the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 439 



immediately arrested; the public prison and public general. ho- 

 spital escaped. The convents in Valetta escaped, with the ex- 

 ception, it is believed, of one; and the introduction of the dis- 

 ease to that one was accounted for. Tlie prison and these public 

 institutions escaped, Sir A. B. F. conceives, very much by the 

 voluntarv attention paid by their inhabitants to a strict system 

 of quarantine. Thinks the plague can be propagated from 

 goods as well as persons. Gives the following as his reasons 

 for thinking why tlie plague has not been introduced from goods 

 in the quarantine establishments. In the first place, quaran- 

 tine restrictions since 1709 have been a great deal more rigid; 

 indeed they did not exist in England at all, previous to that pe- 

 riod. Conceives that the intensity of the contagion may have 

 been greatlv blunted bv the length of the voyage, and the length 

 of time that passes after the shipment of goods. Besides, we 

 know, that other countries have a good system of quruuntine, 

 which is in favour of the plague not being imported here. Is in- 

 clined to consider the plague of 1665 to have been the true Le- 

 vant plague. Can account for the expurgators never having taken 

 the plague, only by collateral considerations. 1st. That we have 

 observed, in other countries, the disease has not taken place for 

 a long series of years, not for 130 years in Malta. 2dly. We do 

 not know what the circumstances are that constitute aptitude in 

 the receiver, sufficiently, to know why the plague has not been 

 received into the lazarettos since 1665. But 3dly, it does not 

 follow, because it has not been received into the lazarettos since 

 1665, that it may not by some fortuitous concurrence of circum- 

 stances occur again here. It has been stated, that the ancients 

 were not acquainted with contagion, but adduces instances from 

 the medical writers and the poets, to the contrary. 



Refers to the following, viz. 



SuvOiHToiSsiv Tolg Ao(/jt,wTTOU(nv sTtlirfuXsg inroXxuTxt yuq Jci'vSuvoc, 

 wansp '\iMQcic Tivoj r) o<pS«A,ai«j. — Galen, lib. I. cap. 2. de dif- 

 ferent. Fcbrium. 



ooSstt; uyia^sTaj ; — Aristotle, ProW. lect. vii. 1. 



Aeog '6b Jy/x^ioOv ts, xai ^t;v5(«('r«(r9«(, o6 y.fiov >] Xoifxco' ivxTivor,; 

 yxg kg (/.'rMoatu, pijVoi'*) fiuiprj. — Aretreus d^ Elep/iaiiliase. 



Infecti (juasi valetudinect coutactu. — Annal. Tacit. 1. 6. & 7. 



Postea curatio ipsa et contactus aegrorum, vulgabat morbos. — 

 lib. 25 & 26. 



Contagion is clearly expressed in the last eight lines of the third 

 Georgic of Virgil ; likewise in the first Bucolic, verse 52; where 

 these words occur : 



Nee mala vicini pecoris contagia liedent. 

 There are numerous other authorities. 

 [To be conllimcd.] 



LXXII. Me. 



