ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 24H 



aioned generally by morbid depositions on the organs of these functions, they lose their 

 anomalous form in the mind of the judicious physician, and are cured by the adoption of 

 appropriate means. Now, a» the diseases which you class under your third head, have 

 each a peculiar and well-defined character, so must they severally have a peculiar couta- 

 gion ; and the circumstances under which you represent them, must be considered as 

 purely adventitious, and aiding only inasmuch as they may predispose the healthy body 

 to be acted on by the peculiar contagion it is exposed to, or as they may render the basis 

 of that contagion less decomposable. One word more, and I am done with my imperti- 

 nent critique: are not all contagious diseases capable of communication hyfomihs? (a 

 word which, by the by, does not seem to be well understood. Servius's comment on a 

 passage in the first yEneid of Virgil, gives a more distinct idea of the word fomes than 

 any I have met with. You know it is received by our medical lexicographers as derived 

 from the verb foveo, a derivation I doubt much the correctness of. The passage I allude 

 to you will find at verse 178, the last member of which is " rapuitque in fomite flammam ;" , 

 on which Servius says, " Fomes sunt assulae quae ab arboribus cadunt, cum inciduntur, et 

 igni concipiendo commoda; sunt." Now, were we to substitute words in the following 

 manner, we should have, I imagine, a correct idea of fomites: Fomes sunt indusia, panni 

 aliaque vestimenta quae corporibus aegrorum peste aliave febre contagiosa laborantium, ca- 

 dunt; cum inciduntur et contagione concipienda? commoda? sunt.) If they are, what has 

 impure atmosphere, so rendered by the decomposition of animal and vegetable substances, 

 to do with their origin? The purest atmosphere conceivable, that is, an atmosphere in 

 all respects well conditioned to support animal life in a perfect state, cannot prevent an 

 attack of the malignant pestilential (yellow) fever, if a healthy person is exposed to the 

 fomes of its contagion, and is predisposed to be acted upon by it. The remarkable proof 

 of this which occurred at New-Haven, and which has been so ingenuously related by Dr, 

 Munson, must be perfectly in your recollection. The present inquiry has nothing to do 

 with those singular ideosyncrasies which resist contagion, although exposed to that of 

 variola, rubeola, &c. as well as that of maliguant pestilential fever, &c. 



As the foregoing is not entirely my own opinion relative to your classification of con- 

 tagious diseases, I hope, and indeed feel convinced, you will forgive the freedom I have 

 taken in so candidly giving it. You will also, I am satisfied, receive in good part, in the 

 spirit of true philosophy, my request, that you will reconsider particularly your third 

 head, which I imagine is the only objectionable one. I am aware of the inconsistency 

 which may be attributed to me in stating a proposition so opposite to that which may be 

 found in my Essay on the Malignant Pesilential Fever, vol. 1. p. 281, and in my letter to 

 Dr. Haygartb, p. 142. But herein, I trust, I manifest that disposition which should be 



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