taken off from peftilential ulcers, without receiving any injury. From hence they conclude *, that this difeafe is not communicated by contagion, but originally bred in the body by the corruption of the bile. This corruption, they fay, is the effect of unwholefome food; and the bile thus corrupted, produces a thickness and a degree of coagulation in the blood, which is the cause of the plague: though this they allow to be enforced by a bad seafon of the year, and the terrours of mind and defpair of the inhabitants. The Thefe experiments are indeed curious, but fall very short of what they are brought to prove. moft that can be gathered from them is this: That dogs do not, at least not fo readily, receive peftilential infection from men, as men do from one another; and alfo, that the bile is fo highly corrupted in a body infected with the plague, that, by putting it into the blood of a dog, it will immediately breed the fame disease. But it does not follow from hence, that the bile is the feat of the disease, or that other humours of the body are not corrupted as well as this. I make no queftion but the whole mafs of blood is, in this cafe, in a state of putrefaction; and consequently that all the liquors derived from it partake of the taint. Accordingly it appeared afterwards from fome experiments made by Dr Couzier †, that not only the blood, but even the urine from an infected perfon, infufed into the crural vein of a dog, communicated the plague. I will venture to affirm, that if, instead of bile, blood, or urine, the matter of the ulcers had Le journal des fçavans, 1722, p. 279. † Vid. differtation fur la contagion de la pefte. A Toulouse, 1724. been been put into a wound made in the dog, it would have had at leaft an equally pernicious effect; as may well be concluded from the inoculation of the fmallpox. As to the dog's eating the corrupted flesh and purulent matter of the patients; it ought to have been confidered that there are fome poifons very powerful when mixed immediately with the blood, which will not operate in the ftomach at all; as in particular the faliva of the mad dog and the venom of the viper And therefore Dr Deidier himself, fome months after his former experiments, found that peftiferous bile itfelf was swallowed by dogs without any harm †. The right inference to be made from thefe experiments, I think, would have been this: That fince the blood and all the humours are fo greatly corrupted in the plague, as that dogs (though not fo liable to catch the distemper in the ordinary way of infection, as men are) may receive it by a small quantity of any of these from a difeafed fubject being mixed with their blood; it may well be fuppofed, that the effluvia from an infected person, drawn into the body of one who is found, may be peftiferous and productive of the like diforder. My aflertion, that these French physicians have before them the fulleft proofs of this infection, not only appears from thefe inftances of it I have obferved to be recorded by themselves; but likewife from what Dr le Moine and Dr Baily ‡ have written, of the manner in which the plague was brought to Canour * Vid. mechanical account of poifons, pag. 31. Vid. lettre de Meffieurs le Mcine & Baily. gue gue in the Gevaudan: as alfo from an amazing inftance they give us of the great fubtilty of this poifon, experienced at Marvejols; where no less than fixty perfons were at once infected in a church, by one that came thither out of an infected house. The plague was carried from Marseilles to Canourgue, as follows. A galley-flave, employed in burying the dead at Marseilles, escaped from thence to the village of St Laurent de Rivedolt, a league diftant from Correjac; where finding a kinfman, who belonged to the latter place, he prefented him with a waistcoat and a pair of ftockings he had brought along with him. The kinfman returns to his village, and dies in two or three days; being followed foon after by three children and their mother. His fon, who lived at Canourgue, went from thence, in order to bury the family; and, at his return, gave to his brother-in-law a cloak he had brought with him: the brother-in-law laying it upon his bed, loft a little child which lay with him, in one day's time; and two days after, his wife; himself following in feven or eight. The parents of this unhappy family, taking poffeffion of the goods of the deceased, underwent the fame fate. All this abundantly fhews how inexcufable the forefaid phyficians in France are, in their oppofing the common opinion that the plague is contagious. However, I have paid fo much regard to them, as to in fift the more largely upon the proof of that contagion; left the opinion of those who have had fo much experience of the difeafe, might lead any one into an errour, in an affair of fuch confequence, that all my precepts relating to quarantines, and well nigh every particular part of my advice, depends upon it: for if this opinion were a mistake, quarantines, and all the like means of defence, ought to be thrown aside as of no ufe. But as I continue perfuaded, that we have the greatest evidence, that the plague is a contagious difeafe; fo I have left, without any alteration, all my directions in refpect to quarantines: in which, I hope, I have not recommended any thing prejudicial to trade; my advice being very little different from what has been long practifed in all the trading ports of Italy, and in other places. Nay, were we to be more remifs in this than our neighbours, I cannot think but the fear they would have of us, must much obftruct our commerce. But I fhall purfue this point no farther the rather becaufe a very learned phyfician among themfelves has fince, both by ftrong reafoning and undeniable inftances, evinced the reality of contagion *. In a word, the more I confider this matter, the more I am convinced that the precepts I have delivered, both with regard to the preventing the plague from coming into a country, and the treatment of it when prefent, are perfectly fuitable to the nature of the diftemper, and confequently the fitteft to be complied with. But how far, in every fituation of affairs, it is expedient to grant the powers requifite for putting all of them in practice, it is not my proper bufinefs as a phyfician, to determine. No doubt, but at all times these powers ought to be fo limited and reftrained, that they may never endanger the rights and liberties of a people. Indeed, as I have had no other view than the public good in this my underta *Aftruc, differtation fur la contagion de la pefte. A Touloufe, 1724.80. VOL. II. C king, king, and the fatisfaction of doing fomewhat towards the relief of mankind, under the greatest of calamities; fo 1 fhould not, without the utmost concern, fee that any thing of mine gave the least countenance to cruelty and oppreffion. But I must confefs, I find no reafon for any apprehenfions of this kind, from any thing I have advanced. For what extraordinary danger can there be, in lodging powers for the proper management of people under the plague, with a council of health, or other magistrates, who fhall be accountable, like all other civil officers, for their juft behaviour in the execution of them? Though this I must leave to those who are better skilled in the nature of government. But fure I am, that, by the rules here given, both the fick will be provided for with more humanity, and the country more effectually defended against the progrefs of the difeafe, than by any of the methods heretofore generally put in practice, either in our own, or in other nations. The ufage among us, established by act of parliament, of imprifoning in their houfes every family the plague feizes on, without allowing any one to pafs in or out, but fuch as are appointed by authority, to perform the neceffary offices about the fick, is certainly the feverest treatment imaginable; as it expofes the whole family to fuffer by the fame difeafe; and confequently is little less than affigning them over to the cruelleft of deaths; as I have fhewn in the dif courfe. The methods practifed in France are likewife obnoxious to great objections. Crouding the fick to gether in hofpitals can ferve to no good purpofe; but instead |