The Statesman.
London, England, 1821-10-13 00:00:00

who returned thanks in an eloquent and ener-
getic_ week which we regret we cannot give.
" Tnllet, Mr. Sudwortb, and success to the Plough
and the
31r.'FFe1N,g'r, in an eloquent and excellent speech, en-
forced npoi country gentlemen the necessity of exertion
in sending gash men to Parliament as would attend to
the interests of the country, rather than their own pri-
vate ensolosment, as the only means of redemption.
MV. 817111111101111 briefly returned thanks to the compa-
ny, and particularly to his Lordship, for his kindness in
connectiag his name with that of a gentleman so well
• known% tire agricultural world. Mr. Sudworth thee
begged leave to give—
" May the County of Chester be as rich in honest prin-
ciple, as in valuable produce."
At about half-past ten o'clock, Lord Grosvenor, Lord
Anson, Sir John Stanley, Sir Henry Bunbury, and some
other Gentlemen, mired from the company with mutual
gratulation., expressive of the sensible feelings upon
both the bility of the persons and of the prin.
riples disph, t the Meeting. In about half an hour
afterward., rd Crewe, with some other Gentlemen,
took leave of the company. His Lordship, in doing so,
declared in the most feeling and impressive manner," he
had spent one of the happiest evenings be bad expe-
rienced in his life."

THE PLAGUE OF PESTILENCE,
THE LONDON COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND

THE CITY OP BARCELONA.

TO TILE EDITOR OF THE STATESMAN.

LETTER 1.
London, October 10, 1021.
Silt-It is impossible for say man of ordinary
feelings of humanity to contemplate. without grief
and even horror. the proceedings, to which, under one
•,f the most preposterous, as well as the most stu-
nendons delusions that have ever disgraced the intel-
lect and destroyed the life of wan, the Christian Clo-
vernments of the ivorl,l continue, without due exami-
11.stion, to have such frequent recourse. I allude to
the prroavtioss employed against the phantom of con-
tagion in epidemic diseases, which I have, in so many
ways, irrefragably demonstrated to have no exist-
ence.

For many years, it has happened to me, regu-
lady and periodically, to be able to adduce every
mr.tann practical and historical proofs of the truth of
my conclusions, similar to those which are now aford-
e•! by the Fever of the Spanish Peninsula, of America,
and other places. The most essential of these con-
clusions are :-Ist, That a specific contagion does not,
and cannot possibly form the cause, or any pert of the
cause, of epidemic and pestilential diseases ; and.
2.11 y, That the means of prevention, founded on the
opposite conclusion, as quarantine, lazarettos, Sze. are,
ii.stcad of being useful or only simply useless, causes
of a great increase of sickness and mortality, fre-
quently even to the extent of nineteen-twentieths of
ti,e whole. Let us apply these doctrines to the Fever
at present prevailing in the Spanish Peninsula, in the
Lazaretto in Marseilles, and in other places. In the
first place, no conclusion ran he more absurd than that
u disease, which invariably appears about the com-
mencement of the autumnal season, and invariably
disappears- with the commencement of the winter,
should depend upon a specific contagion; and no con-
clusion cab be snore rational than that a malady regu-
larly so commencing and so disappearing, depends
upon the vicissitudes of temperature, and quali-
ties of the atmosphere, peculiar to the season,
together with circumstances of a Neal nature.—
Tta distinction between " infection of the air," ar.d
speeijic eontogion," is real and palpable ; they can
only he confounded purposely, or inconsequence of a la-
mentable confusion of ideas. The latter is propagated
from person to person, as small-pos, and cannot possibly
have any regard to season; the former is produced by
sudden or extreme vicissitudes of temperature, or noxi-
ous qualities oldie atmosphere, and must depend entirely
upon the nature of the season. In the one case, contact
of persons alone propagates the disease ; in the other,
the operation of the temperature and the atmosphere.—
These distinctions are clear, important, and consequen-
tial. But, how does it happen, we shall be asked by the
believers in contagion, as applied to epidemic diseases,
that the Las 'reit° of Marseilles should be more sickly
than any other part of the city ; and that in Barcelona
the mortality in Barcelonetta, the suburb which extends
along the harbour, should be greater than in other
parts of that town, if contagion be not the cause of the
disease, and if that contagion he not imported ? This
is taking for granted the question in dispute with a ven-
geance! Upon rational principles, if we can divest our
minds of the usual pre-conceived notions, the questions
are easily solved. The site of the Lazaretto at Mar-
seilles, and the suburb of Barcelona, called Barcelonetta,
would, from their lower situation, and greater damp-
ness, and more noxious air, be naturally the principal
sites of sickness and mortality in epidemics : and these
circumstances being the same, they would be equally so,
if not visited by a single ship from any quarter of the
world. But, if the lAsavetto at Marseilles were situated
on a bill, without any marshes in its immediate vicinity,
although it might contain the goods and crews of all
the ships of the Levant, it would never become the prin-
cipal focus of any epidemic disease. At Marseille:,
however, the disease is ridiculously &Hedged to have
come from Spain, as if a similar state of air, or similar
•ir:issitudes of temperature would net simultaneously
produce a Amidst disease at different places. " The
epidemic disorder, which ravages the coast of Spain,
has appeared io our Lazaretto. It was communicated
by a Swedish vessel—ethers say, by a Dasi:h—which
arrived here last week." This article is dated the 17th
of September, and was at first prevented from appear-
ing by the French Censors of the Press. It is in Sep-
tember generally, that the cause of epidemics operate
with most intensity in those latitudes ; it may with
certainty be predicted of the recent fever in the Penin-
sula, that it will spread, decline and cease, with the
changes etthe sesames usual; i. e., that it will con-
tinue to lioness in September, decline in October,
and cease in the course of November, or early in De-
cember. Whets variation' in these respects take place,
they are easily to be accounted for, by the casual va-
rieties la thu anal OWN a the vicissitudes of temper.
sty% or d the (polities of the air which distinguish
the mama reipeeihrely ; together with the state of
umaily called prodiermition, in which
general operatioe have left the
the is. TIN slum predictions will
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