216 MOSACK ON THE LAWS OF CONTAGIOJN. 



cated through that vitiated medium, he also observes of the dysentery 

 which occurred at Dettingen, in 1743, that such of the officers, among 

 whom it was not so general as among the soldiers, as had lain wet at 

 Dettingen were first attacked by it; the rest received it by contagion; 

 but a regiment that had not lain in the damp, nor been exposed to the 

 rain, remained perfectly free from it, at a small distance from the camp ; 

 though, excepting that they were not subject to the contagious effluvia 

 of the rest, " they breathed the same air, ate the same provisions, and 

 drank the same water."* And in the hospital in the village ofFecken- 

 heim, about a league from the camp, the dysentery being introduced, 

 " the air became infected to such a degree that not only the rest of the 

 patients, but even the apothecary, nurses, and the other servants, with 

 most of the inhabitants of the village, were infected."! 



Dr. Donald Munro, who, as an army physician, had frequent opportu- 

 nities of observing the character and progress of dysentery, ascribes 

 the greater violence of this disease to obstructed perspiration, moist 

 and putrid vapours, the putrid steams of dead horses, of the privies, 

 excrements not covered with earth, or to the unwholesome, moist, 

 putrescent vapours of marshy or wet grounds, or pools of stagnating 

 water acted upon by the heat of summer, and of other corrupted animal 

 or vegetable substances, all which served to increase the infection. 

 Hence he observes that in camps the more hot and rainy the season, 

 the more wet and marshy the ground, and the more the air is replete 

 with putrid vapours, the more frequent and the more fatal is the dys- 

 entery. J 



The remarks of Sir John Pringle are also in point on this subject. 

 " Some dysenteries," he observes, " appear upon first taking the field, 



Zimmerman on Dysentery, p. 26. t Ibid. 130. 



t Diseases of the Army, v. J. p. 314 — 316. 



