these vapours also, in a more diffused state, produced nausea, loss of appetite, and in the course of time, paleness of countenance, debility, tremors, &c. If farther evidence be required upon this subject, we have only to direct the reader’s attention to the effects occasioned by opening the graves in St. Dennis, and to which no allusion is made by _Dr. Bancroft_: the National Convention in the year 1793, in the true spirit of revolutionary ferocity, passed a decree upon the motion of _Barrère_, that the monuments of the Kings in this, as well as in all other places throughout France, should be destroyed. In carrying this decree into effect, the bodies of many of the latter Bourbons were found in a state of decomposition, and when the coffins were opened they are said to have emitted a thick black vapour, which, although vinegar and gunpowder were burnt to prevent ill consequences, affected the wretches employed in this inhuman work with fevers and diarrhæas: so again when the ground of the church of St. Benoit was dug up a few years ago, a nauseous vapour was emitted, and several of the neighbours were affected by it.[162] We are nevertheless far from believing that such cadaverous impurities, however unwholesome, are capable of generating the specific contagions of Typhus, &c.; nor are we even inclined to assent to that general opinion which supposes that putrid emanations from the bodies of persons who have died of a pestilential disorder are capable of re-exciting the disease, and we are fortified in this conclusion by the powerful testimony of _Mr. Howard_.[163] We ought not, however, to omit to state, that instances are on record, where the small-pox has suddenly appeared in a village, after opening the grave of a person who had a few months before fell a sacrifice to that disorder.