ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 263 



of damaged coffee. How baseless the fabric of his theory ! About fifteen years ago a 

 large whale, in a state of putrefaction, was driven on shore at the Estate Longford, in 

 St. Croix. It was in summer, when the crop was over. The proprietor ordered large 

 quantities of the blubber to be cut off, and boiled in his sugar coppers, to supply his nu- 

 merous concerns with oil, and for sale. The negroes of the adjoining estates, likewise, 

 supplied themselves with it. Yet none of them or of the white inhabitants were affected 

 with any sickness, though the stench from the whale could be perceived at a quarter of 

 a mile distant. To these I may add this general fact, that Danish ships have seldom 

 arrived at St. Croix from Denmark, without having their provisions in a greater or less 

 putrid state ; but sickness has never been occasioned thereby." P. 252, 253. 



It is also a proof of the innocence of dead animal matter and of the communication of 

 the plague by a specific secretion from the living body, that the corpses of those who die 

 of plague do not convey the disease. 



"It is remarkable" says Mr. Howard, '< that when the corpse is cold of a person dead 

 of the plague, it does not infect the air by any noxious exhalations. This is so much be- 

 lieved in Turkey, that the people there are not afraid to handle such corpses. The go- 

 vernor at the French hospital in Smyrna told me, that in the last dreadful plague there, 

 his house was rendered almost intolerable by an offensive scent, (especially if he opened 

 any of those windows which looked towards the great burying ground, where numbers 

 every day where left unburied ;) but that it had no effect upon the health either of him- 

 self or his family. An opulent merchant in this city likewise told me, that he and his 

 family had felt the same inconvenience, without any bad consequences." Howard on 

 Lazarettos, 2d ecf. Lond. 4£o, page 25. 



Rondeletius, as quoted by Sennertus, asserted that he had dissected bodies dead of the 

 plague in presence of many of his pupils with perfect safety. Much interesting informa- 

 tion on this subject will be found in the first volume of Dr. Ferriar's Medical Histories 

 and Reflections. Dr. Ferriar remarks, 



"It is a general opinion, that pestilential disorders are occasioned by the effluvia of dead 

 bodies, but there is reason to question the truth of this. When plague has appeared, in 

 the neighbourhood of places where many bodies had remained unburied, after general en- 

 gagements, other causes can be pointed out as more likely to have produced it. But 

 many instances can be produced in which thousands of dead bodies have been left 

 to putrefy on the field of battle, without causing pestilential distempers. This was 

 not unnoticed by the attentive Dieraerbroek. « Cadavera, sive hominum,' says he, 

 " sive aliorum animalium putrescentia pestem non generare, docent multa; magna strages, 

 in quibus talis cadaverum inbumatorum putrefactio nullas pestes induxit. Anno 1642 in 



