OF INFECTION.

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mal countenances disturb the imagination of the patient, and de-press his spirits. Persons who are ill, especially in fevers, oughtto be kept as quiet as possible. The sight of strange faces, andevery thing that disturbs the mind hurts them.

The common practice in country places of inviting great num-bers of people to funerals, and crowding them into the same apart-ment where the corpse lies, is another way of spreading infection.The infection does not always die with the patient. Every thingthat comes into contact with his body while alive, receives thecontagion, and some of them, as clothes, blankets, &c. will retainit for a long time. Persons who die of infectious disorders oughtnot to lie long unburied; and people should keep as much aspossible at a distance from them.

It would tend greatly to prevent the spreading of infectious dis-eases, if those in health were kept at a proper distance from thesick. The Jewish legislator among many other wise institution*for preserving health, has been peculiarly attentive to the meansof preventing infection, or defilement as it is called, either from adiseased person or a dead body. In many cases the diseased wereto be separated from those in health ; and it was deemed a crimeeven to approach their habitations. If a person only touched adiseased or dead body, he was appointed to wash himself in water,and to keep for some time at a distance from society.

Infectious diseases are often communicated by clothes. It is ex-tremely dangerous to wear apparel which has been worn by thedeceased, unless it has been well washed and fumigated, as infec-tion may lodge a long time in it, and afterwards produce verytragical effects. This shews the danger of buying at random theclothes which have been worn by other people.

Infectious disorders are frequently imported. Commerce.together

with the riches of foreign climes, bring on also their diseases. Thesedo often more than counterbalance ail the advantages of that tradeby means of which they are introduced. It is to be regretted that solittle care is commonly bestowed, either to prevent the introductionor spreading of infectious maladies. Some attention, indeed, is ge-nerally paid to the plague; but other diseases pass unreguarded.

Were the tenth part "of the care taken to prevent the importationof diseases, that there is to prevent smuggling, it would be attend-ed with many happy consequences. This might easily be done byappointing a physician at every considerable sea-port, to inspectthe slap's company, passengers, &c. before they came ashore; andif any fever or other infectious disorder prevailed, to order theship to perform a short quarantine, and to send the sick to somehospital or proper place to be cured. He might likewise order allthe clothes, bedding, &c. which had been used by the sick dur-ing the voyage, to be either destroyed, or thoroughly cleansed byfumigation, &c. before any of them were sent ashore. A schemeof this kind, if properly conducted, would prevent many fevers,and other infectious diseases, from being brought by sailors into* v a-port towns, arnr by this means diffused all over the country.

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