Dr. Russel complains of the French physicians at Marseilles having made unfair representations; particularly that while they produce as irrefragable arguments against contagion their own escape unhurt, amid circumstances of supposed danger, they pass slightly over, or omit all mention of numbers of the medical assistants whom they saw perish in the exercise of their profession. M. Dedier, however, who at first opposed the doctrine of infection, at last renounced his opinions so far as to allow that the disease might be communicated to dogs by injecting pestiferous bile into their veins; and he likewise admitted that it might be communicated from one human creature to another, by drawing in for a considerable time the breath of a diseased person, putting on his shirt, lying in the same bed-clothes, and touching the wounded parts of one’s own body with hands embrued with the sweat or blood of one infected. He affirms, however, that the atmosphere of a person in the plague is no more to be dreaded than that of a venereal patient; and that the touching or dressing of buboes or carbuncles is not attended with any danger. He restricts the infectious quality of the humours to the bile; but the _inoculation_ of a person by the matter of a pestilential ulcer[97] undoubtedly decides this point against him. [97] See p. 196. On the subject of contagion Dr. Russel observes, that the vague manner in which the word has been used has given rise to much confusion. Some, taking advantage of the inaccurate mode of expression on this subject used by Dr. Mead, attacked him with sophistical nonsense. The following may serve as a specimen, from a pamphlet entitled “Distinct Notions of the Plague, &c. by the _Explainer_.” This _explainer_ observes, that, according to Dr. Mead, “air and his other causes propagate and spread contagion, not the plague; and therefore either contagion and the plague are the same, or else the plague is not considered; if the first, then his causes propagate the plague; and the plague accompanies the plague; an excellent defence! But, if the plague is out of the play, then contagion accompanies nothing.”--From writers like this we certainly can expect nothing.