ABSTRACT
The influence of contagion in disseminating disease was evinced by the general extension of fever through poor families, and by the effects so generally proceeding from mendicity. Thus the paupers from the counties of Derry, Tyrone, and Donegal, who resorted in great numbers to the town of Antrim to obtain sustenance or employment, were supposed to have greatly contributed to the spread of disease. In Antrim, and its neighbourhood, an eruption similar to itch was very generally observed to attend the close of the fever. The causes which occasioned it to spread were the same in Ulster, as in the other provinces. The cold and humidity of the seasons producing a failure of the necessaries of life,—food and fuel, compelled the poor classes to move from one place to another, or to crowd into small and badly ventilated apartments, and thus to disseminate contagion.
