NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 177 



the first approach of the disease, we earnestly recommend the same active treatment, by 

 blood-letting, blisters, and other means of diminishing excitement, as are employed in the 

 treatment of a pleurisy, or any other acute inflammation ; and we could add, in confir- 

 mation of our view of this subject, many recent cases, in which the practice here recom- 

 mended has been attended with the most happy results." American Medical and Phi- 

 losophical Register, vol. 2. 



NOTE O O. 



Coxtagion and infection are subjects which have been fertile of discussion and con- 

 troversy. Their peculiar character, and the agency which they exert in giving origin to, 

 and modifying the form of, diseases, seem to have attracted, at a very early period, a 

 large share of attention. Among the ancient physicians we find Galen, in express terms, 

 stating the manner in which plague is communicated ; et quidera quod aeris pestilens 

 febrem afierre consuevit, nemo sanaj mentis dubitavit, sicuti et pestilenti morbo laboran- 

 tium conversatio periculosa, ne inde contagiura contrahatur, quemadmodum ex scabie et 

 lippitudine. (Galen, de Differ. Febr.) Livy, the historian, appears to have been duly 

 sensible of the power of contagion ; et primo temporis ac loci vitio, et segri erant, et 

 moriebantur : postea curatio ipsa et contactus agrorum vulgabat morbos ; and in descri- 

 bing a pestilential disorder which prevailed in the early part of the fourth century, A. 

 U. C, he again remarks, vulgatique contactu in homines morbi. (Lib. iv. cap. xxx.) 

 Soon after the restoration of learning, when the stock of knowledge preserved by the 

 Arabians was increased by new facts and discoveries, and medical science was augmented 

 by the laborious investigations of that prolific age, we find Diemerbroeck and others devo- 

 ting especial attention to this subject. Though a difference of opinion existed, it is 

 manifest that a large majority of physicians maintained the general doctrines of contagion. 

 At a more recent period the great mortality which accompanied the different attempts 

 at colonization in the West-India islands, and on the coast of Africa, called the minds of 

 medical observers to the peculiar nature of intra-tropical diseases. The appearance of 

 the yellow fever at Boulam, in 1793; its general prevalence in most of the West-India 

 islands ; and, subsequently, its more extensive diffusion in different parts of the United 

 States, have been the means of enlarging the original limits of the controversy, and have 

 given to the discussion an interest inferior to none among medical inquiries. Preeminent 



among the European authors who have entered upon this discussion, may be considered the 



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