It is to the third mode, viz. atmospheric contagion, that we object. We question its existence for these reasons, first, That in the whole course of its history, it fails to supply us with sufficient evidence thereof; secondly, That its supposed career is not marked with the same uniformity of effect, and constancy of character, cognisable among other powerful agents, but appears rather to be regulated by no fixed laws; thirdly, That the phenomena of disease do not go to shew that it is dependent on atmospheric contagion, the occurrence and dissemination of which, moreover, it could not explain.
We are further disposed to deny its existence at all, for this reason, that its admission is opposed to the testimony of direct observation and of experiments instituted for the purpose.
CHAPTER III.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
In the Old Testament, frequent allusion is made to contagion, particularly in Leviticus, where directions are given for the expurgation, from the system, of that principle; for the isolation of persons possessed of it; and the cleansing of garments therewith infected.
The earliest Grecian historians make reference to it, and Thucydides, in his History of the Plague, attributes some occurrences in its career, to the operation of that principle.
Dr Winterbottom[[1]] writes thus, of an ancient physician—“Aratæus says, that the miserable patients (those ill of Elephantiasis), were banished into deserts, or to the top of mountains, where the kindness of their friends occasionally attended their distresses; though perhaps they were more frequently deserted.”
[1]. Dr Winterbottom on Sierra Leone.
Cælius Aurelianus, a noted physician, says—“Some advise that a person labouring under this disease, should be turned out of town, if a stranger, or if an inhabitant, be banished to some distant part; others advise the patient to be totally abandoned.”
These expressions relate to contagion generally.
Atmospheric contagion is not specified, though perhaps even then, it may have been thought to exist.