FOOTNOTES:
[1] Thus Dr. Hodges; but Calmet informs us, that the Hebrews call by the name of plagues all diseases sent by way of punishment or correction from God; as the pestilence, infection, the leprosy, sudden deaths, famines, tempests: in a word, all calamities, whether public or private. Calmet’s Dict. vol. ii. fol. 412. Plaga.
Parkhurst derives the Greek term loimos, either from luo, as above, or from another Greek word signifying to faint; the same from which the English word eclipse has its origin; or it may be from the Hebrew lehem, to consume.
A friend observes, that “we no where find the word perdition in our version of the Old Testament. We have, however, the word destruction, which is of a similar import; as, for instance, in Prov. xv. 11. where the Hebrew is abdun. In Rev. xvii. 8 & 11, we find the English word perdition; but as we have no Hebrew version of the New Testament, we may advert to the ancient Syriac version. The Syriac being a sister dialect of the Hebrew, differs, radically, but little from it. The Syriac of the two places referred to above is abdna; hence the word abaddon, whole root is abd, and is the same with that of the Hebrew word above.
“As to the word plague, we often find it in the Old Testament, but perhaps never in that specific sense in which the moderns use it. The original word, rendered plague, is pretty generally ngp, or its derivations; as Exod. xii. 13., ii. Sam. xxiv. 21, &c.” On this last occasion, however, as the word pestilence had been used before, in the same chapter, we can scarce doubt its having been really some kind of disease: and we know that modern plagues will sometimes destroy as quickly as this is said to have done.
[2] A myriad is generally supposed to contain ten thousand.
[3] Gibbon’s History, vol. iv.
[4] Transact. of Society for improving Medical Knowledge.
[5] Political State for 1720.
[6] Political state, ibid.
[7] Mr. Gibbon, agreeably to the subject on which he writes, particularises the mode of vengeance; saying, “the earth frequently swallows up the assassin,” &c. It is hoped the substitution of the word vengeance, in general, will not be deemed a material alteration.
[8] Univ. Hist. vol. vi.
[9] Diodor. Sic. Frag.
[10] Mead.
[11] In the subsequent section this plague will be more fully treated of.
[12] A plague is spoken of in the time of Romulus; but the accounts of this, and some others, are extremely obscure and indistinct.
[14] See Thucydides’s account at large, Appendix [No. I].
[15] Univ. Hist. vol. xvii.
[16] Univ. Hist. vol. viii.
[17] Id. vol. xviii.
[18] Univ. Hist. vol. xv.
[20] Gibbon’s Hist. vol. iv. Procopius, in speaking of the numbers who died in this extraordinary plague, compares them to the sand of the sea; and afterwards expresses them by a phrase which has been translated two hundred millions. The phrase is myriadas myriadon myrias. Mr. Gibbon, by dropping the first word, restricts the sense to one hundred millions; which he thinks not wholly inadmissible; but the probability seems to be, that Procopius did not mean to specify the number, but to represent it as incalculable. This is done by putting a comma, or semicolon, after the first word; and we may then read, that there perished myriads; a myriad of myriads. The grammar is rectified by reading myriades instead of myriadae.
[21] Univ. Hist. vol. xvii.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Journal of the Plague Year.
[25] An English gentleman, who resided in Bassorah at that time, preserved himself from the infection by retiring to a mud-house, where he had no communication with the inhabitants. Having a large quantity of Bengal cotton, he sold it to the people to wrap their dead in. The price was put in a basket, which he hauled up by a rope to his ware-room; lowering it again with the proportionate quantity of cloth. In the course of the summer he had an account of seventy thousand winding sheets thus disposed of!
(Transact. of a Society for improving Medical Knowledge.)
[26] Philosoph. Transact. No. 364.
[27] Water boils at eighty degrees of this thermometer.
[28] Spirit of wine boils at 175.
[29] Transactions of Society for improving Medical Knowledge.
A pond’rous stone bold Hector heav’d to throw,
Pointed above, and rough and gross below;
Not two strong men th’ enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days.
Iliad, B. xii.
[31] See [Sec. IV]. Preventives of the Plague.
[32] Herodotus says, that in his time the province of Babylonia produced commonly two hundred, and in plentiful years three hundred fold.
[33] Philos. Transact. vol. liv.
[34] See [Sec. i. p. 10].
[36] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi. pp. 433, 435.
[37] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi.
[38] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi.
[39] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi.
[40] M. Millot places this account among the “exaggerations which ought not to have a place in history;” but, as we have no evidence for or against the fact, it was thought proper to let it remain as related by the historians of those times. It is certain that in those days mankind assembled for the purposes of bloodshed and slaughter in prodigious numbers; the destruction was commonly in proportion to the numbers assembled. The account is not more incredible than that of Tamerlane’s filling up the harbour of Smyrna by causing each of his soldiers to throw a stone into it. Such an army could have spared the number in question.
[42] Modern Univ. Hist. Arabia.
[43] That such accounts are not to be looked upon as entirely fabulous, may be gathered from what is related by Mr. Thomson in his travels through Palestine, viz. that on the brink of the lake Asphaltites he found numbers of “small black pebbles, which are soon set on fire by being held in the flame of a candle, and yield a smoke intolerably stinking and offensive; but have this remarkable property, that by burning they lose nothing of their weight, nor suffer any diminution in their bulk. They are capable of taking as fine a polish as black marble, and are likewise said to be met with of considerable size in the neighbouring mountains.”
[44] “Symptom (says Dr. Fordyce) is the Greek name for appearance:” but, from the strict etymology of the word, it ought rather to be translated accident. The universal consent of physicians, however, has applied it to every appearance produced in the human body by any distemper whatever.
[45] Dr. Anthony Fothergill, in his prize dissertation upon the suspension of vital action, quotes some experiments of Dr. Kite, in which he was able to restore to life animals that had been immersed in water for eight, ten or twelve minutes, though he acknowledges that this operation, though performed with great attention, often failed; while other animals, that had been longer immersed, recovered spontaneously. He further adds, that if it be not attempted before the convulsions of the animal cease, which on an average of many experiments happens in about eleven minutes and a half, it will not be sufficient to renew the vital motions. But, “among the human species (says Dr. Fothergill) there are not wanting well authenticated instances of spontaneous recovery at an incomparably longer interval, and after every external mark of life had disappeared. Such is the latent energy of the heart, that it sometimes, after remaining several hours quiescent, renews on a sudden the secret springs of life, surmounts the barriers of the resisting blood, and restores circulation with all the other functions. Hence the unexpected recoveries from death-like syncope brought on by sudden terror, or great effusions of blood, even after the funeral obsequies have been prepared. Hence some persons have accidentally been brought to life, even after interment, by the rude motion produced in sacrilegious attempts to wrest rings or bracelets from the apparently dead body.”
Several surprising instances of the recovery of persons supposed to be dead, even of the plague, are given by Fabricius Hildanus; to one of which Dr. Fothergill seems to allude in the above quotation. Hildanus relates, that in the year 1357, when the plague raged violently at Cologne, a certain noble lady, by name Reichmuth Adoleh, being seized with the disease, was thought to have died, and was buried accordingly. Her husband, out of affection, would not take off her wedding ring, which she happened to have on her finger. The undertakers being acquainted with this circumstance, next night came to the church where she was buried, opened the sepulchre, and prepared to take off the ring; when to their utter astonishment she began to raise herself up in the coffin. Struck with consternation they fled in the utmost haste, leaving to the fortunate lady the lantern with which they lighted themselves to the church, and by means of which she now found out where she was, and after being come to herself, returned to her own house. Here being known by her voice, and the ring she wore, she found admittance, and by means of a generous diet gradually regained her health; bringing her husband afterwards three children, and surviving the accident many years.
