The cases began to be sent to the hospital on the 27th May, 1796, and an attempt was made to extinguish contagion in the houses, by white-washing, disinfecting and the like; so that in the same group of streets there were only 25 cases of fever from 13 July, 1794 to 13 March, 1797. Meanwhile the admissions to the hospital were few until the dearth of 1799-1802. One of the manufacturing towns which is known to have shared in the epidemic fever of 1794-96 was Ashton-under-Lyne, where upwards of three hundred cases (with few deaths) occurred in less than three months at the end of 1795. This epidemic must have been somewhat special to Ashton, for it produced much alarm in neighbouring places and caused Ashton to be avoided from fear of infection. Shortly after 1796, Ferriar made an inquiry into an epidemic of fever at a village within a mile of Manchester; the houses were many of them new, built for the convenience of a large cotton mill; but even the new houses were offensive, with cellars occupied by lodgers, and almost every house overcrowded. This was the first fever in the village, and it was traced to a family who had come from Manchester with infected clothes. Stockport about the same time erected a House of Recovery, having “the same general causes of fever which render the disease so common in Manchester”; and Ferriar adds: “I believe there is not a town in the kingdom containing four thousand inhabitants which would not be greatly benefited by similar establishments.” The bad harvest of 1794 raised the price of wheat to 55_s._ 7_d._ on 1 January, 1795, and the prospect of another short harvest to 77_s._ 2_d._ on 1 July. A famine being threatened, the Government caused neutral ships bound to French ports with corn to be seized, and brought into English ports, the owners receiving an ample profit. Agents were also sent to the Baltic to buy corn. By these means the price of wheat, which had risen in August to 108_s._ 4_d._, fell in October to 76_s._ 9_d._ Parliament met on the 29th October, and various measures were taken[287]. In the spring of 1796, the climax of distress was reached, wheat being at 100_s._ per quarter. The harvest of 1796 was abundant and wheat fell to 57_s._ 3_d._ The harvests of 1797 and 1798 were not equally good, but they were not altogether bad, and the price of wheat kept about 50_s._ for nearly three years, which were years of comparative comfort between the dearth of 1794-96 and the dearth of 1799-1802. Fevers in the Dearth of 1799-1802.