Note 36 — CANTO I. OURSELF!
Reading edition
And its contagion is outrageous.
Some people, who appear to be fond of an opportunity of spoiling a beautiful theory, have produced against contagion the following arguments, and thereby very much perplexed a simple subject which ought to have been decided solely by the ipse dixit of some famous personage of the faculty.
1. The disorder is propagated more rapidly than could be possible on the theory of contagion; as it spreads over a large city quicker than the small pox would pervade a single alley.
2. It assimilates to itself all other diseases, and forces them to wear its livery; which never is the case in contagious disorders.
3. It is destroyed by frost; but frost increases the activity of contagion.
4. It is an endemic, and must have its own local atmosphere, beyond whose limits it cannot be communicated. Thus the attendants of the sick in country hospitals are never known to be infected.
These, and fifty other arguments of a similar nature, I overturn by the weight of the authority of Dr Mead and other great men, which I have found to be a concise and inclusive way of stopping the mouths of my opponents.