A second instance no less remarkable is of a woman of the name of Nicolle Lentille, who, being supposed dead of the plague, had been thrown into a pit with a great number of the bodies of others, dead of the same distemper. After lying there a whole night, she came to herself in the morning, but neither knew at first where she was, nor, when she did, could she find any means of escaping, or extricating herself from the heap of dead bodies with which she was oppressed. Being at a distance from any house, her cries were of no avail, and, in the mean time, having taken no nourishment for four days, she was so tormented with hunger that she eat part of the cloth which covered her face. At last, after remaining twenty-four hours in this dreadful situation, the pit being opened to bury some other person, she exerted her utmost endeavours in calling for assistance, and at last was heard by those who stood round. Being taken up and brought home, she presently recovered, and lived several years after.
A third example is given by our author of one who, being carried to a church to be buried, had his face previously sprinkled with holy water by a priest. But this was no sooner done than he shuddered and opened his eyes in a fright; on which he was carried home, recovered, and lived eight years after. Other examples might be brought, but these are sufficient to show what dreadful accidents may ensue from early burials, and how cautious people ought to be in consigning their friends and relations to the dust from whence they were taken.
[46] Dr. Gardiner, in his observations above quoted, gives the following curious anecdote. “An unmarried lady, of a healthy constitution, has such a peculiarity in the structure of her nerves, that, though she can, in general, bear strong odours as well as most people, yet she cannot suffer a rose to be in her bosom, or to hold it in her hand a few minutes, without becoming faint, and having an inclination to vomit. Conserve of roses, rose-water, and similar articles made from roses, have more powerful effects upon her, and usually excite vomiting. Going into a room where any of her companions are washing with rose-water, never fails to produce this effect; nor does she recover of her indisposition in less than two hours.”
[47] This certainly does not hold good if we suppose the heat of the atmosphere to be indicated by a thermometer; for we are assured that animals can live in a heat much superior to that which raises the mercury to 97.
[48] The discoveries of modern chemists have determined that the aerial fluid, termed fixed air or carbonic acid, and which is nearly the same with the vapour arising from fermenting liquor, and is also largely contained in the fume of burning charcoal, is not a simple but a compound substance; one part consisting of the pure part of the atmosphere, or oxygene, the other of real charcoal. The proportions, according to M. Chaptal, are 12,0288 parts of charcoal to 56,687 of oxygen.
[49] The name of the vessels by which the heart itself is supplied with blood. These come from the aorta by the circuitous way of the lungs.
[50] But there is a still more egregious blunder, and this the more surprising as it has been very general among physiologists, viz. that when an artery branches into two the capacity of the branches taken together is greater than that of the trunk. This would make the whole arterial system one continued aneurism,[51] and, instead of promoting the circulation of the blood, would in the most effectual manner prevent it. In what manner an error so extraordinary in its nature could pass the mathematical physicians of the last century, I cannot imagine; but certain it is, that, in the year 1780 or 1781, the Edinburgh College were schooled on this subject by one of their own students named John Theodore Vander Kemp, a Dutchman. This gentleman found, by accurate mensuration, that when an artery divides, if the diameters of the two branches are made the two shorter sides of a right-angled triangle, the diameter of the trunk will be the hypothenuse; and thus, as the areas of circles are to one another in proportion to the squares of their diameters, the sum of the areas of the two branches will be equal to the area of the trunk. On looking into Blumenbach’s physiology, I find the same remark.
[51] An aneurism is a preternatural enlargement of an artery. The blood stagnates in that place, and at length eats through the flesh and skin.
[52] It seems now to be proved beyond a doubt that this something so long unknown is that fluid called by Dr. Priestley dephlogisticated air, and by Lavoisier oxygen.
[53] Moore’s Medical Sketches.
[54] Moore’s Medical Sketches.
[55] Medical Inquiries and Observations, vol. iv, p. 133.
[56] Vol. iv, p. 133.
[57] Ibid. p. 149.
[58] A Pathognomic symptom is one which being present certainly indicates the presence of a disease, and being absent, the contrary.
[59] Vol. iv, p. 123.
[60] The vampire is a kind of bat, of a very large size, met with in some parts of South America and in the East Indies. This vile creature delights in human blood, and often attacks people in the night time in the most insidious manner. A late traveller relates that at Surinam he was bit by one of them, which sucked so much of his blood that in the morning he found himself exceedingly weak and faint. He felt no pain, nor was sensible of the injury in any other way. The vampire commonly attacks the great toe, making a wound so exceedingly small that the person is not awaked by it; it then sucks till gorged with blood, and, lest the patient should awake, it keeps fanning him all the while with its large wings, the coolness of which, in that hot climate, promotes sleep. In this manner some are said to have been destroyed. Captain Cook relates an humourous anecdote of one of his sailors, who being ashore at New Holland, and having wandered a little way into the woods, returned in a fright, crying out that he had seen the devil! Being asked in what shape Satan had appeared, he answered, “He was about the size of a one gallon keg, and very like it; and if I had not been afear’d, I might have touched him.” It was a vampire. The man, notwithstanding his fright, had not exaggerated its magnitude. People, though mistaken and terrified, are not to be disbelieved in every part of their relation.
[61] Non esse certi morbi genus, id quod pestilens vocatur, rectissime notatum a Galeno est (3 Epid. comm. 3. t. 20.) quicunque enim morbi ac symptomata consociantur pesti veræ proprieque diclæ, ijdem morbi pestilentes apellari consuevere, quorum equidem innumerabilis existit cohors, ac non semper et ubivis eadem. (Deusing. de Peste, Sect. iii.)
[63] Gas is a German word, or derived from one, signifying spirit. The word ghost comes from the same original.
[64] This must be understood only of its general properties and effects; for, though the fume of charcoal possesses many of the apparent properties of pure fixed air, it contains also a very considerable quantity of another kind of gas.
[65] Many fabulous stories have been related concerning the samiel. Even so late a traveller as Mr. Ives has adopted some of those exaggerated accounts which have been discredited by those who have long resided in the countries where this wind is commonly met with. It is not peculiar to the deserts of Arabia, but is met with in all hot countries which are destitute of water. In the African deserts therefore it is common; and Mr. Bruce describes it by the name of simoom. It was preceded by whirlwinds of a very extraordinary kind. “In that vast expanse of desert (says he) from W. and to N. W. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others walking on with a majestic slowness. At intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight; their tops reaching to the very clouds.* There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged along side of us at about the distance of three miles. The largest of them appeared to me at that distance to be about ten feet diameter. . . . It was in vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse or the fasted sailing ship could be of no use to carry us out of this danger; and the full persuasion of this rivetted me as if to the spot where I stood.” At another time he saw them in much greater number, but of smaller size. They began immediately after sunrise, like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun. His rays darting through them gave them the appearance of pillars of fire. They now approached to the distance of two miles from our travellers. At another time they appeared beautifully spangled with stars. in Darwin’s Botanic Garden we find a reason assigned for the appearance of these whirlwinds; viz. the impulse of the wind on a long ledge of broken rocks which bound the desert. By these the currents of air which struck their sides were bent and were thus like eddies in a stream of water which falls against oblique obstacles. In the same work we have the following poetical description of them:
“Now o’er their heads the whizzing whirlwinds breathe,
And the live desert pants and heaves beneath;
Ting’d by the crimson sun, vast columns rise
Of eddying sands, and war amid the skies,
In red arcades the billowy plains surround,
And whirling turrets stalk along the ground.”
