The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1819-09-17 00:00:00

r To be continued d

ON THE DoCTRINE uF CoNTAGION
IN THE PLAGUE.

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE SELECT
COMMITTEE_
[Ordered by the House of Cumulous to be priuted Juur 11,

1819.1

Luna, 15 di• Martij, IPI9.
Sir JOHN JACKSON. Baronet, in the Omit..

Charles M'Lean, M.O. culled is, awd ezegnincd,

Yoe have been in the practice of medicine fur a good
many years?—Yes ; thirty years.
Have you any knowledge of the plague ?—I have. to
IRIS, I employed myself in invertigsting Cott soaloly in uie
Gm k ('• at Hospital, near the fo.veit Towers at Constanti-
nople. After administering remedies to the pestifeross. pa-
tient+ of that hospital, and making s.liservatiossis on Ilse
disease fur seventeen days, I ((mud it exisedieot, being my-
self, as I had expected, seized with the malady, and the mil.
tem of the pert house being incompatible with personal sal-
ty, to discoutinue any researches. Upon my recovery, I pro-
posed to resume them upon a plan that should better com-
bine personal safety with a prospect of successful ioyest sge-
lion ; but the Porte did not think fit to accede to my tyro.
positions. The infcresaces supplied by my expatriates's,
were, however, sufficient to confirm, to respect to pla:.•e,
those conclusions again(t the extstener of contagion, who is
I had previously deduced, is respect to yellow (,a-,
typhus, and epidemic diseases rostra/Iv. If it should be
tboogist that this is hot an itrailterate experiesier, I
would entreat of the Committee to recollect how little the
value of experience may he cotumetisneme with its do.
re.tion; and that the result of exp. :lessee in the appli-
cation of false knowledge, is •but dexterity in the practice
of error; which is as much worse than mere inearsi-
cure, as false knowledge is worse !boa absolute ignorance.
Since the establishment of the ductriuc of conts.gion, I aso
not aware that any other physicists now living hare loam ex-
perimentally in such iutimste collision as mys,lf, wills whit
is called The Plague of the Levant; and if the rs stilt of
my researches should ultimately prove adequate to d,atu•l,
in respect to the cause of that malady, the darkness of (co-
lonies, they will not be denied to Ise of unprecedented effi-
ciency. Such of them as strictly relate to the object of the
present inquiry, I have throw. into a surnmsry, which I
have had the honour of transmitting to the CM ratan of
the Committee, and to which I beg Were respectfully to
refer them; taking the liberty to observe, that, in my old-
ItiOll, it is only by a distinct consideration of th.• Net, s i.tch
distinguish epidemic and contagious diseases generally. that
it is possible to determine to which of these claa•ea tatty
perticlar malady belongs.
You consider the plague as net contagious ?--Yest.
Explain how you caught the f err?—By the sir. It was
in August, the month in which the plague generally preesits
most at Constantinople. I was a stranger to the climate, +tot
otherwise under particular cireumstancee ; the deorsintioss
of fowl, insufficiency of nourishment, and law some deers
of irritation of mind, under the idea that the peo • le around
me were eustravonring to fsastrate my object; nod all them-
might surely be sufficient to account for the occurrence of
the disease during the pestilential season, without suppersiog
comas ion.
_ _

Du you was your words infectious and enntasiniis synoni-
moitsly?—lst termites to what is Inman to be the g. metal
custom, I do

Have you ever area an instance of n plague ease imported
into England, or beard of t'—Neer; nod after 'noels iii-
quiry I have reason to believe that it his tiryrr lupin tied ;
as, if it had orenrierl, it would have been very likely tot
have been ostensibly recorded. I have reams,. to believe
such an occurrence has never happened either during the
exiatence of quarantine or before.
Nor iu any of the vessels that have arrived at the place
of quarmitint?—Nis. I was going 10 mention a circum-
stance of great inconvenience to a gentleman arriving some
years ago in a vessel from the Levant, its S•angate Creek ;
he was dl of a disease not in the smallest drieree swim fled.
I du not know the precise nature of it ; hr could c..^l no to. -
dint attendance, because mole of the :Die:hour p,o,e-
iiiiiniers would put themselves in rooms with him, and
place themselves under the necessity of perfusniing T.:le:di-
lute, and deprive themselves of the power of visiting their
other patients. He leas obliged to remain mit.' Ike
tion of she quarantine performed by the ship. and n f.-se
days after the release front quarantine lie died; and
death was attributed to his loin: uldi7rd to remain au that
situation withont the comforts and tit rimer's"' for a auk
mar, and Wilhulse /10.1hC31 lii• came I Rnilerman.ll to has's
hceo Muncrii f, and that lie ass the lirmbir of Sir henry
lllonerief. Nutrition. is attributable any whirr fur this ac-
cident. It is the as stem alone slurp is to Wain,
Do you consider the ptsgue of toss 10 base been the I.e.
want plague?—Host certainly init.
In the case you mention, of the arrival of Mr. Muntrief,
it was abselutely acknowlefteil not to be it„plavie rase ?
I base stated it as 1 heard it norm limed by the meta:hams and
the Secretary of the Levant C palsy; they told me tat it
was nor a plazfic ra..e. liar even el* ff.
Explain what you mean by a contagion.. iiimaar, as distim
pushed from en epith mic a contsgions illises-e I un-
derstand a disease eapatile of befog communicated fitful p. r•
DOH to person, by contact or contiguity.
Define an epidemic discs:sr ? A.. epidemic disease I NS-
derstand to he a distmic prodiscill by patch stases as are ca-
pable of °priming simnitanconaly opens any given portion,
or the whole of a minute:lily.
di.e.oriwWialvayt,p,ive:s
ut.ypluTiv,rireinidenicafiici.i; ~,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, aonsoe:rdcertemiacindisciarel.:ll..niescia,
become contagious ?—..Cit calmly not.
You say in your work, that your *mot who visited the