[30] According to the returns made to the Council of Health, and published by _Orræus_ (Descriptio Pestis, p. 48,) the number of persons carried off by the plague at Moscow in the year 1771, did not amount to more than fifty-six thousand seven hundred and seventy-two. It is to be remarked, however, that this list of deaths is dated only from the month of April, whereas the plague broke out in the cloth-manufactory in the beginning of March. Indeed, _Orræus_ himself acknowledges, (p. 49,) that a much greater number than what appears from the reports laid before the Council must have died of the plague, as, on pulling down the houses in different parts of the city, so many dead bodies were found that had been secretly interred, and as, moreover, in the beginning of the disorder, the returns were very inaccurately made. Tr. [31] These towns did not suffer greatly from the plague, as the inhabitants took warning from the unhappy fate of Moscow, and attended to the necessary precautions from the beginning. It was more destructive in the villages, and particularly in those that were at the greatest distance from Moscow. [32] I mean those physicians who, with myself, remained in the town; but not such as had the care of the pest-hospitals. [33] Although the atmosphere may not be capable of communicating the pestilential contagion beyond a very limited distance from its source, yet to approach so near as within a foot of the infected, appears to us (notwithstanding the present instance to the contrary) to be a practice not generally safe. Dr. _Russell_ proceeded with more caution in his examinations of the infected at Aleppo. He prescribed to most of his patients out of a window, about fifteen feet above them. A stair passed near one of the windows, by which he had such of the infected, whose eruptions he wanted to examine, brought within a smaller distance, viz. within four or five feet. _Russell_, on the Plague, book I. ch. vi. Tr. [34] Almost all the youngest children were out at nurse in the country. (Mr. _Coxe_ relates, that, at the time he was at Moscow, this noble institution contained three thousand foundlings. Tr.) [35] See Addenda, D. [36] It is remarkable, that it is towards the summer-solstice, according to _Russell_ (Natural History of Aleppo) and _Prosper Alpinus_ (Medicina Ægyptiorum) that the plague generally ceases in Asia and Africa; whilst in Europe it rages with the greatest fury at that season, and is only subdued by the winter-cold.