* N. B. In these sandy deserts, where it never rains, there are no clouds.
Whether the simoom is always preceded by these whirlwinds we know not; but Mr. Bruce mentions an extreme redness of the air, pointed out by his attendant Idris, as the sure presage. His advice was, that all of them, upon the approach of the pernicious blast, should fall upon their faces, with their mouths on the earth, and hold their breath as long as possible, so that they might not inhale the deadly vapour. They soon had occasion to follow this advice; for next day Idris called out to them to fall upon their faces, for the simoom was coming. “I saw (says Mr. Bruce) from the S. E. a haze coming, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly; for I could scarce turn to fall upon the ground, with my face to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed; but the light air that still blew was of heat sufficient to threaten suffocation. For my part, I felt distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it; nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two years afterwards.” It continued to blow for some time, and in such a manner as entirely to exhaust them, though scarcely sufficient to raise a leaf from the ground.
The account given by Mr. Ives is, that it blows over the desert (of Syria) in the months of July and August, from the northwest quarter, and sometimes continues with all its violence to the very gates of Bagdad but never affects any body within its walls. Some years it does not blow at all and in others it comes six, eight, or ten times, but seldom continues more than a few minutes at a time. It often passes with the apparent quickness of lightning. The sign of its approach is a thick haze, which appears like a cloud of dust rising out of the horizon, on which they throw themselves with their faces on the ground, as already mentioned. Camels are said, instinctively, to bury their noses in the sand. As for the stories of its dissolving the cohesion of the body in such a manner that a leg or an arm may be pulled away from those who are killed by it, or that their bodies are reduced to a gelatinous substance, we cannot by any means give credit to them. From its extreme quickness, and luminous appearance, it would seem to be an electrical phenomenon immediately preceding those vehement hot winds which all travellers agree in likening to the vapour issuing from a large oven when the bread is newly taken out. Its electrical nature will be more probable from the account given by Mr. Ives, that the Arabians say it always leaves behind it a very sulphureous smell. These particulars do not at all accord with the supposition of its consisting of fixed air. I have indeed been assured by a gentleman long in the service of the English East India Company, that the samiel cannot pass over a river. Hence probably it has been supposed to be a blast of fixed air, because this species of gas is readily absorbed by water; but we know that the same thing would also take place with any quantity of electric matter; for water takes up this also much more completely than it does fixed air.
The mofetes are invisible, and kill in an instant. They rise from old volcanic lavas, and, as it were, creep on the ground, and enter into houses, so that they are very dangerous; but, though they may probably consist of fixed air, we have not as yet any direct proof of it. It is not indeed easy to imagine why any lava should suddenly emit a great quantity of fixed air, and then as suddenly cease; nor in what manner the air thus emitted should continue unmixed with the atmosphere; for fixed air will very readily mix in this manner, insomuch that a large quantity of it being let loose in a room has been found to vanish entirely in less than half an hour. Sir William Hamilton mentions a mofete having got into the palace of the king of Naples.
[66] Est etiam in quibusdam turba inanium verborum, qui dum communem loquendi morem reformidant, ducti specie nitoris, circumeunt omnia, copiosa loquacitate, quæ dicere volunt.
[67] Here Dr. Beddoes, from whose publication this account of Girtanner’s memoir is taken, has the following note: “Dr. Goodwyn had proved this before. Could Dr. Girtanner be ignorant of his experiments?” In justice to myself, however, I must observe that this very doctrine had been published in the Encyclopædia Britannica long before either Dr. Goodwyn or Dr. Girtanner had made any experiments on the subject. It may still be seen under the article Blood, and reasons are there given for supposing that only one part of the oxygen, viz, the elastic part, can be absorbed.
[68] Here it is necessary to observe, for the sake of accuracy and perspicuity, that, in the new chemistry, the terms of which are now very generally adopted, the words oxygen and hydrogen when mentioned by themselves are not understood to signify any kind of air, but what I have called the condensable part of the air. If the word air is added, then the whole substance of the fluid is understood. But though this is the strict orthodox language of the new chemistry, it is impossible to say whether every one who adopts the terms be sufficiently careful in this respect. Indeed this is one out of many inconveniences that might be pointed out which have arisen from this nomenclature; for thus the mere omission of a monosyllable, which may happen in numberless instances, totally perverts the meaning of the author, and may of course subject him to unmerited censure. Besides, it is not to be known, unless the author tells us so, that he designs to observe this strictness, and of consequence we must in multitudes of cases be uncertain of the meaning of what we read. Thus, in the present instance, when Dr. Girtanner speaks of oxygen, we know not certainly whether he means the air in substance, or only one of its component parts. Probably he means the condensable or solid part. If he does so, there must be a very material difference between his theory and that laid down in the Encyclopædia, and which is supported throughout this treatise. In the latter it is maintained that the condensable part is thrown out by the breath, being previously converted into fixed air, while the elastic part enters the vital fluid, communicating to it not only the red colour, but heat, and the principles of life and sensation, as will be more fully explained in the sequel.
[69] Hydrogen air is the same with that by Dr. Priestley called inflammable air. He also discovered the true composition of it. Having included a few grains of charcoal in the receiver of an air-pump, and exhausted the air, he heated it in vacuo by means of a large burning glass. The charcoal was entirely volatilized and converted into this kind of air. He found, however, that without some small portion of moisture this volatilization did not take place.
[70] A glass tube is sealed hermetically, by heating the open end or ends, till they become soft, and then closing them with a pair of pincers.
[71] Thus letters, or other characters, may be curiously marked upon the calx within the vial, by cutting them out in paper, and then pasting them on the side to be exposed to the light. We may have them in this manner either dark upon a white ground, or white upon a dark ground.
[72] It is now acknowledged that common atmospherical air contains a portion of what Dr. Black and Dr. Priestley have called fixed air; but this portion is so small (not more than one fiftieth part, according to Dr. Anthony Fothergill’s Prize Dissertation, and none at all, according to Dr. Beddoes) I say, this proportion is so small, that we cannot suppose it to constitute the quantity of fixed air thrown out by the breath, which is very considerable. Besides, fixed air, of all others, is the most readily absorbed; and, indeed, if we could admit of absorption of any basis of air in the present case, it certainly ought to be that of fixed air; but where such a quantity is thrown out, we cannot well admit of any absorption.
[73] Nitrous air is that suffocating vapour which arises when aqua fortis is poured upon metals. When taken into the lungs it destroys animal life more quickly than any other species.
