214 HOSACK ON THE LAWS OP CONTAGION. 



will run a great risk of contracting the prevailing malady."* He more- 

 over proceeds; in order to prevent all suspicion, and avoid all danger 

 of carrying the disease where it has not been before, that they should 

 take nothing with them but the necessaries of life ; they should avoid, 

 as much as possible, halting in villages; and each time when they 

 happen to encamp, they should expose their baggage and clothes to 

 the air, which would not fail of dispersing every particle of conta- 

 gion. As a further evidence, too, of the connexion between the pre- 

 valence of the disease and the state of the air, he remarks, that during 

 the epidemic, " the inhabitants residing near the sea were more ex- 

 posed than those who were at some distance, and that there were seve- 

 ral villages situated on the heights which had not even a single sick per- 

 son." In many other parts of his work, he shows that his mind was 

 not totally devested of belief in the communication of the plague, by 

 contagion ; and when danger approaches, like some modern professors 

 in religion, he proves himself to be the practical infidel, by distrusting 

 even his own doctrines ; for he takes great pains to inform us of the 

 various means he made use of to protect himself against the disease, 

 and which are both as efficient and judicious as the most sturdy conta- 

 gionist could possibly have employed. Imlac, in Rasselas, speaking 

 of the appearance of departed spirits, says, " Some who deny it with 

 their tongues, confess it by their fears." So with Assalini, and, indeed, 

 the same may be said of many others who affect to disbelieve the doc- 

 trine of contagion. 



In addition to the details cited from Thucydides, Livy, and from the 

 writers of modern times, I might here introduce similar facts recorded 

 of the plague of Florence, which appeared in that city in 1348.f 



* Observations, &c. t See Introduction to Boccacio's Decameron. 



