270 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 



NOTE G. (See page 229.) 



The following statement fully illustrates the principle, that those who are accustomed 

 to breathe an impure air frequently escape disease, while those who from their better 

 condition in life enjoy the more pure atmosphere, are readily attacked with contagious 

 fever when exposed to its exciting cause. 



" The most pernicious infection," says Lord Bacon, " next the plague, is the smell of 

 the jail, when the prisoners have been long, and close, and nastily kept ; whereof we have 

 had in our time experience twice or thrice, when both the judges that sat upon the jail, 

 and numbers of those who attended the business, or were present, sickened upon it and 

 died. Therefore, it were good wisdom that in such cases the jail were aired before they 

 be brought forth." Nat. Hist. exp. Dccccxiv. 



In Stowe's Chronicle a more particular account is given of the same circumstances, 

 as occurring at the fatal assizes held in the year 1577, in the following words: " On the 

 4th, 5th, and 6th days of July were the assizes held at Oxon, where was arraigned and 

 condemned Rowland Jenkins for a seditious tongue ; at which time there arose amidst 

 the people such a damp, that almost all were smothered. Very few escaped that were 

 not taken. Here died in Oxon three hundred persons; and sickened there, but died in 

 other places, two hundred and odd." " Of the same kind of infection," says Sir John 

 Pringle, " we have an unhappy instance so fresh in our memory, that I needed not to have 

 mentioned it here, had it not been for such as live at a distance, or those who are to come 

 after us. In the year 1750, on the 11th of May, the sessions began at the Old Bailey, 

 and continued for some days; in which time there were more criminals tried, and a 

 greater multitude was present in the court,, than usual. The hall in the Old Bailey 

 was a room of only about thirty feet square." " The bench consisted of six persons, 

 viz. the lord mayor, three of the judges, one of the aldermen, and the recorder, whereof 

 four died, together with two or three of the counsel, one of the under-sheriffs, several 

 of the Middlesex jury, and others present, to the amount of above forty ; without making 

 allowance for those of a lower rank, whose death may not have been heard of; and 

 without including any that did not sicken within a fortnight after the sessions." 



Similar instances of infection are related to have taken place at the Black assizes, at 

 Taunton, and at those of Exeter, in 1586. See ReeS Cydopadia, art. Contagion. 



Facts of a like nature have fallen under the notice of that accurate observer, Sir Gil- 

 bert Blane. An extract from his letter ou this subject is here inserted. 