[74] In one of Dr. Priestley’s papers above quoted he says, that charcoal is entirely of vegetable origin; but the conversion of vegetable into animal matter which we daily see is an undoubted proof that there cannot be any essential difference between them. Even the bones are undoubtedly produced from vegetables in such animals as feed upon vegetable substances; so that even the calcareous earth they contain is plainly of vegetable origin. We may say indeed that the calcareous particles had a previous existence in the vegetables used by the animal as food; but we may say the same of the particles of the blood, flesh, horns, &c. Besides, Dr. Priestley has shown that every particle of charcoal may be volatilized into inflammable air, with as great accuracy as any human experiment can be made; so that in this case the calcareous particles, if any such there were, showed themselves to be as much charcoal as the rest. In the 74th volume of the Philosophical Transactions, Mr. Watt has shown, that dephlogisticated spirit of nitre may be changed into the smoking and phlogisticated kind by means of red-lead or magnesia alba, as well as by charcoal; of consequence there can be no essential difference even there. In short, so wonderful and multifarious are the transforming or metamorphosing powers of nature, that every attempt to find out a substance upon which these powers cannot act, will be found altogether vain, and our best conducted and most plausible experiments, made with a view to discover the ultimate composition or what we call the elements of bodies, will be found mere inaccuracy, bungling and blunder.
[75] These words are to be found in the M. S. Copies of his lectures circulated at Edinburgh. Dr. Black himself never published any thing to the world upon the subject.
[76] Monthly Review, for 1790, p. 165.
[77] Count Rumford was superintendant of boring the cannon in the workshops of the military hospital at Munich.
[78] The quantity was two gallons and a quart, wine measure.
[79] Dr. Priestley thinks water is an essential in the composition of air.
[80] Irwin’s Voyage up the Red Sea p. 335.
[81] At the time of writing his treatise Dr. Fordyce informs us, that he had been “for upwards of twenty years one of the three physicians of St. Thomas’s Hospital (in London) whose walls have contained nearly four thousand patients every year, where the proportion of fevers to other diseases is much greater than the general proportion.”
[82] “An intense head-ach, uncommon giddiness, and a sudden loss of strength, were the first complaints of those who were seized with this distemper.”
(Russel on the Plague at Aleppo, p. 230.)
[83] This is expressly denied by Dr. Hodges, who had innumerable opportunities of seeing the distemper.
[84] Though the writer of this Treatise was not at that time on the spot where this event took place, yet he has as good evidence as any one can have of what has not fallen under his immediate inspection, that these graves were opened, that the father of one of the young men died; and the mother of another, and one of the young men himself was taken ill with the eruption of boils on some parts of his body; but whether there was any person previously affected with fever in the neighbourhood from whom it might have been derived, or any thing which might have strongly predisposed those people to it, is unknown. It is indeed no easy matter to discover who was the first person affected with an epidemic, as no body chooses to own that either they, or any of their relatives were the authors of mischief, however involuntary, to the community. M. Chaptal, however, in his Elements of Chemistry, has some curious, as well as useful observations on the propriety of burying bodies in a sufficient space and at a sufficient depth; and on the accidents which may arise from opening vaults and burying grounds. An instance of this he gives of the ground of a church in Paris being dug up, which emitted a nauseous vapour, affecting several people in the neighbourhood.
From M. Chaptal’s observations it appears, that bodies do not soon dissolve in such a manner as to emit no disagreeable or noxious effluvia, when buried. M. Becher, he says, “had the courage to make observations during the course of a year upon the decomposition of a carcase in the open air. The first vapour which rises, he says, is subtle and nauseous: some days after, it has a certain sour and penetrating smell. After the first weeks the skin becomes covered with a down, and appears yellowish; greenish spots are formed in various places, which afterwards become livid and black; a thick glosey or mouldy substance then covers the greatest part of the body: the spots open and emit a sanies.” In such as are buried the decomposition is much more slow; our author thinks four times at least. According to M. Petit, a body buried at the depth of four feet is not decomposed in less than three years, and, at a greater depth the decomposition is still more slow. This decomposition is favoured by the presence of water, and likewise by some kinds of earth more than others. It has been proved by Lemery, Geoffroy, and others, that argillaceous earths have very little effect in this way: porous and light earths much more: the roots of vegetables also by absorbing the putrid effluvia contribute greatly to the final decomposition of bodies buried in places exposed to the open air; but in churches and other covered places the case is vastly different. “Here, says our author, is neither water nor vegetation; and consequently no cause which can carry away, dissolve or change the nature of the animal fluids: and I cannot but applaud the wisdom of government which has prohibited the burying in churches; a practice which was once a subject of horror and infection.
“The decomposition of a body in the bowels of the earth can never be dangerous, provided it be buried at a sufficient depth, and that the grave be not opened before its complete dissolution. The depth of the grave ought to be such that the external air cannot penetrate it; that the juices with which the earth is impregnated may not be conveyed to its surface; and that the exhalations, vapours, or gases, which are developed or formed by decomposition, should not be capable of forcing the earth covering which detains them. The nature of the earth in which the grave is dug, influences all its effects. If the stratum which covers the body be argillaceous, the depth of the grave may be less, as this earth difficultly admits a passage to gas and vapour; but, in general, it is admitted to be necessary that bodies should be buried at the depth of five feet to prevent all these unhappy accidents. It is likewise necessary to attend to the circumstance, that a grave ought not to be opened before the complete decomposition of the body. The term of decomposition is various; according to M. Petit of three years in graves of four feet, and four years in those of six feet. The pernicious custom which allows a single grave to families more or less numerous, ought therefore to be suppressed; for, in this case the same grave may be opened before the time prescribed. It is likewise necessary, to prohibit burying in vaults, or even in coffins.”
[85] American Museum vol. xi, p. 148.
[86] The gold-fish is a small species of carp, brought originally from China. They are adorned with the most beautiful and resplendent colours, and are frequently kept in jars for pleasure. They subsist entirely on the water, without any other food. This is by Dr. Fordyce said to be the case with all fishes, provided the water be impregnated with oxygen.
[87] Sir John Pringle, from Stowe’s Chronicle, gives the following account of these assizes. “On the 4th, 5th and 6th days of July were the assizes held at Oxon, where was arraigned and condemned Rowland Jenkins, for a seditious tongue; at which time there arose amidst the people such a damp, that almost all were smothered. Very few escaped that were not taken. Here died in Oxon three hundred persons; and sickened there, but died in other places, two hundred and odd.
“The sessions at the Old Bailey in Westminster, in 1650, proved also fatal to many; of which Sir John also gives an account. ‘I have been informed (says he) that, at those Sessions, about a hundred were tried, who were all kept in close places as long as the court sat; and that each room was but 14 feet by 11, and seven feet high. The bail-dock is also a small room taken off one of the corners of the court, and left open at the top: in this, during the trials, are put some of the malefactors who have been under the closest confinement. The hall in the Old Bailey is a room of only 30 feet square. Now whether the air was most tainted from the bar by some prisoners then ill of the jail distemper, or by the general uncleanliness of such persons, is uncertain; but it is probable that both causes concurred. And we may easily conceive how much it might have been vitiated by the foul steams of the bail-dock, and of the two rooms opening into the court in which the prisoners were the whole day crowded together till they were brought out to be tried. It appeared afterwards, that these places had not been cleaned for some years. The poisonous quality of the air was aggravated by the heat and closeness of the court, and by the perspirable matter of a number of people of all sorts, penned up for the most part of the day, without breathing the free air, or receiving any refreshment. The bench consisted of six persons, whereof four died, together with two or three of the counsel, one of the under sheriffs, several of the Middlesex jury, and others present to the amount of above forty; without making allowance for those of a lower rank, whose death may not have been heard of; and without including any that did not sicken within a fortnight after the sessions.’”
