“It will be proper to remove every thing out of the ship, so that the hold may be swept, and, when the men have withdrawn, to light a number of charcoal fires in different parts, and to throw a handful or two of brimstone on each. The steam of these should be closely confined by shutting the ports and hatchways from morning till evening, no person in the mean time being allowed to go below, nor for some time after opening the ports and hatchways, that the steam may be dispersed. “In order to purify the men’s clothes, it would farther be proper to fumigate the hulk into which they are removed with tobacco once or twice a week while their ship is in dock, the men remaining below as long as they can bear it. “The clothes and hammocks of the men should be exposed in the hulk to the smoke of the tobacco, and those which are more particularly suspected may be hung up the ship, and exposed to the steam of the charcoal and brimstone. “The ship having been already fumigated with tobacco, it will be sufficient to use the fumigation of charcoal and brimstone above described for three days, and, after the last day’s fumigation, the inside of the ship should be well washed with boiling vinegar, and, before the men return on board, all the decks should be scraped and washed.” When a ship is at sea, these precautions cannot be taken so completely; but if infection is present, or is suspected, then cleansing and fumigating may be practised in a less degree. I have known a ship at sea fumigated with gunpowder kneaded with vinegar, so as to prevent it from exploding, and to make it burn slowly with a spattering flame. Flowers of sulphur[53], with about an eighth part of nitre, will answer still better. A quantity of these is placed in each interval of the guns between decks, every person being turned up, and the ports and hatches shut till they are consumed, and till the smoke has dispersed. It has also been recommended to burn resinous bodies, such as the woods of fir, spruce, and juniper, as the smoke of these is more salutary. Upon the same principle, the effluvium of tar is thought wholesome; and the cables that are coiled in the lower parts of a ship being soaked with tar, like most of the other ropes of a ship, probably conduce to the health of a place otherwise dank and unwholesome. Fumigation may also be performed by means of tar, either by throwing it on red-hot irons, or a wood fire, which may be carried about between decks in a pot or moveable grate, or over some cannon balls in a tub, or by immersing a red-hot loggerhead[54] in a bucket of tar. If this is done in the place occupied by the sick, it will have a still better effect; and it will be of service to them to be removed for a short time under the half deck or forecastle till this or other means of purification are put in practice. In whatever manner fumigation is performed, it will be of service to spread out the clothes and bedding