42 Observations on the l^eiloiv- Fever. 



which favour or retard the propagation of contagions 

 fevers, thinks his observations authorise him to say, 

 that in small unventilated apartments, where the ex- 

 cretions and exhalations from the sick are permitted 

 to remain and accumulate, seldom more than one 

 person in twenty-three, exposed to the contagion, es- 

 capes disease; whereas, in large apartments, wliere 

 fresh air is constantly admitted, and scrupulous at- 

 tention is paid to cleanliness, few or none, even of 

 the most intimate attendants, will be affected by it. 



Doctor Lind, of Windsor, formerly in the service of 

 the East-India Company, in a letter addressed to Tho- 

 mas Pennant, Esq., published in the 9th volume of 

 the Medical and Physical Journal^ observes, that nei- 

 ther plague nor jail-fever, any more than small-pox 

 and measles, can be produced by any other means 

 than by infection received from some person or thing^ 

 that is tainted with their specific contagion. 



" In the most aggravated state (says this writer) 

 that I ever saw the jail-fever, in which two persons 

 had life suspended, in the first attack of the disease, 

 and several had buboes, and carbuncles, and other 

 symptoms of the true plague, yet, by exposing those 

 thus affected to the open air, their fevers were re- 

 moved in a few days, and very few died." 



*' Of many hundreds that are landed, at times, 

 from the fleets from Europe, at Madras, ill of the 

 jail-fever, seldom any remains of it are to be seen. 