(Pringle’s Observations p. 329 & seq.)
[88] Bee, vol. xviii, p. 282.
[89] Those of Galvani and others on animal electricity.
[90] See Medical Repository, vol. ii, No. iii.
[91] That this is the case with the atmosphere at Martinico is now determined by a letter from Dr. George Davidson to Dr. Mitchell of New York, inserted in the Medical Repository, vol. ii, p. 279. With equal parts of nitrous and atmospheric air there was an absorption of 67 parts out of 100; but when two parts of atmospheric air were used to one of nitrous, the absorption was only from 52 to 58 parts; with a mixture of iron filings and sulphur, upwards of four tenths of the air were absorbed. These experiments were attested by a number of medical gentlemen who were present. In a letter subjoined from Dr. Chisholm, he says, that, having made a trial with iron filings and sulphur, the absorption was forty parts of an hundred, or exactly four tenths, with the eudiometer fifty-six. “It appears to me (says Dr. Chisholm) to be a singular circumstance, that, although the ground on which the Ordnance Hospital Hands is a perfect morass, partially drained, yet a result almost exactly similar to that given by the experiments made with the eudiometer at my house, should take place, with the same instrument and in circumstances very different. The proportion at the Ordnance Hospital, I think, has been 58 out of 100, and at your house, a situation less swampy, and nearer the sea, it has been 67. An explanation of so singular a result, in situations so different, is perhaps more to be wished than expected.”
[92] In the account of this sailor’s speech a most essential part of the devil’s character was omitted. The speech, according to Capt. Cook, was, that the devil “was about the size of a one gallon keg, and very like it. He had horns and wings; and he was so near, that, if I had not been afear’d, I might have touched him.” (See [p. 105], n.)
[93] This is an assertion so extravagant, that is difficult to imagine what could induce any one to make it. Did our author ever hear that laurel water, &c. produced the venereal disease, the plague, yellow fever, gout, stone, small-pox, &c. &c. or to what patients and in what diseases did he ever administer this remedy with success? I mean not to deny that these substances will cure some diseases as well as produce others; but such an unqualified expression that they can not only produce but cure all diseases without exception, never can be admitted.
[94] There must certainly be some error here; for as he mentions a dissolution of the blood so soon afterwards, we should think it impossible that any coagulation would have taken place. Perhaps the word only imports that the circulation was completely stopped.
[95] The blood certainly does not coagulate in the vessels, in any case whatever, unless by injecting something into them.
[101] The Mediastinum is a membrane by which the cavity of the breast is longitudinally divided. The tearing of it in any disease seems altogether unaccountable, unless we suppose an extraordinary loss of cohesion to have taken place without any mortification. The pericardium is a membrane surrounding the heart, and in a natural state contains some water, condensed from vapour after death.
[102] Vol. ii, p. 409.
[103] This, among innumerable other instances that might be brought, is a proof of the infectious nature of the plague.
[104] Memoires de Societe Medicale, &c.
[105] If we consider the composition of the atmosphere which surrounds us, we must acknowledge that by far the greater part of it consists of fire and electric fluid, the latter being properly the element in a comparatively quiescent state. In deflagrating dephlogisticated and inflammable air, the mixture has sometimes shrunk up into a three hundredth part of its bulk; which shows that of these airs two hundred and ninety-nine parts are fire, the single remaining part only being earth, water, or some solid matter which we call the basis of air.
[106] This is in favour of what has already been observed, that the pestilential eruptions in all cases showed a tendency to mortification.
[107] Bonetus relates, that in 1676 in a malignant fever at Borgo di Safia, the patients discharged live worms by the mouth, and adds that they were sooner killed by wine than any thing.
[108] Dr. Gotwald, formerly quoted, describes four varieties of carbuncles, the differences between which seem to be pretty distinctly marked. 1. “One kind rises pretty high, is of a dark brown colour, the cuticle appearing as if it were burnt, and it is surrounded with a lead-coloured circle. In the beginning it is no bigger than a pea, but, if not prevented, soon grows to the size of a crown piece; inwardly it is moister than the rest, and may be more easily separated. Its seat is generally in the fleshy parts, as on the shoulders, neck, hips, arms and legs. 2. The second lie a little deeper, and do not rise so high; the eschar in the middle is entirely dark and ash-coloured, full of small chops, as if it would burst by too great dryness: it has a strong lead-coloured circle, behind which the sound flesh looks red and shining. It eats into the flesh round about it, and takes deep root: it generally fixes in the most fleshy parts, as the buttocks, calves, &c. 3. The third is not very large at first; it appears like a blood swelling, not so dark as the former, with a wrinkled skin; as it increases, small blisters arise in the middle, and form an eschar, in little clusters, which, as an ingenious physician observed, were small carbuncles. They commonly are situated in membranous and tendinous parts about the knees, toes, and behind the ears, &c. 4. The fourth is the most curious, as Purman, in his treatise on the plague, has well observed. Sitonius calls them pale, livid, ulcerous papulae: they appear with a high, yellowish blister, which seems full of corruption: the circle round it is first red, then of an ash colour: the blister soon falls, and, with the carbuncle, appears scarce so big as a pepper corn, continually eating deeper and wider. They are seated upon the cartilaginous or gristly parts. Gotwald found them near the pit of the stomach, upon the cartilago ensiformis and short ribs. All the four take root and burn very violently at first, but the two former most of all.”
[109] See [p. p. 61, 62].
[110] Medical Review, vol. iii, p. 257.
[111] At Aleppo 20. (Russel.)
[112] About the mouth of the river Gambia in Africa, after the annual inundation of the river, the putrefaction of the mud, mixed with animal and vegetable substances, becomes so great, that the birds manifest their disgust by soaring to an immense height in the air. This is a natural consequence of the levity of putrefactive vapours compared with the common atmosphere. As these vapours, however, are composed of several kinds of gases, it is possible that some may descend, while others ascend; and thus the contagious part, tending to the earth, may violently affect the people who are confined among it, while the birds escape; but there is still wanting some positive evidence that ever the true plague did arise from this cause.
[113] Med. Repository, vol. ii, p. 367.
[114] Medical Review, vol. iii, p. 260.
[115] It seems, however, of late, that at least the city of Madrid is kept clean. Swinburne says, speaking of the palace at Madrid, “To the west it has the town, the three principal streets of which terminate in the Pravo. These are three noble openings, excellently paved, and clean even to a nicety; indeed so are most of the streets of Madrid since the edict for paving and cleaning them.[116] The foreigners that resided here before that time, shudder at the very recollection of its former filth. Some of the natives regret the old stinks and nastiness; as they pretend that the air of Madrid is so subtil as to require a proper mixture of grosser effluvia, to prevent its pernicious effects upon the constitution. The extremes of cold and heat are astonishing in this place, and the winds so searching, that all the Spaniards wear leathern under waistcoats, to preserve their chests; for they pervade every other kind of clothing.”
The former filthiness of Madrid, together with its being situated in a climate exposed to the vicissitudes of extreme heat and cold, and its exemption from the plague under those circumstances, certainly presents a most solid objection to the theory of the domestic origin of plague. To the same purpose see below the remarks on the climate of China.
[116] Dillon has a like remark in his “Travels through Spain.”
