An account of the experiment made at the desire of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on board the Union Hospital Ship, to determine the effect of the nitrous acid in destroying contagion .. : in a letter addressed to the Right Hon. Earl Spencer.

James Carmichael Smyth

Date:: 1796

Credit: An account of the experiment made at the desire of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on board the Union Hospital Ship, to determine the effect of the nitrous acid in destroying contagion .. : in a letter addressed to the Right Hon. Earl Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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$[ 22 ] from his letters, fome of which you have already feen, and which are now arranged according to the order of time in which they were written. Mr. BafTan’s ccnduft, my Lord, through the whole of this bufinefs, does him the higheft honor, and cannot fail to recom- mend him to your Lordfhip’s notice. When the contagion at firft began to Ipread among the fhip’s company of the Union, he was importuned, by the warrant officers and others, to fend them on fhore to fick quarters, which he peremptorily refufed, faying, with the true fpirit of a Britifh failor : ** It is better we ffiould all perifh, “ than have fuch a contagious fever as “ this difleminated in our fleet.” He ac- cordingly made application to the Com- mander in Chief, and not a man was fent out of the {hip. His humanity and care of the fick, Mr. Menzies mentions in the warmefl: terms of praife, and his fuccefs- ful treatment of them, is the belt teftimony r v ; *, * «• l I # I • * * • » .... . _ /$