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air is better fitted for attracting and suspending contagious vapours, than when dried either by excefsive heat or cold. A hot summer causes the plague to Cease at Constantinople, as readily as a cold winter, and indeed more so, because furs and woollen clothes, the great retainers of contagion, are more used in winter than, summer.

12th. Air being heavier, and more loaded with vapours as it approaches nearer to the earth, may be the reason why the influenza commonly seizes first upon dogs and horses, and why it is considered as more wholesome to live in an upper story, than on the ground floor of a house..

13th. The most successful prescription, and one to which physicians are driven when colds are very obstinate, is country air. May not its efficacy in curing the distemper proceed as much from its being lefs impregnated with contagious vapours, as from its being purer in other respects?

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14th. Certain habits of body expose some individuals of a family to catch cold more readily than others living in the same house, and breathing the same air. May not this rather prove that the distemper is not very contagious, than that it is not contagious in any degree?

15th. It has been observed that damp bed linen, in the country, is apt to occasion disorders in the bowels; but that in towns it is apter to produce coughs That, at sea, being wet occasions rheumatisms sometimes, but never colds. Hence the observation that being wet with salt water is not so dangerous as with fresh.

16th. May not the great care of the police of Spain have extirpated coughs from that kingdom, as the plague has been from that and the other kingdoms of Europe? Is it too late to try whether the same care " would not produce the same effect in our island?

17th. Those who have lived for these last forty years, have seen the sting drawn out of many distempers, formerly considered as mortal. How many fevers have been cured or prevented by the Jesuits bark, Dr James's powders, and other antimonial preparations! How many cholics have been cured by laudanum! And how many lives have been saved by innoculating for the small pox! What good has not Goulard's extract of lead done in the cure of inveterate sores, and recent wounds, and strains, and bruises! Why despair of eradicating colds also?

18th. If we examine the bills of mortality, or re-› collect the events within our own circle, we shall find there is no distemper more fatal to human life than colds. With the young it is apt to degenerate into a consumption. To the old and infirm, it is almost certain death. For being attended with some degree of fever, and occasioning great bodily concufsion, it frequently proves too violent to be resisted by persons infeebled either by age, or a weakly habit of body, in so much that we consider it as an effort of strength, and a piece of good fortune for such people

to turn the winter.

19th.Every climate has its drawbacks. Many climates are more genial than that of Great Britain; yet, upon the whole, few are more fit for the habitation of man-> kind. Exempted from extremes of every kind, from

scorching heats in sunimer, and keen frost in winter, were it not for the very distemper in question, there is no climate in which human life might be protracted to a greater length, nor whose longevity would be attended with fewer drawbacks and inconveniencies. Hence the importance of discovering the true cause, and consequently the best method of curing, and even eradicating, by degrees, this distemper from the catalogue of British diseases, as the plague and leprosy have been.

20th. I would propose that the faculty fhould bend their whole attention to observe whether this distemper be contagious or not: That a society and correspondence be established for the purpose: That the result of the observations made over the whole island, or perhaps over all Europe, be digested and published.

21st. Should those observations afford rational grounds for believing the distemper to be contagious, I should then propose, that the Faculty ordered all their patients to country quarters, as soon as unequivocal symptoms of a cold appeared: That the greatest attention should be paid to washing all the linen, and airing, and even fumigating the woollen and cotton clothes of the convalescents before returning to

town.

22d. For the poorer sort, by a small subscription, they might be enabled to retire to cottager's houses in the country, who, we may presume, would not be unwilling to receive, for payment, such guests; and on such occasions proper measures might be devised

for purifying their clothes and the furniture of the chambers they inhabited.

23d. Pains might also be taken to introduce the custom of airing and fumigating, during the course of the summer, the clothes which were worn in winter, and the same precaution might be used as to beds and furniture.

24th. A clerygman, whom I know, causes his beadle to open the doors and the windows of his church, every fine day, through the course of the week, and seems to think there is lefs coughing in his church than before; though the fhort while he has tried this experiment prevents his speaking with great certainty on the subject. He is certain, however, that coughing has not increased since he began this practice.

It would be safe therefore to recommend this experiment to be tried in all our churches, playhouses, coffeehouses, and other places of public resort.

25th. The mortality occasioned by putrid fevers in Batavia is well known. There is scarce a family which has not lost some of its members or connections, in the sea-faring line, who have touched at that port. The cause of this mortality was not discovered till of late, that the doctrine of the contagiousness of such putrid distempers has been established. There is in the great city of Batavia but one public hotel for the reception of strangers. The right of keeping this hotel is farmed by the government. The governor, and higher members of the Dutch council, there, fhare in the profits of this farm. Private houses are therefore forbidden, un

VOL. X.

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der severe penalties, to let lodgings to strangers, and strangers who arrive at Batavia, are frequently put into the beds and apartments from whence those who have died of putrid fevers have been removed, only the day before. There is said to be the lefs pains taken to clean these apartments, that considerable perquisites arise to the landlord and his servants from the death of their guests. This is certain, that the people of higher ranks in Batavia, who can afford villas, to which they resort every night, after their businefs in town is over, live as long, and enjoy as good health, as in any spot on the globe.

If these rude hints fhould serve to excite our attention to the cause of colds; and lead either to a more efficacious method of cure, or to lefsen the frequency of the distemper, the writer will have attained his object, in requesting the favour of your inserting them in your useful paper. I am, Mr Bee, Yours,

PULMONICUS.

SIR,

ON LEASES.

To the Editor of the Bee.

PERMIT me, through the channel of your very useful paper, to exprefs my sentiments upon the subject of lands let upon lease. I fhall inquire into the advantages and disadvantages both of long and of fhort leases, and make some observations intended for the benefit both of proprietors and tenants.

Many proprietors, of every rank in this kingdom, have let the whole or part of their lands upon long leases; some for thirty-eight years and a life, and some

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