men; and they must in convenient warehouses be unpacked, and expofed, as much as may be, to the fresh air for forty days. This may perhaps feem too long; but as we do not know how much time precifely is neceffary to purge the interstices of fpongy substances from infectious matter by fresh air, the caution cannot be too great in this point. Certainly the time here propofed, having been long established by general custom, ought not in the leaft to be retrenched; unless there could be a way found out of trying when bodies have ceafed to emit the noxious fumes. Poffibly this might be discovered by putting tender animals near to them, particularly little birds: because it has been obferved, in times of the plague, that the country has been forfaken by the birds; and thofe kept in houfes have many of them died *. Now, if it fhould be found, that birds let loofe among goods at the beginning of their quarantine, are obnoxious to the contagion in them, it may be known, in good measure, when fuch goods are become clean, by repeating the trial till birds let fly among them receive no hurt. But the ufe of this expedient can be known only by experience. In the mean time, I own I am fond of the thought, in compaffion to poor labourers, who muft expofe their lives to danger, in the attendance upon this work and though I am well aware that there are plagues among animals, which do not indifferently affect all kinds of them, fome being confined to a particular fpecies, (like the difeafe of the black cattle here, a few years fince, which neither proved infectious to other brutes, nor to men); yet it has al*Diemerbroeck de pefte, 1. i. c. 4. : ways ways been obferved that the true plague among men has been deftructive to all creatures of what kind fo ever. A very remarkable ftory, lately communicated to me by a perfon of undoubted credit, is too much to the purpose to be here omitted. The fact is this. In the year 1726, an Englifh fhip took in goods at Grand Cairo, in the time of the plague's raging there, and carried them to Alexandria. Upon opening one of the bales of wool in a field, two Turks employed in the work were immediately killed; and fome birds, which happened to fly over the place, dropped down dead. However, the ufe of quarantines is not wholly fruftrated by our ignorance of the exact time required for this purification: fince the quarantine does at least ferve as a trial whether goods are infected or not; it being hardly poffible that every one of those who are obliged to attend upon them, can efcape hurt if they are fo. And, whenever that happens, the goods must be destroyed. I take it for granted, that the goods fhould be opened, when they are put into the lazaretto, otherwife their being there will avail nothing. This is the constant practice in the ports of Italy. That it is fo at Leghorn, appears by the acount lately published of the manner in which quarantines are there performed and I find, that the fame rule is observed at Venice, from an authentic paper I have before me, containing the methods made ufe of in that city, where quarantines have been injoined ever fince the year 1484; at which time, as far as I can learn, they were first inftitituted in Europe. In that place all bales bales of cotton, of camel's or of beaver's hair, and the like, are ript open from end to end, and holes made in them by the porters every day, into which they thrust their naked arms, in order that the air may have free access to every part of the goods. That fome fuch cautions as thefe ought not to be omitted, is clearly proved by the misfortune which happened in the ifland of Bermudas about the year 1695; where, as the account was given me by the learned Dr Halley, a fack of cotton put on fhore by ftealth, lay above a month without any prejudice to the people of the houfe where it was hid: but when it came to be diftributed among the inhabitants, it carried fuch a contagion along with it, that the living fcarce fufficed to bury the dead. This relation Dr Halley received from Captain Tucker of Bermudas, brother to Mr Tucker, late under-fecretary in our fecretary's office. Indeed, as it has been frequently experienced, that of all the goods which harbour infection, cotton in particular is the most dangerous, and Turky is almost a perpetual feminary of the plague; I cannot but think it highly reafonable, that whatever cotton. is imported from that part of the world, should at all times be kept in quarantine; because it may have imbibed infection at the time of its packing up, notwithstanding no mifchief has been felt from it by the ship's company. And the length of time from its being packed up to its arrival here, is no certain fecurity that it is cleared from the infection. leaft, it is found, that the time employed by fhips in paffing between Turky and Marseilles, is not long enough for goods to lose their infection: as appears At not not only from the late inftance, but alfo from an observation made in a certain memorial drawn up by the deputy of trade at Marseilles *. Marfeilles is the only port in France allowed to receive goods from the Levant, on account of its fingular convenience for quarantines, by reafon of feveral fmall islands fituate about it. The ports of France in the western ocean having had a defire to be allowed the fame liberty, their deputies prefented, in the year 1701, a memorial to the royal council of trade, containing feveral reafons for their pretenfions. To this the deputy at Marseilles makes reply in the memorial I am speaking of, in which this advantage of Marseilles for quarantines above the other ports, is much infifted upon: and, to evince the importance thereof, it is declared in exprefs words, that many times perfons have been found in that place to die of the plague in their attendance upon goods under quarantine, Now, if it be certain, that goods have retained infection during their paffage from Turky to Marseilles; it is too hardy a prefumption to be admitted in an affair fo important as this, that they muft neceffarily lose all contagion in the time of their coming to us, because the voyage is fomething longer. But befides this, there are fome few inftances of goods, that have retained their infection many years. In particular, Alex. Benedictus gives a very distinct relation of a feather-bed, that was laid by feven years on fufpicion of its being infected, which produced mifchievous effects at the end of that great length of time . And Sir Theodore Mayerne relates, that Memorials prefented by the deputies of the council of trade, in France, to the royal council, pag. 44. and 45% + Alex. Benedict. de pefte, cap. 3. fome fome cloaths fouled with blood and matter from plague-fores being lodged between matting and the wall of a house in Paris, gave the plague feveral years after to a workman, who took them out, which prefently spread through the city *. What makes cotton fo eminently dangerous, is its great aptitude to imbibe and retain any fort of effluvia near it; of which I have formerly made a particular experiment, by caufing fome cotton to be placed for one day near a piece of putrefying flesh from an amputated limb, in a bell-glafs, but without touching it; for the cotton imbibed so strong a taint, that being put up in a clofe box, it retained its offenfive fcent above ten months, and would, I believe, have kept it for years. If, instead of the fumes of putrefied ficfh from a found body, this cotton had been thus impregnated with the fumes of corrupted matter from one fick of the plague; I make no doubt but it would have communicated infection. And the experiment would have fucceeded alike in both cases, if instead of cotton, filk, wool, or hair, had been inclosed in the veffel; animal fubftances being the most apt to attract the volatile particles, which come from bodies of the fame nature with themselves. As all reasonable provifions fhould be made both for the found and fick, who perform quarantine; fo the strict keeping of it ought to be enforced by the feverest penalties. And if a fhip comes from any place, where the plague raged, at the time of the hip's departure from it, with more than ufual vio * In a paper of advice againft the Plague, laid before the king and council by Sir Theod. Mayerne, in the year 1631. MS. VOL. II. K lence; |