58 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



' It may be apprehended, however, that the collection of 

 a number of fever patients within the narrow limits of a 

 hospital will give rise to an accumulation of contagious 

 matter, and form a centre from which it will be diffused 

 amongst all who live in the immediate vicinity. But bad 

 management alone can render your establishment such a 

 nuisance ; for, by proper ventilation, the effluvia from 

 the sick may be removed before, by confinement, they 

 augment so much in quantity or acquire such virulence, 

 as to endanger the safety of the neighbourhood. That the 

 sick do not surfer an aggravation of their maladies from 

 being gathered together into a public receptacle, we have 

 the testimony of Dr. Fordyce, who says expressly, that " in 

 general more patients recover of fevers in the London 

 hospitals than in private families, with similar practice." 

 ' And the experience of the past winter in the clinical 

 ward here clearly shows, that the wards of a hospital may 

 be rendered harmless to all who enter them : for I am unable 

 to recollect half a dozen who have caught the fever during 

 their six months atttendance on the infirmary ; and 

 Dr. Duncan's memory does not furnish him with so large 

 a number, notwithstanding his extensive and almost 

 universal knowledge of the students. He assures me, 

 also, that more pupils receive infection by acting as nurses 

 to their sick friends, than directly from the patients in the 

 hospital. Of those infected in the latter way, many are 

 known to have suffered by imprudently hanging over the 

 diseased, rather than from any necessary exposure. 



'A better instance could hardly be adduced of the 

 limited influence of contagion, than is presented by the 

 Royal Infirmary of this place. Most of your medical 

 men must remember that it stands in a fully inhabited 



