20 Report from the Select Committee appointed to consider 



thrown into quarantine: this was effected. The disease increased 

 in the huts at Aboukir ; and the medical officers, and the ser- 

 vants attending- upon tliose patients, were ahiiost all seized with 

 the disease j and several of then) died ; three or four hospital mates 

 died. From these facts deduces his opinion that it is a conta- 

 gious disease ; for had it not been so, there would have been an 

 equal number of patients, or probably more, among the wounded 

 than there were in the huts ; the wounded men, who were in 

 tents and in temporary buildings, being separated from the huts 

 at least half a mile, or probably nearer a mile. These precautions 

 having been taken, of throwing the whole of the plague patients, 

 as soon as circumstances would admit, under quarantine, kept, 

 he thinks, the army upon the lines before Alexandria very free 

 from the disease ; believes there were very few, if anv, cases of 

 plague sent from thence to Aboukir. The plague was almost en- 

 tirely confined to Aboukir ; there could have been but very few, 

 if any, of the army before Alexandria who had the plague, during 

 the whole of the time that the plague hospital was at Aboukir. 

 If a person infected with the plague on board any vessel in the 

 Mediterranean, was coming to Great Britain, should suppose 

 that he would either die or be cured upon the passage, if the 

 vovage was very long; if he lived, he would probably arrive 

 without the seeds of the disease about him. Considers that it 

 would not be possible to introduce a person from the Mediter- 

 ranean, infected with the plague, into our quarantine establish- 

 ments, after a long voyage. Thinks it probable that infected 

 goods will retain the infection, unless exposed to the air ; and 

 therefore whenever they are exposed to the air, the persons han- 

 dling them are liable to infection if certain circumstances are fa- 

 vourable to bringing out the contagion. Believes the plague in 

 the year 1665 was the true Levant plague. 



Richard Harrison^ M.D. — Was at Naples in 1816 and 1817: 

 during part of that time the plague raged severely at Noja, a 

 town situated about 150 miles from that place. Saw, also, at 

 Naples, in the spring and summer of 1817, several persons la- 

 bt)uring under a contagious disease, which corresponded with 

 the descriptions generally given of the plague; but will not assert 

 it to have been that disorder. Supposes the cause of the plague 

 to be contagion. Considers the quarantine establishments as 

 very useful ; but should conceive, from what he has seen in the 

 (juarantine establishments here, at Venice, Naples, Malta, and 

 other ports of the Mediterranean, that considerable modifications 

 might take place. 



John Mitchell, M.D. — Being asked to what cause or causes 

 he would attribute the freedom of England from the plague, — an- 

 swers. 



