260 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAOION. 



15.; and Annotat. in Lib. Lud. Cornelii, Veneti de Vit. Sobr. Commodis ; and di 

 Virg. Vestal. Valetud. tuend. Dissertate 



u 5. I borrow the following singular fact from the ingenuous and experienced Ramaz- 

 ami. * In hac civitate, (Modena,) qua? pro suo ambitu satis populosa est, ideoque domos 

 confertas habct ac prsealtas, mos est ut tertio quoque anno in singulis domibus cloacae 

 expurgentur, qua? per vicos discurrunt. Cum ergo domi meae id opus fieret, contemplatus 

 unum ex operariis istis in antro illo Charonaeo magna anxietate ac sollicitudine opus suum 

 peragentem, miseratus tam improbi laboris, ipsum interrogavi, cur tam sollicite laboraret, 

 et non pacatius id ageret, ne ex nimio labore in multam lassitudinem incideret, tunc miser 

 ex antro illo oculos attollens, meque intuitus : nemo, inquit, nisi expertus, imaginari potest, 

 quanti constet, plus quam quatuor horis in hoc loco morari, idem enim est caecus fieri.— 

 Rursus ab eodem qusesivi, num in faucibus ardorem ullum persentiaut, difficultatem ali- 

 quam respirandi patiantur, capitis dolore tententur, num odor ille nares percellat ; nau- 

 seam pariat ; nihil horum respondit ille, neque pars ulla in hoc opere mulctatur, pneter 

 oculos.'— This account was afterwards confirmed by his observing a number of these 

 people reduced to blindness and beggary. ' Oculis tamen solummodo, bellum tam atrox 

 indicunt foetida? exhalationes istse, ac illos acutissimis spiculis sic feriunt, ut illis vitam, id 

 est lumen, eripiaut.' Thus, as certain acrid substances seem exclusively to affect differ- 

 ent and distinct parts of the body, as cantharides the bladder, the torpedo the nerves — ■ 

 ' sic halitus illi ex humanis fascibus per varios corruptiones gradus trium. annorum spatio, 

 talem adsciscant naturam, ut oculos tanttim lacessant, casteiis vero partibus ignoscant.' 

 (De 3Iorb. Artijic. cap. 13.) This fact is no less important than curious, as it tends to 

 show the inconsiderate conclusions of some eminent writers respecting the influence of 

 the exhalations of privies on the health of men. Sir John Pringle often attributes the 

 epidemics of camps to this as a cause ; but it is fair to believe that he did so, without 

 allowing himself sufficiently to investigate the subject. The tendency of this fact, too, 

 goes to the overthrow of some of the bold, and, I am inclined to think, hasty, assertions 

 of Dr. Miller, relative to the locality of the cause of the pestilential fever of New York, 

 in 1805; for what is 'the blast of putrid exhalations from the sewer of Burling-slip' to 

 the ' halitus ex humanis faecibus per varios corruptionis gradus trium annorum spatio' of 

 Modena? (See Edinburgh M^t. and Surg. Journal, vol. 3. p. 252.) Now, whether 

 the effect of these exhalations is asphyxia at Paris, according to Sauvages, (Nos. Meth. 



* My Essay on the Malignant Pestilential Fever may also be consulted with illustrative effect 

 under the article of Martinico. vol. 2. p. 120 — 123.; under St. Lucia, ibid. p. 153.: under Demerara, 

 ■hid. p. 200. 



