ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 25J 



struclion had literally and bodily descended, sword in hand, to execute a heavy judgment 

 of his Lord." 



In refutation of these extraordinary and unwarrantable assertions, it were an easy mat- 

 ter to cite a volume of evidence. The following facts, selected from others of a sim lar 

 kind, will, I trust, be sufficient for the purpose of demonstrating the fallacy of the doctrine 

 of the American publishers referred to, and the correctness of the view that has been 

 contended for, relative to the contagious character of the plague. 



Dr. Guthrie, a celebrated physician of St. Petersburg}], in his inquiries relative to the 

 contagiousness of the plague, observes: 



" Chance threw in my way an excellent opportunity of examining into the merits of 

 this opinion, by consulting the physicians and surgeons of the Russian army, lying in 

 the conquered Turkish provinces of Moldavia and Walachia, where the plague ever ob- 

 tained more or less during the whole war, and at the beginning raged with destructive vio- 

 lence ; and on addressing myself to Baron Ash, physician general, I had an answer that 

 met my ideas on the subject. 



" The difficulty of ascertaining the exact time when the infection is received, and, conse- 

 quently, the interval that takes place before the attack of the pestilential fever, must ap- 

 pear upon the face of the case, except experiments were to be made on purpose, which 

 is scarcely to be expected. However, the intrepidity of a single man has thrown some 

 light upon the matter : this was Mathias Deggio, one of the surgeons of the hospital at 

 Buckarest, a building appropriated to the cure of the plague in the Russian army. 



"lie, perceiving the gentlemen of his profession condemned, in a manner, to death, if 

 punctual in their duty, had the resolution to inoculate himself for the plague, in the full 

 confidence of its efficacy, and ever afterwards found himself invulnerable, whilst bi3 com- 

 panions around him were falling victims to its fury. He produced the disease by insert- 

 ing, with the point of a lancet, under the epidermis of his arm, matter from a pestiferous 

 abscess, and followed the cold regimen observed in the small pox, as he had imitated its 

 mode of inoculation; on the fourth day of tiie puncture the fever declared itself.'' 



Dr. Guthrie adds " the Baron then said a great deal in favour of inoculation of the plague, 

 and supported his opinion with the case of Mathias Deggi > given above; and the analogy 

 that has been observed between the plague, small pox, 1 * &c. {Medical Commentaries 

 Eilin. vol. 8.) 



Another fact of a similar nature is recorded by Sir Robert Wilson : " That daring 

 spirit of investigation into the causes and effects of those doeases, whose principles are 

 yet unknown, and which has so much distinguished the profession, was not to be inlimidat- 



