Pl. -ia. [L. contāgium = contāgio: see CONTAGION.]
† 1. = CONTAGION, corrupting contact. Obs.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, II. ii. 39. Which without doubt hath a villanous contagium upon the grand magisterium of the Stone.
2. spec. ‘The supposed solid or gaseous organized or unorganized substance by which infectious or contagious diseases are communicated’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); in pl. the germs of disease.
1870. Pall Mall G., 23 Aug., 10. Thoroughly to isolate the sick from intercourse with susceptible persons, and thoroughly to trap and exterminate the contagium which the bodies of the sick evolve.
1883. Tyndall, in Glasgow Weekly Her., 2 June, 1/5. Contagia are living things. Men and women have died by the million that bacteria and bacilli might live.
1891. Times (Weekly ed.), 10 July, 12/3. He thinks that the contagium of influenza is a microbe, which enters the system through the surface of the eye.
