Chapter I: Preface

The Author trusts that the importance and the accuracy of the facts which have been detailed in the following Work may, in some measure, counterbalance the many defects which will doubtless present themselves to the reader.

The progress of the Work has been interrupted, on innumerable occasions, by the unceasing labours incident to the life of a country medical practitioner; and though many of the facts and arguments which have been used, have long obtained the author’s attentive consideration, their reduction to the present form has only now been accomplished during the short intervals which he has seized, after the fatigues of the day had been concluded.

The author relies with some confidence on that indulgence which he hopes will be extended to the work of one who contributes, for useful purposes, the results of his experience, derived from an intimate knowledge of the condition, habits, health and diseases of the various classes of the population of a considerable extent of country, of which his situation has put him in possession.

S. S. A.

TRANENT, _March 1839_.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

INTRODUCTION Page 1 CHAP. I. Prevalence of Doctrine of Atmospheric Contagion, Injury to Patient, Attendants, and Visitors 7 CHAP. II. Medicine retarded—Forms of Contagion 18 CHAP. III. Historical Sketch 25 CHAP. IV. The Absence of Sufficient Evidence of the Existence of Atmospheric Contagion 36 CHAP. V. Contagious Poisons—Non-Solution in the Air—Results of Experiments 40 CHAP. VI. Contagious Poisons, compared with Yeast—Does that agent assume the Aeriform State? 50

PART II.

CHAP. I. The Negation of Atmospheric Contagion from the History
and Actual Observation of Disease 56
CHAP. II. The Evidence drawn from Disease attacking the
Relatives, Attendants, and Visitors of the Sick, in favour of
Atmospheric Contagion, considered—Facts explained 67
CHAP. III. The argument drawn in favour of the Propagation of
Disease by Atmospheric Contagion, from Disease appearing in
previously Healthy Houses and Localities to which Persons
sick, or lately so, have been removed 86
CHAP. IV. There is no evidence that Atmospheric Contagion
travels, or is communicated from one place to another 89