the Validity of the Doctrine of Contagion in the Plague. 13 



not a single example took place of their communicating the dis- 

 ease to other persons. Considers the plague much less conta- 

 gious from goods than from persons j because the clothes of a 

 person affected with the plague become saturated witli the poison 

 in the person, and are much mere liable to communicate the dis- 

 order than goods. Besides, it is scarcely to he supposed that 

 bales of goods, coming from a country affected with the plague, 

 would have been handled hv persons who had the plague, be- 

 cause persons so affected would be incapacitated from labour. 

 Believes, as to goods which have l)een imported from a country 

 that is infected with the plague, that if they communicated it at 

 all, (which he doubts) it would be from those goods having been 

 extremely confined. It does not meet with a suitable soil or 

 sun here. Is of opinion that the plague which prevailed in Lon- 

 don in the year 1 665 was more probably generated here, than 

 imported. Is disposed to believe that every plague, even in the 

 Levant, is oftener generated, than propagated by contagion. 

 Thinks, if the plague were imported into England, it would affect 

 but few; and the cases would be so insulated, that it would be 

 very soon cut off. From the circumstance of Holland never hav- 

 ing been at all affected with the plague, although admitting goods 

 from the Levant without difficulty, concludes it would be the same 

 with regard to this country, and with an equal immunity. Hol- 

 land admits goods from the Levant, even without quarantine. 



Being asked, Is there not some beneficial consequence arising 

 from touching terra Jirma ; is there no electrical effect ? — an- 

 swers, " Nothing but that which would occur equally on board 

 of ship. The question, taken in its general bearing, would make 

 rather against the supposition inferred by your question. Several 

 years ago, when I was lecturing on the subject of contagion and 

 fever, and the influence of malaria arising from the land, the late 

 Captain Pelly happened to be present at the lecture ; and I was 

 mentioning the fact, that in the West Indies, cceteris paribus, 

 the inhabitants to the windward of the islands have not the fever 

 so much as those persons who reside on the leeward side ; be- 

 cause those persons who reside on the leeward side of the islands 

 are necessarily exposed to the fever arising from the land which 

 intervened between the windward side and the leeward side. In 

 corroboration of that, he mentioned a very curious circumstance, 

 which had been re|)eatedly observed by himself, and by many 

 other officers who were in the Channel fleet, that as soon as they 

 got out of sight of land, and had an entire sea breeze, the men 

 and boys might go to sleep in the tops, and wake after an hour 

 or two without any injury ; but as soon as they come up the 

 Channel, so as to receive the influence of a land wind from the 

 Englibh or French coast, they always wake with a cold upon them 



if 



