly apprehended 

 and sent to the lazaretto. On his enlargement from the laza- 

 retto, he returned to his cottage, where he took this box ot clothes 

 that had never been suspected to be there, but had been con- 

 cealed ; and he hired a boat and carried this box of clothes to 

 the island of Gozo. The first family infected on the i-land was 

 the family at whose house he arrived, and to which place he car- 

 ried the box of clothes. It was a marriage present; and a priest 

 acquainted in tlie family, was one of the first victims ; he died 

 with well-marked symptoms of the plague. The plague was not 

 at all particularly prevalent where the marsh fevers were most 

 generally produced. Never could trace any series of symptoms 

 that cou'ld lead him in the slightest degree to suspect any iden- 

 tity between them ; but has known the plague to personate in 

 certain symptoms almost every possible form of fever, and has 

 known it to be entirely free from every kind of fever ; there is no 

 certain type to which it can be affixed. Means to say, that fever 

 is not an essential attribute of the plague; it is frc(iuently mortal 

 where there is no fever. It is an extraordinarily anomalous dis- 

 ease, which hus almost defied definition. The disease did not 

 K e 3 extend 



