Diseases > Domestic medicine

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buchan’s
turns, and even to sit up with them all night. It
would be a miracle indeed should such always escape.
Experience teaches us the danger of this conduct.
People often catch fevers in this way, and com¬
municate them to others, till at length they become
epidemic.
It would be thought highly improper, for one who
had not had the small-pox, to wait upon a patient in
that disease; yet many other fevers are almost as
infectious as the small-pox, and not less fatal Some
imagine that fevers prove more fatal in villages than
"n great towns, for want of proper medical assistance.
This may sometimes be the case; but we are inclined
to think it oftener proceeds from the cause above
mentioned.
W ere a plan to be laid down for communicating
infection, it could not be done more effectually than
by the common method of visiting the sick. Such
visitors not only endanger themselves and their con¬
nections. but likewise hurt the sick. By crowding
the house, they render the air unwholesome, and by
their private whispers and dismal countenances disturb
the imagination of the patient, and depress his spirits.
Persons who are ill, especially in fevers, ought to be
kept as quiet as possible. The sight of strange
faces, and every thing that disturbs the mind, hurts
The common practice in country places of inviting
great numbers of people to funerals, and crowding
them into the same apartment where the corpse lies,
is another way of spreading infection. The infection
does not always die with the patient. Every thing
that comes into contact with his body while alive,
receives the contagion, and some of them, as clothes,
blankets, &c. will retain it for a long time. Persons
who die of infectious disorders ought not to lie long