to the disease in the space of seven months. A similar prepossession induced the faculty of Sicily to declare the Plague which ravaged Messina in 1743, _not_ to be contagious, but the loss of _Forty-three Thousand_ lives gave a practical refutation to the hypothesis. In our own times, a work characterised by singular arrogance and sophistry, has appeared from the pen of Dr. _Charles Maclean_,[179] the object of which is to shew that “a belief in the contagious nature of the Plague constitutes one of the most destructive errors in the whole circle of human opinions;” in the very commencement of this work he betrays an ignorance which is not uncommonly associated with that species of unbecoming confidence, which so strikingly characterises the writings of this author. “It is unequivocally ascertained,” says he, “that the doctrine of contagion, as the cause of epidemic diseases, was unknown to the ancient physicians; by whom these maladies were expressly attributed to the air:” and he then proceeds to state that the prevalent notion of contagion being an inherent quality of pestilential fever, is derived from a Popish plot of the sixteenth century; an assertion which has not even the merit of originality[180]. _Hippocrates_ and _Celsus_ do not certainly take any notice of the subject of contagion; but _Aristotle_, _Thucydides_, _Livy_, _Virgil_, _Lucretius_, _Ovid_, _Galen_, and _Arctæus_ all contain passages which prove most unequivocally their belief in the contagious nature of Epidemics; the limits of this work will not allow us to be prodigal in illustrations, we must therefore refer the reader to a very interesting memoir upon the subject by Dr. _Yeats_. (_Journal of Science and the Arts._) With respect to the work of Dr. _Maclean_ we would further observe, that he has artfully brought together all those facts which are calculated to afford any support to his doctrine, while he has so ingeniously tortured those that make against it, as to disguise their force and true bearings. Mr. _Tully_[181] has lately furnished the public with some striking instances of the total want of candour with which Dr. _Maclean_ pursued his researches, but the fact is that he determined on the Plague being _non_-contagious long before he ever visited those countries where it prevails; and hence all the advantages which he possessed, and the opportunities of investigation which his residence in the Levant afforded, have not contributed one fact to the elucidation of the subject, but have, on the contrary, thrown additional obstacles in the path of the honest inquirer.—What can be the organization of that man’s mind, who goes into the Greek Pest Hospital at Constantinople, and, according to his own statement, is attacked on the fifth day after he entered it, with the Plague, and yet continues to assert that the malady is _non-contagious_?