The term PLAGUE has been applied to various epidemical diseases attended with great mortality; and we find in the Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin, and in all the other ancient languages with which we are acquainted, words having a corresponding import, and signifying, generally, an extensive and destroying malady. It appears, however, that these raging epidemics have consisted of different maladies in different instances, having been sometimes the _Remittent Fever_ originating from marsh effluvia, and sometimes the true _Plague_, modified by circumstances and situations: even in our own times some doubt has existed respecting the true nature of the different pestilences which have raged in Europe.[174] The term PLAGUE is now more correctly limited in its acceptation, and it is exclusively understood to denote “_a contagious and malignant fever, which is accompanied by buboes and carbuncles_.”[175] As the nature of maladies of high degree virtually includes that of all minor affections, the Plague, in its relations to the doctrine of Contagion, may on this occasion be considered as the representative of every species of Typhus; while for the same reason the Pestilential Epidemic which is generally known by the name of the YELLOW FEVER may be regarded as including in its history all the subordinate varieties of _Bilious Remittents_. It is scarcely necessary to observe that it would be as foreign to the object of this work, as incompatible with the plan of its execution, to enter into any historical details upon the subject of Pestilence, or upon the controversies which have been carried on respecting the manner in which Epidemics are propagated; nor is such a review now required to complete the medical literature of the subject; for Dr. _Hancock_[176] has lately supplied the chasm by a very able critical examination of the principal writers which have appeared at different times on the subject of Epidemic and Pestilential diseases, and to this work we beg to direct the reader’s attention, although as medical Jurists we are not disposed to concur in those half measures of _Quarantine_ which the result of his researches might incline some to adopt. We may state in general terms, that the concurrent testimony of different ages and countries sanctions the opinion that Plague arises from specific contagion—is communicated _immediately_ by contact,[177] or _mediately_ by the agency of infected goods[178] (_Fomites_); and that its progress may be arrested by a vigilant system of Police, cutting off every communication between the infected and the healthy. The contagious nature of Plague has however been denied, and many thousand lives have paid the forfeit of the delusion; it was thus during the Plague of Marseilles in 1720, that in consequence of the physicians in Paris having decided against its contagious nature, a plan, in conformity with that opinion was adopted in the treatment of the sick, and _Sixty Thousand_ people fell victims