8 Report from the Select Committee appointed to consider 



Ilia. I beg leave to refer the reader, who must judge for him- 

 self, to the text for the prcemissa el consequentice. 



For my own part, warm dogmas or positive assertions cannot 

 produce in my mind any conviction, without, at least, some train 

 of reasoning, or axiom of counnon experience by way of proof ; 

 and I cannot but subscribe my mite to exonerate " some naval 

 surgeons," who have admitted the mischievous consequences of 

 wet or damp decks, from the unjustifiable imputation of embar- 

 rassment, and the unbecoming implication of ignorance ; since, 

 in addition to what I have just explained, there is no one, either 

 in civilized life, or in the least acquainted with the internal state 

 of a ship, so inexperienced or void of sense, as not to know the 

 verv different effects arising from sleeping or remaining in a damp 

 laundry and a dry comfortable apartment, or between damp decks 

 or in a wet galley or manger, and the commodious and ventilated 

 cabin of a commissioned officer or captain, independently of the 

 occurrences of contagion in discipline or drunkenness. Resides, 

 it is observable that laundresses, however accustomed to damp- 

 ness, are still susceptible of its infltience. They are seldom long 

 livers ; for, in general, they die of premature old age, either af- 

 fected with chronic rheumatism, or affections of the pleura or 

 lungs, produced and repeatedly aggravated by it ; nor are their 

 husbands, children, or inmates in winter, scarcely ever entirely 

 free from the same complaints, in consequence of washed clothes 

 being hung up to dry in the rooms in which they sleep or sit. 



II. Report from the Select Committee appoirited to consider the 

 Falidily of I he Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 



[Concluded from vol. liv. p. 439.] 



Dr. William Pym. — Was formerly an officer at the quarantine 

 establishment at Malta. To be infected by the plague, contact 

 or very near approach to the person under the disease is sup- 

 posed to be necessary. Believes that it is independent of any 

 disease of the atmosphere. Considers insulation by the means 

 of quarantine, the most effectual step for preventing it. Knows 

 one instance of the plague having been communicated at sea; 

 some French gun-boats were taken by the Theseus man-of-war 

 in the year 1800, they were ordered alongside, and while lying 

 there, the person ordered on board to issue provisions, &c. re- 

 ceived the infection of the plague. Supposing, as is the c-ise in 

 England, the (luavantine regulations should have been established, 

 and in force for 12 or 14 years, with care, would not the conta- 

 gion 



