PLAQUE, PESTILENCE, or Pestilential Fever. See MEDICINE, no 325.
The commission at Moscow, having, in the year 1770, invented a fumigation-powder, which, from several lesser experiments, had proved efficacious in preventing the infection of the plague; in order more fully to ascertain its virtue in that respect, it was determined, towards the end of the year, that ten malefactors under sentence of death, should, without undergoing any other precautions than the fumigations, be confined three weeks in a lazarette, be laid upon the beds, and dressed in the cloaths, which had been used by persons sick, dying, and even dead, of the plague in the hospital. The experiment was accordingly tried, and none of the ten malefactors were then infected, or have been since ill. The fumigation-powder is prepared as follows.
Powder of the first strength.] Take leaves of juniper, juniper-berries pounded, ears of wheat, guaiacum-wood pounded, of each six pounds; common salt-petre pounded, eight pounds; sulphur pounded, six pounds; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, two pounds; mix all the above ingredients together, which will produce a pood of the powder of fumigation of the first strength. [N.B. A pood is 40 pounds Russian, which are equal to 35 pounds and a half or 36 pounds English averdupoise.]
Powder of the second strength.] Take southernwood cut into small pieces, four pounds; juniper-berries pounded, three pounds; common salt-petre pounded, four pounds; sulphur pounded, two pounds and a half; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, one pound and a half; mix the above together, which will produce half a pood of the powder of fumigation of the second strength.
Odoriferous powder.] Take the root called kalmus cut into small pieces, three pounds; leaves of juniper cut into small pieces, four pounds; frankincense pounded grossly, one pound; storax pounded, and rose-flowers, half a pound; yellow amber pounded, one pound; common salt-petre pounded, one pound and a half; sulphur, a quarter of a pound: mix all the above together, which will produce nine pounds and three quarters of the odoriferous powder.
Remark on the powder of fumigation.] If guaiacum cannot be had, the cones of pines or firs may be used in its stead; likewise the common tar of pines and firs may be used instead of the Smyrna tar or myrrh, and mugwort may supply the place of southernwood.