Controlling infectious diseases at the end of 18th centuryin Spain

We feared the coming summer. Nations bordering on the already infected countries began to enter upon serious plans for the better keeping out of the enemy. We, a commercial people, were obliged to bring such schemes under consideration; and the question of contagion became matter of earnest disquisition. But the grand question was still unsettled of how this epidemic was generated and increased (...) these reflections made our legislators pause, before they could decide on the laws to be put in force. 1