102 FOMITES. 



Schneiderian secretions, after spending an hour or two be- 

 tween damp and musty bed-clothes. The Scottish High- 

 landers are said to dip themselves, dress and all, into the 

 sea, when obliged to sleep out of doors, after being 

 drenched by rain. As water is supposed to act unfavour- 

 ably by means of its coldness, we cannot easily explain 

 the known benefit of this substitution, except by a refer- 

 ence to the acknowledged power of salt to prevent the 

 growth of fungi. 



It may seem rather curiously nice to notice another 

 point connected with this part of our subject; but as you 

 are all students now, and will, I hope, become true scholars 

 hereafter, I will observe, that every one who searches 

 for knowledge among old books and manuscripts, has been 

 occasionally attacked by sternutation, and at least a tem- 

 porary coryza, when he has disturbed the dust which has 

 long slumbered within their leaves. As the dust of a 

 room swept daily, and the pulverulent clouds of a summer 

 road do not so affect him, he seizes his microscope and 

 detects the cause of his sufferings, in the numerous organic 

 spores which have grown into power to torment, among 

 the dampness and darkness of the leafy envelopes.* 



We can scarcely doubt the events recorded by Lind, 

 Rush, Webster, Hosack, and others, of the partial intro- 

 duction of yellow fever into places always otherwise ex- 

 empted from it, by trunks of unwashed clothes, brought 

 from infected regions. Boerhaave, Cullen, Lind and Rus- 

 sell think fomites, which are soiled and placed in a con- 

 fined depository, are more to be dreaded than the excre- 

 tions of the sick. 



* My distinguished friend, Professor Hare, finds this experiment among 

 his old papers, even a hazardous one, as it always seriously affects his 

 health. 



