276 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CONTAGION. 



to remove from the above described part of the city, which is deemed the principal seat of 

 the disease, and which does not contain more than thirty-three acres, will be considered 

 guilty of a wanton exposure of their lives, and will justify the board in resorting to com- 

 pulsory measures." The epidemic fever which prevailed in Philadelphia in 1793 spread 

 in a similar manner, according to Dr. Rush and others. " For a while," says Dr. Rush, 

 rt this fever was confined to the above-mentioned part of the city, but the disorder is spread- 

 ing, and now appears in other places, so that several are affected in other parts of Water- 

 street ; some in Second-street; some in Vine-street; some in Carter's-alley ; some in 

 other streets ; but, in most*cases, the contagion can be traced to Water-street." Proofs 

 of the same kind might be taken from the most authentic accounts of the yellow fever as- 

 it has prevailed at other seasons, and in other cities and seaports of the United States: 

 proofs wholly irreconcilable with the assertions of those who have declared that the ma- 

 lignant yellow fever arises at "distant and unconnected points;" that " no relation is 

 observed between the source of the supposed contagion and the spreading of the disease 

 to individuals or families ;" and who have maintained that there " never was any successful 

 attempt <o trace, in regular series, the propagation of it to any number of persons from the 

 first case, or from any single point of infection." See Rush's Account of the Bilious 

 Remitting Yellow Fever as it appeared in Philadelphia in 1793; Account of the Yellow 

 Fever of New-London in 1798 ; Hardie on the. Malignant Fever of New-York in 1805 ; 

 Chisholm's Letter to Haygarth; Official Documents published by the Board of Health of 

 New-York; Amer. Med. and Phil. Register, #c. See. 



NOTE M. (See page 237.) 



Hints on Purifying the Air of Infected Apartments, by the late Dr. T. Gurnett, Professor 



in the Royal Institution, fyc. 



" If the air contained iu a phial be rendered offensive by the putrid animal and vegetable 

 substances, it may almost instantly be made sweet by dropping into the phia! a few drops 

 of oxygenated muriatic acid; or more effectually still, by introducing into it a small 

 quantity of oxygenated muriatic gas. 



" This experiment may be easily made ; and it will be found that the air will, in this way, 

 be deprived of the most putrid taint possible. Morveau and Berthollet have found, that 

 if oxygenated muriatic gas be disengaged in a dissecting room, the bad smell from the 

 mbject will be corrected for a time ; and that if the subject be washed with oxygenated 





