CONTAGIOUS FEVER. This is still more certainly a produce of animals in a state of disease, and, properly, of mall alone, whatever analogies to it the epidemics of some animals may have. But it appears also to be generated, without previous fever, merely by the close confinement of many healthy persons in one place, or by the long ac cumulation of human effluvia from want of care and clean liness. There are not wanting analogies in the animal creation ; since, if healthy sheep are crowded together for a considerable time, they generate a contagious and deadly fever.
Like the poison of the plague, that of fever, and indeed of all the contagious diseases, admits of being permanently attached to many substances, and more particularly to wool, so as even to gain virulence, and to excite the spe cific disease at great distances of time. It may be re marked here, that ordinary putrid effluvia admit of the same attachment, whence our clothes retain the smell of such matters for a long time. Whatever be the nature of these compounds, they arc destroyed by heat, by venti lation, by water, and by exposure to the mineral acid va pours.
It is important to note this as a means of preventing the propagation of diseases so fatal. To destroy all matters of contagion in houses, ships, or generally in inanimate substances, the most efficacious and cheap substance is the sulphurous acid. This is readily produced by burn ing a mixture of two parts of sulphur in powder, with one of nitre, which burns out without the necessity of admit ting air. It should be placed in iron pots, in such places, that every part of the house, or ship, should be filled with it, taking care to stop all orifices or crevices by which it might escape. Furniture and clothes should be opened in such a manner as to give it free access to every thing; and the same should be clone with all recesses where the contagion might be suspected to remain. As the mate rials are cheap, it is better to err by excess than defect of quantity ; and with respect to that we can only give gene. ml rules. From four to six pounds of the mixture may serve for a room of ordinary size, so that what is required for a house may be computed accordingly. The rooms should be kept hermetrically closed for twelve hours. For a ship of 200 or 300 tons, from forty to fifty pounds may suffice. In ships, in particular, this practice is at tended with many other advantages ; as it kills equally all rats and insects, such as cockroaches, bugs, Scc. We
may add that, after we had introduced this practice into the transport service during the late war, not a single in stance occurred of a fever breaking out in the ships, though, before that, such accidents had been frequent and fatal.
This acid cannot be used for fumigations when human beings are present, on account of its poisonous effects ; but in these cases we can safely have recourse to the ni tric and oxymuriatic acid vapours. The muriatic is not more efficacious, and is much more intolerable to the lungs. The vapours of the nitric acid are easily pro duced by sulphuric acid and powdered nitre, and those of the oxymuriatic by the same substance, with' a mixture of two parts of common salt and one of manganese. The latter seems to be the most efficacious, and is the most convenient, as it requires no heat. As fumigations for in animate objects alone, these are as efficacious as the sul phurous acid, hut they are more expensive. We cannot recommend this practice too strongly ; as, since we have used it, we have never yet seen one instance where any contagious disease has been propagated, even in schools and hospitals As we need not enter into those minute details on this subject which rather belong to treatises on medicine, we shall content ourselves with barely naming the diseases which ot‘e their propagation to similar substances. The same general rules, whether as to their propagation or Lieic antidotes, apply alike to all ; and that their chemi cal natures must all differ, can admit of no doubt, how ever impossible, and, we may add, however hopeless, it may be to discover in what they really consist.
The specific contagithis best acknowledged, therefore, are those which produce small pox, measles, scarlatina, and hooping-cough. Dysentery belongs to fevers; and of others we need take no particular notice.
It is, however, interesting here to remark, that besides these specific poisons which act on the human body, there seems to be others peculiar to many classes of animals. But as in these cases it is not easy to distinguish between epidemic and contagious diseases, it may be most safe to refer these poisons to the next species, or the vegetable atmospheric poisons.