380 FOTHERGILL'S CLOSING YEARS CHAP. 



inferior officials proved to be more exacting in this than 

 their superiors. It was a good Yearly Meeting. Towards 

 the close something was said, in which Fothergill joined, 

 of the prevalence of love and condescension among 

 Friends. 1 



An outbreak of gaol-fever (doubtless typhus) was 

 decimating at this time the Spanish prisoners of war 

 confined at Winchester. The matter came before the 

 House of Commons ; Dr. Fothergill was consulted, and 

 by his recommendation Dr. James Carmichael Smyth, 

 afterwards well known as a physician and writer, was 

 made choice of to take the medical superintendence of the 

 prison. He set up a system of disinfection by means of 

 the vapour of mineral acids a mixture of vitriol and 

 nitre was heated in a sandbath and within a fortnight 

 of his arrival the weekly number of deaths dropped to 

 one-third, and soon after almost ceased. 2 



One more visit to Lea Hall was paid this year, Fother- 

 gill and his sister journeying to Ackworth on their way 

 thither, and again visiting the school before they turned 

 southward to London. As noted in an earlier chapter, 

 the success which had crowned his ardent labours made 

 this last visit to Ackworth one of much comfort to Fother- 

 gill. " We parted with its inhabitants," writes his 

 sister, " in much love, and to see its prosperity and feel 

 the sweet reward of peace cheered our journey " ; and 

 so the coach bore them homeward, five days' travel to 

 London. The burden of life was soon to fall from Fother- 

 gill' s shoulders ; he had long borne its cares for others 

 in no light measure ; it is good to think that what he had 



1 MS. Journal of Richard Lindley of Darlington, Frds. Ref. Lib. 



2 Foth. Works, iii. p. cxliii. Dr. J. Carmichael Smyth, A Description of 

 the Jail Distemper, etc., 1795, and The Effect of Nitrous Vapour in destroying 

 Contagion, etc., 1799. Parliament voted him 5000 for his services ; but a 

 prior use of the disinfectant was claimed for another friend of Fothergill's, 

 James Johnstone, M.D.Edin., of Worcester. Lettsom, Memoirs, iii. 251, 254, 

 258 ; W. Seward, Biographiana, p. 578 ; Munk, Roll R.C.P. ii. 384. Smyth, 

 who lived in Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury, is sometimes quoted as having 

 used large quantities of alcohol for his typhus patients, but in fact he lays 

 little stress on stimulants, ordering small quantities, or none, as a rule ; it 

 was in " the last stage," when death threatened from asthenia, that he some- 

 times gave as much as two bottles of madeira or port in 24 hours, or in a less 

 period. 



