[33] Although the atmosphere may not be capable of communicating the pestilential contagion beyond a very limited distance from its source, yet to approach so near as within a foot of the infected, appears to us (notwithstanding the present instance to the contrary) to be a practice not generally safe. Dr. Russell proceeded with more caution in his examinations of the infected at Aleppo. He prescribed to most of his patients out of a window, about fifteen feet above them. A stair passed near one of the windows, by which he had such of the infected, whose eruptions he wanted to examine, brought within a smaller distance, viz. within four or five feet. Russell, on the Plague, book I. ch. vi. Tr.
[34] Almost all the youngest children were out at nurse in the country.
(Mr. Coxe relates, that, at the time he was at Moscow, this noble institution contained three thousand foundlings. Tr.)
[36] It is remarkable, that it is towards the summer-solstice, according to Russell (Natural History of Aleppo) and Prosper Alpinus (Medicina Ægyptiorum) that the plague generally ceases in Asia and Africa; whilst in Europe it rages with the greatest fury at that season, and is only subdued by the winter-cold.
[37] From the author’s expressions in this place, the reader might be led to believe that he meant to restrict the communication of infection to contact of the sick and infected goods; but in other parts of his book, he admits the possibility of the contagion being communicated by the breath and other effluvia from the sick. Indeed there can be no doubt that the pestilential particles are (especially in the worst forms of the disease) contained in the moisture perspired through the skin, and in the vapour emitted from the lungs. If not, where was the use of the precaution, which the author adopted in his own person, of holding a handkerchief moistened with vinegar before the mouth and nose on approaching the sick? The conclusion, from all this is, that the sphere of contagion in cases of the plague, extends to a greater distance (several feet at least) than Dr. Mertens imagines. Tr.
[38] For a more particular account of the symptoms, see Addenda, [A].
[39] The author did not venture to feel the pulse of those impested patients who were under his own care, lest he should take infection. As the observations communicated to him by others on this head, which he has inserted in his book, coincide with those of Orræus and Samoïlowitz, which we shall afterwards notice, we have omitted them, to avoid repetition. Tr.
[40] It will be sufficient for readers in this country to refer to Sydenham’s works, Sect. II. Cap. II. without transcribing the quotation which the author has introduced in this place. Sydenham observes of the London plague (1665), that it was most suddenly mortal in the beginning; whereas the Russian plague was the most rapid in its action when it was at its height. Dr. Mertens reconciles this contrariety of observation, by remarking that the London plague began in the summer, a season the most favourable for its activity. Tr.
[41] The description and treatment of the buboes, carbuncles, and other eruptions, which are to be found in every treatise on the Plague, the translator has purposely omitted, that the pamphlet might not be swelled out to an unnecessary bulk.