1821.] Mr. Luckcock on the Prevention of the Yellow Fever. 391 
time by a gentleman near us, who 
seemed enchanted by the clear and de¬ 
licious notes she poured forth, repeating 
with emphasis these lines of Dryden : 
And I, so ravish’d with her heavenly note, 
I stood entranced—I had no room for 
thought. 
The performances on Thursday and 
Friday, consisted of selections from 
Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, and the 
whole was closed with a second concert 
on the evening of Friday, which seemed 
to give more general satisfaction than 
the former ; it presented nothing new. 
Of Mr. Kellner we would say a word 
at parting: he is a young man in whom 
we cannot help feeling interested, as he 
is obviously not pleased with himself, 
and very unassuming; his voice is good, 
and his extemporaneous accompani¬ 
ment to Mad Tom truly fine, and, from 
the execution of that singular song, we 
should place him much higher in the 
scale of musical excellence, than a very 
able critic in your Magazine for August 
seems willing to allow. The road to 
eminence lies before him. Bartleman 
has departed, and his mantle has/allen 
upon no successor. 
It is needless to add, that the per¬ 
formance. upon the whole, seemed to 
give universal satisfaction ; the church 
was each day crowded with a brilliant 
and delighted audience. Lord Grosve- 
nor displayed his usual hospitality on 
this occasion, his unique and magnifi¬ 
cent mansion being filled with company. 
The Archbishop of York and the 
Bishops of St. Asaph and Chester ho¬ 
noured the meeting by their daily at¬ 
tendance ; and the receipts of Thurs¬ 
day amounted to £3,900. collected from 
a public, whose gratification would pre¬ 
clude any regret at the expence incur¬ 
red. 
Chester , Nov. 1, 1821. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
HE accounts we read from Spain 
of the ravages of the yellow fever, 
are truly appalling, and the public in¬ 
terest which is excited is evinced by 
medical gentlemen leaving Paris at the 
imminent risk of their lives, to admi¬ 
nister to the sufferers all the assistance 
that science and humanity can bestow; 
but the immediate duties of the physi¬ 
cian, are of a different nature from 
those of a board of health. It is highly 
probable that every means to stop the 
contagion have been brought into action, 
which experience and reflection have 
hitherto suggested ; but we are not in¬ 
formed of the details, for want of which 
our anxiety is doubly increased. How 
many instances occur daily to the most 
casual observation, of the distress aris¬ 
ing from the want of attention to trifles, 
or through forgetfulness of remedies 
which ought to be familiar to every 
one’s recollection ? I have known fa¬ 
milies exceedingly annoyed by the 
excessive fetor from a corpse, while 
some of their members had sufficient 
intelligence to have used a simple re¬ 
medy, which nevertheless is seldom 
applied or thought of. 
The powerful effects of chemical fu¬ 
migation have long been made known 
to the public, especially through the 
medium of the French chemists; but 
lias the principle been applied in such 
widely extended experiments so as to 
embrace a whole town or district ? Not 
to enter into the unprofitable enquiry, 
whether the contagion is diffused 
throughout the atmosphere, or is caught 
by personal contact, the same means 
must be applied as the preventative in 
either case; and while any means re¬ 
main untried which science can suggest, 
it will be impossible to reconcile it with 
the principles of humanity or justice, 
that thousands of our fellow creatures 
should be doomed to destruction and 
forbidden to escape from it, even as a 
measure of self-defence by those who 
may possess the power of controul. As 
a practical chemist, I ask myself the 
question twenty times a day—has all 
the lime in the neighbourhood been 
held in requisition ? has it been distri¬ 
buted in all the reservoirs belonging to 
water-closets ? in all the receptacles of 
putrid matter of every description ? 
on the dead bodies in the grave, but 
more especially on those exposed in 
the streets ? There appears in nature 
different degrees of putrefaction, one 
which is not inimical to life, the other 
where the electric fluid is so speedily 
developed, as to produce in the mass 
instant contagion ; a proof of which is 
seen in the contagion being invariably 
diminished or destroyed by a reduction 
of the atmospheric heat. 
I also as often enquire—has a liberal 
diffusion of the muriatic acid gas, or 
the gas chlorine taken place, produced 
say, from 20 or 30 tons of muriate of 
soda ? I would not fear facing the 
most deadly pestilence, with an appara¬ 
tus in my hand producing either of 
these 
