Note 183 — OF QUARANTINE, LAZARETTOS, AND OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS OF PLAGUE POLICE.

In the year 1819, Sir John Jackson moved for a Committee in Parliament to inquire into the expediency of abrogating or modifying the restrictions imposed by the Quarantine laws; in which motion he was supported by the Right Honourable F. Robinson, President of the Board of Trade. The principal objects of inquiry on the subjects in question were, first, Is the Plague capable of being communicated from person to person, either by immediate contact with those diseased, or intermediately, by contact with infected goods? or secondly, Is it an Epidemic depending only on a peculiar state of the atmosphere? The number of medical men examined upon this occasion was nineteen, only two of whom, Dr. Maclean and Dr. Mitchell, denied the contagious nature of the Plague.