Fear had an extraordinary effect in disposing the body to receive the infection; and those who were subject thereto, invariably caught the malady, which was for the most part fatal. At the breaking out of the plague at Mogodor, there were two medical men, an Italian and a Frenchman, the latter, a man of science, a great botanist, and of an acute discrimination; they, however, did not remain, but took the first opportunity of leaving the place for Teneriffe, so that the few Europeans had no expectation of any medical assistance except that of the natives. Plaisters of gum ammoniacum, and the juice of the leaves of the opuntia, or kermuse ensarrah, i.e. prickly pear, were universally applied to the carbuncles, as well as the buboes, which quickly brought them to maturity: many of the people of property took copious draughts of coffee and Peruvian bark. The _Vinaigre de quatre voleurs_ was used by many, also camphor, smoking tobacco, or fumigations of gum Sandrac; straw was also burned by some, who were of opinion, that any thing which produced abundance of smoke, was sufficient to purify the air of pestilential effluvia. During the existence of the plague, I had been in the chambers of men on their death-bed: I had had Europeans at my table, who were infected, as well as Moors, who actually had buboes on them; I took no other precaution than that of separation, carefully avoiding to touch the hand, or inhale the breath; and, notwithstanding what may have been said, I am decidedly of opinion that the plague, at least this peculiar species of it, is not produced by any infectious principle in the atmosphere, but caught solely by touching infected substances, or inhaling the breath of those who are diseased; and that it must not be confounded with the common plague of Egypt, or Constantinople, being a malady of a much more desperate and destructive kind. It has been said, by persons who have discussed the nature and character of the plague, that the cultivation of a country, the draining of the lands, and other agricultural improvements, tend to eradicate or diminish it; but at the same time, we have seen countries depopulated where there was no morass, or stagnate water for many days journey, nor even a tree to impede the current of air, or a town, nor any thing but encampments of Arabs, who procured water from wells of a great depth, and inhabited plains so extensive and uniform, that they resemble the sea, and are so similar in appearance after, as well as before sun-rise, that if the eye could abstract itself from the spot immediately surrounding the spectator, it could not be ascertained whether it were sea or land. I shall now subjoin a few cases for the further elucidation of this distemper, hoping that the medical reader will pardon any inaccuracy originating from my not being a professional man.