Note 205 — OF QUARANTINE, LAZARETTOS, AND OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS OF PLAGUE POLICE.

The earliest instance of jail infection, communicated in a Court of Justice, appears to be that mentioned by Mr. Anthony Wood, as having happened “at the Assize kept in the Castle at Cambridge, at the time of Lent, 13th Henry viii. ann. dom. 1521-2, when the Justices there, and all the gentlemen, bailives, and all resorting thither, took such an infection, that many of them died; and almost all that were present fell desperately sick, and narrowly escaped with their lives.” Then comes the memorable black assize at Oxford, in July 1577, the best account of which is that given in “The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, by Anthony Wood, M. A. of Merton College”, first published in English from the original MS. in the Bodleian library, by John Gutch, A. M. printed at Oxford in 1796. Another instance is mentioned by Holinshed, (vol. ii, p. 1547) as occurring at Exeter, during the assizes there in March 1586. From this period no remarkable case of jail infection is recorded for a period of 150 years, when at the Lent assizes, some prisoners who had been removed from Ilchester gaol, to take their trials at Taunton, were said to have infected a part of the court, and produced a contagious disease, of which the Chief Baron Pengally, with some of his officers and servants, and Sir James Sheppard, knight, and Serjeant at Law, died afterwards at Blandford in Dorsetshire. Twelve years after, viz. in April, 1742, according to Dr. Huxham (De aëre, &c. vol. ii, p. 82) a putrid fever appeared at Launceston, and occasioned great mortality; this fever, he adds, was generated in the prisons; and widely disseminated by means of the county assize. The next remarkable occurrence of this kind happened at the sessions of the Old Bailey, in the spring of 1750, which proved fatal to the Lord Mayor, and two of the Judges, with several eminent and other persons; this circumstance induced the Magistrates of London to resolve upon attempting to render Newgate more healthy; and they accordingly consulted Dr. Hales and Sir John Pringle about the method which they should follow. Dr. Hales recommended the use of his Ventilator, a machine contrived to pump out the air of any place, and thus to occasion a perpetual renovation of it. The machine was accordingly erected, and its salutary effects soon became apparent, the deaths in Newgate having been reduced from 7 or 8 a week to about 2 in a month. Eleven men were employed in erecting this ventilator, of which no fewer than 7 were seized with the disease; a very interesting account of these men, and of the mode of treatment, were drawn up by Sir John Pringle, and published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1753, vol. xlviii, p. 42.