CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE 



THIS generation, which is so thankless to the great 

 discoverers of the causes of disease, so forgetful of 

 the epoch-making labours of the English sanitary re- 

 formers of last century, has not seen nor even heard of the 

 awful thing once known as " gaol-fever." A hundred 

 years ago it was as dangerous to the life of an unhappy 

 prisoner to await his trial in Newgate as to stand between 

 the opposing forces on a battlefield. Gaol-fever attacked 

 not only the prisoners, but the judge and the jury and the 

 strangers in the court. The aromatic herbs with which 

 the hall of justice was strewn were supposed to arrest the 

 spread of the terrible infection, and it is still customary 

 to provide with a bouquet of such plants the judge who 

 presides at a " gaol delivery." The inexorable ministers 

 of justice, who, seated high above the common herd, and 

 clad in their ancient robes of office, were about to deal 

 shameful death to the guilty wretches brought from the 

 prison cells, were often themselves struck down by the 

 Angel of Death moving invisibly through the court. The 

 " black assizes " were not isolated, but repeated occur- 

 rences in our great cities. Typhus fever was the name 

 given by the learned to this awful pestilence. There was 

 a mystery and horror surrounding it which paralysed those 

 who came into contact with it, and produced something 

 like consternation. Men fled in terror from the infected 



