The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-01-28 00:00:00

THE BRITISH PRESS.

houses, furniture, &c. must still he supposed to lie highly impreg-
nated with ths contagion. The fact is authenticated by Doctor
Humell, Doctor Lind. and several other physicians of equal re.
spectabi!ity." The fact is indeed certain ; it is most distinctive of
those two classes of diseases ; it is abac sufficient to prove that
they are essential'y different."
The writer conducts his reasoning to its conclusions with
the utmost clearness, and unfo4ls the peticipl.:s of conta-
-1 gion with a simplicity that leaves the inquirer nothing
further to learn. It requires no little skill to conduct the
bun: of mankind successfully out of the tracks of common
opinion ; but here every step we tyke is satisfactory; no
one, however strongly in:pressed with the common doctrine
of contagion, can peruse the following without feeling his
opinion gradually giving way :
" Epidemic diseases are not contagious, not only because, there
is no evidence that they are, lint hcsause the evidence that they are
not, is as complete as t.te proof of a negative can be. It has been
shown. that the causes, the phenomena, and the laws of epidemic,
are dissimilar and opposite to those of contagious diseases. But
diseases which are &salmi:sr and opposite in their causes, in their
phenomena, and in their laws, must necessarily be ineonvenible
and incompatible.
" Epidemic diseases are not contagions. because if they were so,
there must be a spontaneous generation of a specific animal pouch
in tire progress of every epidemic. This, it has been shown, is
contrary to the ascertained laws of the animal economy. We re-
peat, that no man of sound understanding can consider what a con-
tagious disease really is. and what the ascertained laws of the ani-
mal economy are, and believe, for one moment, that a disease non-
contagious in ft% commencement, can become contagious in its pro-
gress; or that a disease contagious in its origin, can cease to be so
in its course; we repeat, that such an event in the animal economy
would be as contrary to the laws of nature, as it wetild be in the
vegetable, were an atom, by a change of soil, or of climate, to
cease to produce an oak and to generate a bramble.
" Epidemic diaesaes are not contagieca, becsuse the human race
continues to exist. Were these maladies really capable of spreading
by esimagion, saaakind must long since have been externiinated.
To the devastation of acute contagious diseases, nature has set
limits, by rendering them capable of affecting the same person
once only ; but epidemic diseases are capable of affecting the same
person repeatedly ; and, in point of fact, the same person is often
attacked, several times auceessively, by the ssnie disease, during
the prevalence of the same epidemic. Were such a disease capable
of propagation by contagion, it is obvious that it would be impos-
able to set any bounds to its ravages. Every person in health,
who came within a certain distance of the deceased, would become
affected; these would communicate it to others; as the disease
spread, no person in society could long continue beyond the sphere
of its influence; the separation of the healthy front the sick would
be impossible; no one could remain healthy, because even those
who had had the disease would be again and again seized by it.
Whilst a single individual of the community remained alive, it
could never cease. Had the contagion of the small-pax been ca-
pable of affecting the same person repeatedly, on precautions could
possibly have prevented it from being in a owe of constant circu-
lation ; wherever it once broke out it was never disappear, so
long as there was a healthy person to be seized. Fortunately fur the
butnan race, epidemic diseases do not t: us spread--do not thus per-
petuate their devastation. Even in the places and the seSsans in
which they exert their most powerft.l and malignant influence, the
number of individuals is always small, compared with the bulk of
the community which remains unaffected ; and, is has been al-
ready stated, it is precisely at the period when the greatest number
are attacked, and when the greatest number perish, that is, when
the contagious influence, if it really existed, must be most exten-
sive and most active, that these maladies rapidly decline and sud-
denly cease. This fact, as has been already shown, is utterly in-
compatible, and is acknowledged to be so, with the property of
contagion : it is clone decisive of the question."
This subject is of such extreme public interest, and is so
soon to be brought under the consideration of the.Legisla-
tore, that we shall take the very earliest opportenity of
recurring to it.