[117] See [p.p. 171, 172].
[118] Authentic Account of an Embassy, &c. vol. ii, p. 54.
[119] Ib. p. 39.
[120] Authentic Account, &c. vol. i, p. 290.
[121] In the time of the great fire at London, in 1666, ashes are said to have been carried to sixteen miles distance.
[122] Duncan’s Med. Comment. vol. viii p. 350.
[123] Med. Repos. vol. ii, p. 433.
[124] Synopsis, vol. i, p. 80.
[125] Earthquakes, as we have already seen, might be accounted rather a sign or cause of the beginning of pestilence, than of its departure. A great quantity of electricity in the atmosphere has accordingly been enumerated among the signs of an approaching pestilence. Thus in Burnet’s Thesaurus, p. 699, we find among the previous signs of a plague, “plurima et fere continua nocturna fulgora, sine pluviis et tonitruis, cœlo non nubiloso existante.” Very much and almost continual lightning at night, without rain or thunder; the sky in the mean time not being covered with clouds.
[126] Before we can attach any degree of probability to either of these suppositions, it must be proved that plagues arise out of the earth. But this, though as plausible as many other hypotheses, is not yet supported by any direct proof.
[127] Medicina Nautica, p. 173, et seq.
[128] In the plague, Dr. Russel has observed, that those who die in a very short time are much less ready to communicate infection, than those who live longer. He also takes notice, that “the plague, though a contagious disease, is not equally contagious in every period of the pestilential season. In the beginning those frequenting the sick often escape unhurt, or one only, out of several, is infected. The escape of persons employed about the sick, proves a frequent cause of misleading the popular opinion of the disease, and has in many instances occasioned much mischief, by encouraging the neglect of due precautions till too late.”
[130] Here, I hope, it will not be thought unreasonable to digress a little in favour of the sensations of humanity which on all occasions ought to predominate in our minds. Birds are the natural enemies of that hateful class of beings we call insects, and which in general are the natural enemies of man. In proportion to the havock we make among the former, the latter will multiply upon us whether we will or not. The wanton, indiscriminate, and I may add provoking destruction exercised among this useful as well as beautiful and agreeable part of the creation, must certainly be sometimes attended with bad consequences. Though birds feed on many different kinds of insects, yet there are exceptions. If then we totally exterminate a species of birds, is it not probable that a species of insects might appear, the mischief done by which we could not be able to counteract? Quere. Is it not possible that the Hessian fly may have made its appearance from this cause?
[131] Diemerbroeck, Hist. 17, lib. 4.
[132] Annals of Medicine for 1797, p. 373.
[133] The opinion of those physicians whom Mr. Howard consulted upon this subject are given at large in the APPENDIX.
[134] This doctrine of fancy, or imagination, ought undoubtedly, as Dr. Russel says of the imagination itself, to be under some management. The indiscriminate use of the word has been carried to such a length as in a manner to supersede all evidence, testimony, argumentation or reason. With some it is sufficient to discredit the most positive testimony (even upon oath) if they take it into their heads that such a thing cannot be: which by the bye is as strong an evidence of ignorance as any man can give. If imagination is given as a cause, the extent and nature of its powers ought to be ascertained; but who has done this? On the contrary I may say that not one in five hundred who makes use of the word would be able to define it. But the most curious mode of reasoning used by these imaginary gentlemen is, if they are asked, “How do you prove that such a thing is the effect of imagination?” they are ready to answer, “I can indeed bring no proof that it is so, but how do you prove that it is not?” Here the imaginaries have not reason sufficient to show them that they ought to bring a proof, and not those who say they saw or felt any thing. But, waving this, sense is the highest faculty in our nature; imagination as well as reason are inferior to it; because neither the one nor the other can be conversant except about the objects of sense. If any person therefore says that he sees or that he feels any thing, nobody can, with any shadow of reason, say that he neither saw nor felt any thing. If one man sees what another cannot see, while the supposed object is easily within reach of the eyes of either, then the one who cannot see it has a right to suspect that the object is imaginary; but, if the person himself feels any slight pain or uneasiness, and that should go off in a short time, after drinking a glass of wine, there is as little reason to suppose that the pain was imaginary, as that the drinking of the wine was imaginary. In Dr. Russel’s case, though his strength was in general sufficient to resist the contagion in which he was immersed, yet, when that strength began to decay, it was no wonder that he found the contagion beginning to invade: a few glasses of wine gave vigour to the system, and enabled it to repel the attack. Had he been much fatigued with bodily labour, and found himself greatly relieved by a few glasses of wine, surely he would not suppose that his former fatigue was merely imaginary. Just so must it be in the former case; the one has no more to do with imagination than the other.
[135] Duncan’s Med. Comment. vol. viii, p. 352.
[136] Dr. Dover, who wrote, in 1732, the Ancient Physician’s Legacy, had lodged his soldiers in a church in which those who died of a plague had been buried. An hundred and eighty of the soldiers were seized either with petechiæ or buboes. He ordered them all to be bled in such quick succession, that the arm of the first was not bound up till the blood flowed from the last. Thus every one lost about an hundred ounces (upwards of three quarts.) He then ordered them water acidulated with spirit of vitriol for their drink; and by this treatment all recovered excepting eight, who would not refrain from spiritous liquors. This was transacted in Peru: but in Europe the plague will scarce bear bleeding to a few ounces. (Sauvages.)
[137] Duncan’s Med. Comment. vol. viii, p. 359.
[138] As it might by some be deemed an affront offered to the wisdom of antiquity, should we pass over in silence the opinions of the more ancient physicians, I shall in this note give a short account of some of their most remarkable modes of practice, as they are recorded in Burnet’s Thesaurus.
1. Forestus, in many respects a respectable author, recommends an antidote composed of equal parts of rue, figs and almonds, beat into a pulp in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle till united (which is not very easily done) into an uniform mass, adding as much syrup of citrons with vinegar as would render it soft, with a little powdered salt put in last. The efficacy of this he tells us he experienced in himself as well as all his family as a preventive; himself taking in the morning the bigness of a small nutmeg of this, made up into a confection with the ancient theriac, mithridate, Armenian bole, terrasigillata, &c.
In his regular practice (for the above must be accounted quackery) he advises bleeding within the first twelve, or at most twenty-four, hours; such as were bled afterwards he says died. If performed in seven or eight hours after the commencement of the disease the cure went on the better. Where bleeding was inadvisable he used cupping with scarifications, finishing the cure with sweating and cordials. He remarks that where black tumours or eschars, lentil shaped, appeared, the disease always proved mortal, without a single exception. These were small, like a grain of black pepper, and therefore called by the vulgar peppercorn; undoubtedly the tokens of Dr. Hodges.
2. Hildanus, also a respectable writer, has an high opinion of issues as a preventive. He says he never knew but one or two (and those of a very bad habit of body) who had issues in their legs and arms that perished in the plague, and says that he has known its efficacy as a preventive not only in himself but many others. He says he kept two issues in his own body, one in the left arm, the other in the right leg. (See above p. 339) To the same purpose Mercurialis relates that he never knew but one, and he was a priest, who died of the plague having an issue. He says also that he had inquired of many other physicians, who all gave a similar testimony. According to him, in the plague at Lausanne, all who were attacked by vomiting or looseness, and almost all who were bled, fell victims to the disease.
