Читать книгу The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 9 - Бенджамин Франклин - Страница 5

Passy, 20 July, 1781.

Sir:—

I received the letter you some time since did me the honor of writing to me, accompanied with a number of the pieces that were distributed at the last public meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine. I shall take care to forward them to different parts of America, as desired. Be pleased to present my thanks to the society for the copy sent me of the curious and useful reports relating to the sepulture in the island of Malta. I should be glad of another copy, if it can be spared, being desirous of sending one to each of the philosophical societies in America.

With respect to the length of time during which the power of infection may be contained in dead bodies, which is considered in that report, I would mention to you three facts which, though not all of equal importance or weight, yet methinks it may be well to preserve a memorandum of them, that such observations may be made, when occasion offers, as are proper to confirm or invalidate them.

While I resided in England, I read in a newspaper that in a country village at the funeral of a woman whose husband had died of the small-pox thirty years before, and whose grave was dug so as to place her by his side, the neighbors attending the funeral were offended with the smell arising out of the grave, occasioned by a breach in the husband’s old coffin, and twenty-five of them, were in a few days taken ill with that distemper, which before was not in that village or its neighborhood, nor had been for the number of years above mentioned.

About the years 1763 or 1764, several physicians of London, who had been present from curiosity, at the dissection of an Egyptian mummy, were soon after taken ill of a malignant fever, of which they died. Opinions were divided on this question. It was thought by some that the fever was caused by infection from the mummy, in which case the disease it died of must have been embalmed as well as the body. Others who considered the length of time, at least two thousand years, since that body died, and also that the embalming must be rather supposed to destroy the power of infection, imagined the illness of these gentlemen must have had another origin.

About the year 1773, the captain of a ship, which had been at the island of Teneriffe, brought from thence the dried body of one of the ancient inhabitants of that island, which must have been at least three hundred years old, that custom of drying the dead there having been so long discontinued. Two members of the Royal Society went to see that body. They were half an hour in a small close room with it, examining it very particularly. The next day they were both affected with a singularly violent cold, ^{Ref. 004} attended with uncommon circumstances, which continued a long time. On comparing together the particulars of their disorder, they agreed in suspecting that possibly some effluvia from the body might have been the occasion of that disorder in them both; perhaps they were mistaken. But, as we do not yet know with certainty how long the power of infection may in some bodies be retained, it seems well in such cases to be cautious till further light shall be obtained.

I wish it were in my power to contribute more essentially in advancing the good work the society are so laudably engaged in. Perhaps some useful hints may be extracted from the enclosed paper of Mr. Small’s. ^{Ref. 005} It is submitted to your judgment; and if you should find any thing in it worthy of being communicated to the society, and of which extracts may be useful if printed in the memoirs, it will be a pleasure to me; who am, with great esteem and respect, sir, etc.,

B. Franklin.

P. S. July 24th.—Since writing the above, I have met with the following article in the Courier de l’Europe of the 13th instant, viz.:

Extract of a Letter from Edinburgh, dated June 30 th

“I understand by a person just returned from Montrose that the epidemic fever, which has made its appearance in the county of Mearns, ravages that neighborhood with such violence that one of his friends was invited to attend fifteen funerals on the same day. It is said that this malady originated in the ill-judged curiosity of some country people, who, at Candlemas last, opened the graves of some persons who had died of the plague in the preceding century, and who had been buried in the Moss of Arnhall. The circumstances which have happened in the family of Mr. Robert Aikenhead are singularly unfortunate; about the middle of last month he took the infection, which was communicated to the rest of his family, consisting of nine persons; two of whom, together with himself, are dead, and the others not out of danger.”