I may add
that I have heard it stated in Shropshire that sheep which have
been imported from vessels, although themselves in a healthy
condition, if placed in the same fold with others, frequently
produce sickness in the flock.) This statement is not quite so
extraordinary as it at first appears; for several cases are on
record of the most malignant fevers having broken out, although the
parties themselves, who were the cause, were not affected. In the
early part of the reign of George III, a prisoner who had been
confined in a dungeon was taken in a coach with four constables
before a magistrate; and although the man himself was not ill, the
four constables died from a short putrid fever; but the contagion
extended to no others. From these facts it would almost appear as
if the effluvium of one set of men shut up for some time together
was poisonous when inhaled by others; and possibly more so, if the
men be of different races. Mysterious as this circumstance appears
to be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one's
fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction has
commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality that the
mere puncture from an instrument used in its dissection should
prove fatal.
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