After Admiral Don Juan de Langara was defeated by Admiral George Rodney in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1780, "jail fever" or typhus broke out among Spanish prisoners incarcerated in the old jail at Winchester. James Carmichael Smyth (1742-1821) discovered a method for the prevention of contagion using nitrous acid gas which was fatal to the lice spreading the disease. Smyth eventually wrote several treatises on this subject and other medical matters. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was voted the sum of £5,000 by Parliament in 1802 for his work. He also became one of the physicians to King George III.
