688 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1763. 



their account amounted to about 20,0CX), from the 1st of April to the 1st of 

 September 1762, and about one-third less the preceding summer. This calcu- 

 lation Mr. D. was inclined to think was pretty right, though there were some 

 strong objections against a probability of being able to procure a just one in such 

 circumstances: for the Turks keep no register of the dead, and have 72 different 

 public burial places in the 7 miles circumference of the city, besides many pri- 

 vate ones within the walls. The Christians and Jews, who are supposed to be 

 rather less than a 7th part of the number of inhabitants, have registers, and 

 each nation one burial place only ; their loss in 1762 was about 3500 in the 5 

 months. 



Mr. D. mentions that during the months of June and July, (the greatest part 

 of which the burials were from 2, to 300 a day) the noise of men singing before 

 the corpses in the day, and the shrieks of women for the dead both day and night, 

 were seldom out of their ears. Custom soon rendered the first familiar to 

 him, but nothing could reconcile him to the last; and as the heat obliged them 

 to sleep on the terrace of their houses in the summer, many of his nights' rest 

 were disturbed by these alarms of death. 



All the English had been so fortunate as to escape infection in their houses, 

 though each year 4 or 5 Europeans had been carried oft^, and each year the plague 

 broke out in 2 houses that join to the English consul's. In one of them died a 

 Franciscan priest, after 2 days' illness, whose bed was placed about 6 yards dis- 

 tance from Mr. D.'s. He believes he was in no great danger, as a wall 9 or JO feet 

 high separated their terraces; but had he known his situation, he should have 

 moved farther off. The year before, he was thrown into a very great agitation 

 of mind for a few days, by the death of his laundress's husband; for the very day 

 he died of the plague, his servant had received his linen from his house, and he 

 had carelessly put on some of it, even without airing. This accident hapj)ened 

 many weeks after they were open, and his illness was industriously kept a secret. 

 The last month of his confinement in 1762 passed very heavily with him indeed; 

 for he found his health much disordered. Whether it proceeded from a cold he 

 catched in his head by sleeping in the open air in some very windy nights; from 

 want of exercise; or from the uneasiness of his mind naturally attending his 

 melancholy situation, he knew not; but his nerves seemed all relaxed, his spirits 

 in a state of dejection unknown to him before, and his head so heavy and con- 

 fused, that he could neither write nor read for an hour together with application 

 or pleasure. Since his release, he had passed a montli at a garden about an 

 hour's ride from the city, for the sake of exercise and fresh air, and found him- 

 self much relieved by it, though his head was far from being then clear. 



Among many anecdotes relating to this plague that he had heard, the following 

 seemed somewhat extraordinary : and yet, as they were well attested, he had no 



