202 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 



dabs, Mho had been sacrificed by the Dahomans to their god, about three weeks before, as 

 an acknowledgment of the great conquest they had obtained.' The king of Abomey, 

 Ahadee, lived in a kind of charnel-house, yet was healthy, and seventy years old when he 

 died. Dalzel thus describes this singular palace : ' The author had once an occasion lo 

 pass the limits of the courts already described, when King Ahadee was sick, and would 

 see him in his bed-chamber. This was a detached circular room, of about eighteen feet 

 diameter. It had a thatched conical roof; the walls were of clay, and whitewashed 

 within. There was a small area before it, formed of a wall about three feet high, the top 

 of which was stuck full of human jawbones ; and the path leading to the door was paved 

 with human skulls ; the area within was also paved with skulls, which, I understood, 

 were those of neighbouring kings, and other persons of eminence and distinction, whom, 

 having taken prisoners in the course of his wars, he had placed there, that he might, lite- 

 rally, enjoy the savage gratification of trampling on the heads of his enemies.' " Edin. 

 Med. and Surg. Journ. vol. 6. 



In another work of Dr. Chisholm, (see his Letter to Dr. Haygarth, Svo. London, 1809,) 

 he has the following important statement on the same subject. 



" Among a number of facts to prove that putrefaction and filth did not give rise to the 

 pestilence, I shall select the following. In the year 1781, a gentleman who managed the 

 mercantile concerns of John Brown and Son, of Copenhagen, in St. Croix, received from 

 them a cargo of provisions, which he, in expectation of higher prices, kept in his store- 

 houses, until the stench from them incommoded the neighbourhood, and could be perceiv- 

 ed in the street. A complaint was made to the master of police, who ordered the provi- 

 sions, consisting of beef and pork, to be examined ; and they were found in such a putrid 

 state, that upwards of a thousand barrels were ordered instantly to be carried outside of 

 the harbour, and sunk in the sea. No appearance of infection or of sickness of any kind 

 appeared in the house, in the neighbourhood, or among the people employed in transport- 

 ing the provisions. In the year 1786, I think, a Swedish brig came into the harbour of 

 Christianstaedt, in distress : she had suffered much at sea, was leaky, and in coming in 

 struck on a reef at the entrance of the harbour, from being unmanageable. She was 

 got off with difficulty, and brought into the carenage to be hove down and repaired. 

 Her cargo, which consisted of coffee in bulk was in such a state as to be condemned as 

 useless, and thrown on shore, where it rotted and formed a dunghill. This lay for several 

 weeks near the carenage, which was frequented by sailors and people from different na- 

 tions ; and yet, though it was in the hot months, no sickness or infection was occasioned 

 by it. It was finally removed through my remonstrances. Let this important fact, which, 

 indeed, is confirmed by what happens every year on coffee estates in the West Indies, be 

 compared to the singular assignment of the pestilence of 1 793, by Dr. Rush, to the effluvia 



