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This difeafe is not found to be particularly
infectious in Iceland: as a huiband
afflicted with it does not infetl his wife,
nor a difeafed wife her huiband. The
children may likewife be brought up
without danger in the houfe o f their
difeafed parents. But it has been
found by experience, that when one o f
the parents is infected with it, fome
one or other o f the children always
catch it. It is the fame thing in Madeira,
as Dr. Heberden obferves. Dr.
Johannes informs us that at Martigues
in Provence, when one o f the parents
has the diieafe, one o f the children
or grand-children, or a defcendant in
the third degree, is certainly infected
with i t ; but in the fourth degree
it again dilappears, and only fliews
itfelf in a bad breath, hollow teeth,
fwelled throat, and a darker colour
than ufual.
The more antient writers who have
treated o f this diieafe, frequently relate,
that people were even afraid o f
being infected by con verfing with thofe
who were troubled with it. The difeafe
muft therefore either have been
more
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more violent in the beginning, and in
the fouthern countries, as the venereal
difeafes were formerly in the beginning
o f the infection ; or the difeafe having
but lately made its appearance, caufed
more appreheniions. It is, however,
alway s advifable to be cautious in
con verfing with fuch patients, and
neither to wear their flioes or cloaths,
when they have been rendered wet
with fweatiog. When the difeafe is
arrived at fo high a pitch that the
matter which flows from the ilein is
corrofive, and eats into the flefli, it can
no longer be denied, but that it then
becomes infectious, and even dangerous
to converfe too near with the
patient.
As the elephantiafis, when it has attained
its greateft height, is incurable,
according to the teftimony o f antient
and modern phyficians ; it is fo much
the more necefiary to notice the beginning
of the difeafe, and the time preceding
it, in order to prevent the
danger.
A patient who finds himfelf in thefe
circumftances, or lives in a place where
5 the