VOL. XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 823 



On the last day of December Mr. Breach informed Dr. P. that about a month 

 before, lie had been called to attend Thomas Wilmot ; but as he died before he 

 saw him, he could give no other account of his sickness, than as they told him, 

 viz. that lie had long been in a bad state of health, and that at last he became 

 feverish, and went off with a looseness. 



In the beginning of this month (January 1753) the widow applied to Dr. 

 Hales and Dr. P., in order to have the distress of her family attested, and laid 

 before the lord mayor, in hopes of having some provision made for them. On 

 which occasion they learned, that Thomas Wilmot her husband, after taking 

 the sudorific, so far recovered as to work at his business ; but thougFi he did 

 not return to Newgate, yet his strength would not permit him to continue at 

 work above a day or two at a time ; still complaining of a head-ach, and pains 

 across his breast, or, as he expressed it, about his heart, of a feebleness of his 

 limbs, a shaking of his hands, and a constant drought. That notwithstanding 

 these ailments, he went daily, till a week before he died, when he grew very 

 weak, and more feverish, had sometimes profuse sweats, and at other times a 

 looseness, and that both these excretions, and also his breath, were remarkably 

 offensive. That at last he was seized with convulsions, and having 3 fits in one 

 day, he died in the last of them. Mrs. Wilmot added, that her youngest son 

 James, a boy of 4 years of age, was after the father's decease seized with the 

 spotted fever, of the same kind with what had prevailed in the family, but that 

 he recovered ; and that her own mother Eleanor Megget, who did not live in 

 the house, but came often to see and attend them, was also taken ill of a fever, 

 but without spots, and died about 1 days after her husband. She concluded with 

 telling them, that the distress of her family had been the greater, by her being 

 deprived of all assistance from their neighbours, who having thus seen the whole 

 family, one after another, seized with this fever, were as much afraid to come 

 near them, as if they had been infected with the plague. 



Besides these 6 persons, that were taken ill by working in Newgate, and whom 

 Dr. P. saw, there was another, called Rust, as Mr. Stibbs informed him, but 

 whom he never visited. So that, besides Wilmot's whole family, and Sewel's 

 wife, who received the contagion at second-hand, there were ^ originally infected 

 in the jail, out of 1 1 only, who were employed by the master-carpenter in that 

 place. Now as most of these 7 were attacked within a few days of each other, 

 and by the same kind of fever, it is not to be doubted but that the distemper was 

 owing to the corrupted air of Newgate. From all which it appears, how requi- 

 site it is, that the public should take such measures, as may prevent the like 

 accidents arising from foul and crouded jails ; or indeed from any place, where a 

 multitude of people are long, closely, and nastily kept ; and which in all proba- 

 bility can never be obtained without a constant change of air. 1 . « . 



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