new clothes (their old ones having been previously burnt, as well as their furniture, &c.) and have their houses well fumigated. Besides all this, it will further be proper to make a strict search for several months after, in order to be satisfied that the contagion is not concealed in any part of the town, and that nobody has locked up infected clothes or goods in chests, trunks, &c. or hidden them in any other places; for the plague might, when least apprehended, spring up again from such a source. The pestilential germ confined in clothes or bales of merchandise acquires a greater degree of virulence, and may in that manner be transported to very great distances, and be preserved for a great length of time. The deadly power of this poison is so much increased by being shut up in bales of goods closely packed and well defended from the air, that there are instances of persons who were seized with the most violent symptoms and suddenly killed, on opening them[69]. In the last century, a twelvemonth after the plague had ceased at Warsaw, _Erndtel_, who relates the following anecdote, passed through that town in order to attend the Court to Marienburgh and Dantzic: in the town of Langenfurt, a coachman's wife, being near the time of her lying-in, brought with her in the month of October a mattress on which some persons, who had died of the plague a year before, had lain. Having made use of it, she was soon seized with the same disorder, accompanied with inguinal buboes, and was shortly afterwards delivered; but an hæmorrhage from the womb coming on, she died, as well as the child. The husband, also, died soon after, having buboes and carbuncles; and many other persons caught the infection, which proved fatal to more than twenty of them. This contagion continued to manifest itself until the month of February, without, however, occasioning any more deaths, the persons belonging to the Court being dispersed in different villages and country seats. It ceased altogether in the beginning of March[70]. After the plague has spread itself and become prevalent, its progress is resisted with much more difficulty, and it threatens to become a general calamity. We must not, however, wholly despair; for if, on the one hand, the Magistrates and the Committee of Health exert themselves to the utmost, and on the other, the inhabitants are tractable, the evil may yet be suppressed, especially if the season be favourable. The first object of attention is, to prevent it from being carried into the neighbourhood and other places. To this end, it will be proper to make known in a printed declaration, that the disorder which rages is the plague; that the contagion does not exist in the air, and is only communicated by contact of the sick and infected goods: In this advertisement the inhabitants should be called upon to obey punctually the orders which may be given for the safety of the public at large, as