As preventives he advises amulets made up of arsenic, powder of toads, and other things. These are to be hanged round the neck in times of plague, and are undoubtedly of great virtue (maximam ad præservationem vim habere, non est quod dubites!) This remedy he says he had from his preceptor Cosmas Slotanus, a very celebrated surgeon.
Brine of pork is another preventive, which he never tried himself, but asks Sennerius about it. It was recommended to Hildanus by a lawyer of his acquaintance. The brine is first to be boiled in a kettle, and well skimmed, till it becomes clear, poured into earthen vessels. and kept shut up from the air for a twelvemonth; after which it was fit for use. A draught of this was given to people infected with plague, and operated by sweat, stool or vomit, or perhaps both by vomit and stool. The patient was to abstain from drink for some hours after. The brine of anchovies is recommended by Sam. Formius, as useful in the plague at Montpelier in 1630.
3. The same author (Formius) tells us of a man and his wife and wife’s sister, in Montpelier, who, being taken with the plague, swallowed a solution of their own excrements in urine, strained through a linen cloth, and thus got clear of the distemper. It produced excessive vomiting and purging. Dr. Russel mentions one of his patients, who, he suspected, had got a dose of bezoar in urine.
4. Johannes Helmontius says, that to his certain knowledge (me conscio) Hibernus Butlerus cured some thousands of the plague, at London; though unhappily our author got only part of the secret, and which is to the following purpose. “He ordered me to suspend by the legs before the fire, a large toad taken in the afternoon in the month of June; putting below him a cake of yellow wax. At length, after three days suspension, the toad vomited earth, and some walking insects (insectas ambulantes) viz. flies with shining wings of a greenish colour, as if gilt: the toad died immediately after this evacuation, nor did it take place, notwithstanding his suspension till the third day. He (Butlerus) then told me that I had medicine enough for curing forty thousand people infected with the plague, and promised to show me the mystery of the matter (rei cardinem) but being suddenly sent into banishment he departed.” The best part of the secret being thus lost, it is needless to trouble the reader with any further account of experiments made with other toads roasted alive, powdered and made up into troches,&c. presuming that these could not equal the value of the original receipt. I proceed therefore,
5. To the antidote of the celebrated Avenzoar, who drove away the plague by the smell of the urine of an he goat; and Mercurialis says that in the house of a most reverend canon in Hungary, he saw a large he goat kept for this purpose.
6. From such horribly disgusting remedies we certainly turn with pleasure to the elegant tablets prepared for the Emperor Maximilian II. These were composed of Armenian bole, prepared pearl, prepared coral, prepared emeralds, prepared jacinct, gold-leaves (ingredients in a medical view equally efficacious with chalk or oyster shells) along with a little ambergrease and some other ingredients of little value, as medicines, and made into tablets with conserve of roses——It is needless to spend time in commenting on such ridiculous remedies; suffice it to say, that the intention of all rational practice both ancient and modern has been to effect a cure by sweating. From the instance related by Sydenham, as well as that of Dr. Power above mentioned, it seems, that if the exact time in which the disease begins could be known, it might be carried off by profuse blood-letting; but as this for the most part cannot be discovered, it is certainly better to wait, even though the event should not prove favourable, than to run the risk of killing, the patient instantly by an ignorant effort to save him.
[139] These two last conclusions (though I believe them myself) are proposed only as probable conjectures, which as yet I see nothing to contradict.
[141] The operation of oil so much recommended by Mr. Baldwin is said to be by producing sweat. (See above p. [341].)
[142] Naturally belonging to the climate.
[145] In Belknap’s Biography we have a more particular account of this pestilence, as it is called, and which, if the relations there given are to be credited, certainly determines the disease in question to have been the yellow fever. The account is to the following purpose: Lord Arundel, of Wardour, had employed a captain Weymouth to search for a N. W. passage to India. In this he failed, but falling in with a river, supposed to be either the Kennebeck or Penobscot, he brought from thence five of the natives, with whom he landed at Plymouth in July 1605. Three of the Indians were taken into the family of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; and from these many particulars were obtained respecting their country, which being eagerly attended to by Gorges, he formed a plan of advancing his fortune by a thorough discovery of the country. Two vessels were accordingly fitted out; one of which failed, but the other brought such information as gave encouragement to attempt the founding of a colony. Two of the natives who had been brought to England were sent back, and 45 persons were left on the continent to begin the settlement; but these, having undergone great hardships, quitted the place in 1608. Gorges, however was not discouraged. He sent out one of his servants, by name Richard Vines, and some others, whom he hired to stay in the country all winter.
“Mr. Vines and his companions were received by the Indians with great hospitality, though their residence among them was rendered hazardous; both by a war which raged among them, and by a pestilence which accompanied or succeeded it.
“This war and pestilence are frequently spoken of by the historians of New England, as remarkable events, in the course of Providence, which prepared the way for the establishment of an European colony. Concerning the war, we know nothing more than this, that it was begun by the Tarratenes, a nation who resided eastward of Penobscot. These formidable people surprised the bashaba, or chief sachem, at his head quarters, and destroyed him with all his family; upon which all the other sachems who were subordinate to him quarrelled among themselves for the sovereignty; and in these dissensions many of them as well as of their unhappy people perished. Of what particular kind the pestilence was, we have no certain[146] information, but it seems to have been a disorder peculiar to the Indians, for Mr. Vines and his companions, who were intimately conversant with them, and frequently lodged in their wigwams, were not in the least degree affected by it, though it swept off the Indians at such a prodigious rate that the living were not able to bury the dead, and their bones were found several years after, lying about the villages where they had resided. The extent of this pestilence was between Penobscot in the east, and Narraganset in the west. These two tribes escaped, whilst the intermediate people were wasted and destroyed.”
This distemper appears to have raged among the Indians in the year 1616. The following particulars are further given in Belknap’s Biography, vol. ii, p. 208: “Hitherto they (the English colonists) had not seen any of the natives at this place. The mortal pestilence which raged through the country, four years before, had almost depopulated it. One remarkable circumstance attending this pestilence was not known till after this settlement was made. A French ship had been wrecked on Cape Cod. The men were saved, with their provisions and goods. The natives kept their eye on them, till they found an opportunity to kill all but three or four, and divide their goods. The captives were sent from one tribe to another, as slaves. One of them learned so much of their language, as to tell them that God was angry with them for their cruelty, and would destroy them, and give their country to another people. They answered that they were too many for God to kill. He replied, that if they were ever so many, God had many ways to kill them, of which they were then ignorant. When the pestilence came among them (a new disease, probably the yellow fever) they remembered the Frenchman’s words; and when the Plymouth settlers arrived at Cape Cod, the few survivors imagined that the other part of his prediction would soon be accomplished. Soon after their arrival, the Indian priests or powows convened, and performed their incantations in a dark swamp three days successively, with a view to curse and destroy the new comers. Had they known the mortality which raged among them, they would doubtless have rejoiced in the success of their endeavours, and might very easily have taken advantage of their weakness to exterminate them. But none of them were seen till after the sickness had abated; though some tools, which had been left in the woods, were missing, which they had stolen in the night.”
