No Manner of _Compassion_ and _Care_ should be wanting to the _Diseased_; to whom, being now in _clean_ and _airy_ Habitations, there would, with due Cautions, be no great Danger in giving Attendance. All Expences should be paid by the Publick, and no Charges ought to be thought great, which are counterbalanced with the saving a Nation from the greatest of Calamities. Nor does it seem to me at all unreasonable, that a _Reward_ should be given to the Person, that makes the first Discovery of _Infection_ in any Place; since it is undeniable, that the making known the _Evil_ to those, who are provided with proper Methods against it, is the first and main Step towards the overcoming it. When the _Sick Families_ are gone, all the Goods of the Houses, in which they were, should be _burnt_; nay the Houses themselves, if that can conveniently be done. And after this all possible Care ought still to be taken to remove whatever Causes are found to breed and promote _Contagion_. In order to this, the _Overseers_ of the Poor (who might be assisted herein by other Officers) should visit the Dwellings of all the meaner sort of the Inhabitants, and where they find them _stifled up too close_ and _nasty_, should lessen their Number by sending some into better Lodgings, and should take Care, by all Manner of Provision and Encouragement, to make them more _cleanly_ and _sweet_. No good Work carries its own Reward with it so much as this kind of _Charity_; and therefore be the Expence what it will, it must never be thought unreasonable. For nothing approaches so near to the first Original of _Contagion_, as Air pent up, loaded with Damps, and corrupted with the Filthiness, that proceeds from _Animal Bodies_. Our common _Prisons_ afford us an Instance of this, in which very few escape, what they call the _Gaol Fever_, which is always attended with a Degree of _Malignity_ in proportion to the _Closeness_ and _Stench_ of the Place: And it would certainly very well become the Wisdom of the Government, as well with Regard to the Health of the _Town_, as in Compassion to the _Prisoners_, to take Care, that all _Houses of Confinement_ should be kept as Airy and Clean, as is consistent with the Use, to which they are designed. The _Black Assize_ at _Oxford_, held in the Castle there in the Year 1577, will never be forgot[16]; at which the _Judges_, _Gentry_, and almost all that were present, to the Number of 300, were killed by a _poysonous Steam_, thought by some to have broke forth from the _Earth_; but by a _noble_ and _great_ Philosopher[17] more justly supposed to have been brought by the _Prisoners_ out of the _Goal_ into _Court_; it being observed, that they alone were not injured by it.