250 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 



face. The pits prepared for the animal matter thus disposed were seven feet, deep, and 

 four broad and long, and each calculated to contain the flesh of fifty horses, beside asses 

 and dogs. An idea may, therefore, be formed of the immense volume of putrid animal 

 effluvia, enveloping continually the persons of Bolston and the labourers, by being in- 

 formed that there were six of these pits, and, consequently, three hundred carcasses of 

 horses, and as many of asses and dogs, exhaling, in greater or less abundance, their 

 offensive miasms. Notwithstanding this Bolston declares, that although the stench was 

 offensive in the highest degree, yet he and those with him sustained no injury — and to 

 this the inhabitants of the country around bear ample and angry testimony, both in 

 relation to Bolston and themselves. 



" 3. Another remarkable fact, well known where the manufactory of refined sugar is 

 extensively carried on — butchers preserve the blood of the slaughtered animals in open 

 tubs, kept in close, small, shut-up houses, sometimes for several weeks, until the quantity 

 required is completed, or until there is a demand from the sugar-bakers for it. It is then, 

 in a putrid state, conveyed through the public streets, in carts or drays, to the sugar- 

 houses, emitting the most offensive effluvia, and extremely annoying to all those who pass 

 it. It is seldom immediately used by the sugar-bakers, but kept by them in casks, in a 

 putrid state, filling the air of the manufactory, and frequently of the vicinity, with its 

 putrid miasms, or what Galen and his followers would call aiTia. \oiy.ov yivmro^iva., the seeds 

 of pestilence. But what is the result to the workmen, or to the inhabitants of the sur- 

 rounding houses? — nothing inimical to health. This fact exists constantly in the city of 

 Bristol, where, in general, the streets are extremely narrow, and the houses excessively 

 crowded, and ill ventilated — and yet the harmless nature of these exhalations may be 

 daily verified — I speak from my own observation, and the experience nf the most re- 

 spectable sugar-bakers. In summer it is more remarkable than in winter. 



" 4. Mr. Newman, surgeon in Stokes Croft, Bristol, a gentleman of great worth and 

 professional skill, procured for me from his friend, Mr. Bevington, and his brother, Mr. 

 Newman, of Bermondsey, in Southwark, the following interesting particulars respecting 

 the leather-dressing business. 



■" 'I have just received your letter of the 20th inst. (January, 1810,) making inquiry 

 respecting putrid, contagious, and low fevers, as affecting the workmen employed by 

 leather-dressers, to which I can give you a pretty clear reply. Our men are generally 

 healthy, and the most so of the labouring poor — many have been in our service and know- 

 ledge fifteen and twenty years, and I do not recollect one case of the kind occurring (in 

 our establishment) in London. The first process in dressing is to put the skins into a 



