26 Report from the Select Committee appointed to consider 



old trunk, wherein was a spider's web, which in an instant raised 

 a plague sore. There is a like storv in Van Swieten, of an apo- 

 thecary vvho was seized with a blister and carbuncle on the le^, 

 only from kicking up some straw in which his servant, ill of the 

 plague, had lain eight month.? before. The carbuncle took a long 

 time to heal, but he received no other injury with respect to his 

 health. Another person was seized with the plague, only from 

 holding a bit of thread. A woman of Zealand removed into Al- 

 meria in Germany, having exposed some clothes to the sun, some 

 children playing on them, received the infection, and all died. 

 A man dropped down dead of the plague, by standing on a Tur- 

 key carpet. A lady, by smelling at a Turkey handkerchief, died 

 of the plague on the spot. It is needless to observe, that such 

 stories (and a long string more of them might be added) are by 

 no means consonant with the general laws of the animal oeco- 

 iiomv. But they receive a direct contradiction from Russell him- 

 self. Amongst the many thousands he saw ill of piague, he says 

 he never met with an instance where the person was sensible of 

 the stroke of contagion at the time. He thinks he has seen ex- 

 amples after some hours, as well as after two, three or niore days. 

 He does not think he met with any longer than ten. As there 

 are like traditions about people struck down and dying in open- 

 ing bales of goods in the lazarettos, I would beg leave to give 

 Assalini's report thereon. ' It has often been said, that in 

 breaking open a letter, or on opening a bale of cotton, containing 

 the germ of the plague, men have been struck down and killed 

 bv the pestilential vapours, I have never been able to meet with 

 a single eve-witness of this fact, notwithstanding the inquiries 

 which I have made in the lazarettos of Marseilles, of Toulon, of 

 Genoa, Spezia, Livournia, Malta, and in the Levant; all agree 

 in repeating that they have heard of such an occurrence, but 

 that thevhave never seen it happen. Among those whom 1 have 

 interrogated about this fact, I may name Citizen Martin, captain 

 of the lazaretto of Marseilles, vvho for thirty years past has held 

 that situation. This brave and respectable man told me, that 

 during that time he had seen opened and emptied some millions 

 of bales of cotton, silk, fur, feathers, and other goods, coming 

 from several places where the plague raged, without having ever 

 seen a single accident of the kind.' 



Charles MacLcaji, M.D. again examined. — To the reasons 

 which he has before assigned, for considering epidemic and pes- 

 tilential diseases as never depending upon contagion ; begs to 

 add the following: 1. Generally, because the laws of epidemic 

 and those of contagious diseases are not only different, but in- 

 compatible; and because pestilences observe exclusively the law.s 

 of epidemics, of which they arc but the higher degrees. 2. Be- 

 cause 



