Outlines of a plan calculated to put a stop to the progress of the malignant contagion, which rages on the shores of the Mediterranean, if, notwithstanding every precaution to the contrary, it should unfortunately make its way into this country / by Richard Pearson, M.D.
- Pearson, Richard
- Date:
- 1804
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Outlines of a plan calculated to put a stop to the progress of the malignant contagion, which rages on the shores of the Mediterranean, if, notwithstanding every precaution to the contrary, it should unfortunately make its way into this country / by Richard Pearson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![regulations for the removal of filth, rather than to the absence of an exciting cause (con- tagion] derived from other countries. That the closeness ancLconstruction of the houses and the narrowness and filthiness of the streets, of which the city of London con- sisted before the great fire in 1666, con- tributed in a very great degree to the spread- ing of contagion, and rendering a pesti- lence epidemic, is a point which cannot be controverted ; but it does not therefore fol- low that the contagion itself was originally bred at home, and not derived from some other country. And the fact recorded by Maitland, and quoted by Dr. Heberden, that for five-and-twenty years before the great fire, the city had never been clear of the plague, only proves that in conse- quence of the closeness of the buildings, and the narrowness and dirtiness of the streets, added to the defective modes of fumigation, it was not possible wholly to eradicate the contagion ; whence it conti- nued year after year to break out at the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21071767_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)