[146] “The Pawkunnawkutts were a great people heretofore. They lived to the east and northeast of the Narragansitts, and their chief sachem held dominion over divers other petty sagamores; as the sagamores upon the island of Nantuckett, and Nope, or Martha’s Vineyard, of Nawsett, of Mannamoyk, of Sawkattukett, Nobsquasitt, Matakees, and several others, and some of the Nipmucks. Their country, for the most part, falls within the jurisdiction of New Plymouth colony. This people were a potent nation in former times, and could raise, as the most credible and ancient Indians affirm, about three thousand men. They held war with the Narragansitts, and often joined the Massachusetts as friends and confederates against the Narragansitts. This nation, a very great number of them, were swept away by an epidemical and unwonted sickness, an. 1612 and 1613, about seven or eight years before the English first arrived in those parts to settle the colony of New Plymouth. Thereby Divine Providence made way for the quiet and peaceable settlement of the English in those nations. What this disease was, that so generally and mortally swept away, not only these but other Indians, their neighbours, I cannot well learn. Doubtless it was some pestilential disease. I have discoursed with some old Indians, that were then youths, who say, that the bodies all over were exceeding yellow (describing it by a yellow garment they showed me) both before they died, and afterward.
“The Massachusetts, being the next great people northward, inhabited principally about that place in Massachusetts bay, where the body of the English now dwell. These were a numerous and great people. Their chief sachem held dominion over many other petty governors; as those of Weechagaskas, Neponsitt, Punkapaog, Nonantum, Nashaway, some of the Nipmuck people, as far as Pocomtacuke, as the old men of Massachusetts affirmed. This people could, in former times, arm for war about three thousand men, as the old Indians declare. They were in hostility very often with the Narragansitts, but held amity for the most part with the Pawkunnawcutts, who lived on the south border, and with the Pawtucketts, who inhabited on their north and northeast limits. In an. 1612 and 1613 these people were also sorely smitten by the hand of God with the same disease before mentioned; which destroyed the most of them, and made room for the English people of Massachusetts colony, which people this country, and the next called Pawtuckett. There are not of this people left at this day above three hundred men, besides women and children.
“Pawtuckett is the fifth and last great sachemship of Indians. Their country lieth north and northeast from the Massachusetts, whose dominion reacheth so far as the English jurisdiction, or colony of the Massachusetts, doth now extend, and had under them several other smaller sagamores; as the Pennakoaks, Agawomes, Naamkeeks, Pascatawayes, Accomintas, and others. They were also a considerable people heretofore, about three thousand men, and held amity with the people of Massachusetts. But these also were almost totally destroyed by the great sickness before mentioned; so that at this day they are not above two hundred and fifty men, besides women and children. This country is now inhabited by the English under the government of Massachusetts.” (Gookin’s Historical Collections of the Indians in New England.)
The following was communicated to Benjamin Basset, esq. of Chilmark, by Thomas Cooper, a half blooded Indian, of Gay Head, aged about sixty years; and which, he says, he obtained of his grandmother, who, to use his own expression, was a stout girl when the English came to the island: “Before the English came among the Indians, there were two disorders of which they generally died, viz. the consumption and the yellow fever. The latter they could always lay in the following manner: After it had raged and swept off a number, those who were well, met to lay it. The rich, that is, such as had a canoe, skins, axes, &c. brought them; They took their seat in a circle, and all the poor sat around without. The richest then proposed to begin to lay the sickness; and, having in his hand something in shape resembling his canoe, skin, or whatever his riches were, he threw it up in the air; and whoever of the poor without could take it, the property it was intended to resemble became for ever transferred to him or her. After the rich had thus given away all their moveable property to the poor, they looked out the handsomest and most sprightly young man in the assembly, and put him into an entire new wigwam, built of every thing new for that purpose. They then formed into two files at a small distance from each other; one standing in the space at each end put fire to the bottom of the wigwam on all parts, and fell to singing and dancing. Presently the youth would leap out of the flames, and fall down to appearance dead. Him they committed to the care of five virgins, prepared for that purpose, to restore to life again. The term required for this would be uncertain, from six to forty-eight hours, during which time the dance must be kept up. When he was restored he would tell, that he had been carried in a large thing high up in the air, where he came to a great company of white people, with whom he had interceded hard to have the distemper laid, and generally, after much persuasion, would obtain a promise, or answer of peace, which never failed of laying the distemper.”
The following is extracted from Prince’s Chronological History of New England, p. 46: “This winter (1617) and the spring ensuing, a great plague befals the natives in New England, which wasteth them exceedingly; and so many thousands of them die, that the living are not able to bury them, and their skulls and bones remain above ground at the places of their habitations for several years after.
“By Capt. Dermer’s letter of Dec. 27, 1619, in Purchas, and of June 30, 1620, in Gov. Bradford, compared with Gov. Bradford’s own account, it seems that the Narragansitts in the west, and Penobscots in the east, escaped this plague, or that it raged only in the countries lying between them, and prepared the way for another people.”
[147] “This (says the Doctor) is the time to extinguish the disease; but Europeans and North Americans generally neglect it, as they are not accustomed at home to have recourse to medicine on the first moment of indisposition.”
[148] Chisholm’s Essay on the Malignant Pestilential Fever, p. 86.
[149] To this is subjoined the attestation of Mr. Smithers with respect to the Charon.
[150] Account of the Bilious Remitting Fever, &c. p. 106.
[151] See [p. 126], n. where an account is given of the samiel, and another hypothesis concerning its nature.
[154] Med. Repository, vol. ii, p. 412.
[156] In Dr. Rush’s account of the fever of 1793, we find the following remarks on the French mode of practice to which it seems remarkable that our author has given no answer: “I proceed with reluctance to inquire into the comparative success of the French practice. It would not be difficult to decide upon it from many facts that came under my notice in the city; but I shall rest its merit wholly upon the returns of the number of deaths at Bush-hill. This hospital, after the 22d of September, was put under the care of a French physician, who was assisted by one of the physicians of the city. The hospital was in a pleasant and airy situation; it was provided with all the necessaries and comforts for sick people that humanity could invent, or liberality supply. The attendants were devoted to their duty, and cleanliness and order pervaded every room in the house. The reputation of this hospital, and of the French physician, drew patients to it in the early stage of the disorder. Of this I have been assured in a letter from Dr. Annan, who was appointed to examine and give orders of admission into the hospital to such of the poor of the district of Southwark, as could not be taken care of in their own houses. Mr. Olden has likewise informed me, that most of the patients who were sent to the hospital by the city committee (of which he was a member) were in the first stage of the fever. With all these advantages, the deaths between the 22d of September and the 6th of November, amounted to 448 out of 807 patients who were admitted into the hospital within that time. Three fourths of all the blacks (nearly 20) who were patients in this hospital died. A list of the medicines prescribed there may be seen in the minutes of the proceedings of the city committee. Calomel and jalap are not among them. Moderate bleeding and purging with glauber salts, I have been informed were used in some cases by the physicians of this hospital. The proportion of deaths to the recoveries, as it appears in the minutes of the committee from whence the report is taken, is truly melancholy!”
[157] Webster’s Collection, p. 98.
[158] Webster’s Collection, p. 98.
[159] Annals of Medicine, vol. i, p. 166.
[160] In the Medical Extracts we find it recorded, that a young gentleman having breathed pure oxygen for several minutes, his pulse, which was before 64, soon beat 120, in a minute.
[161] This account is taken from the Annals of Medicine for 1798, and appears in a letter from Dr. Guthrie at Petersburg to Dr. Duncan at Edinburgh. It is drawn up with such astonishing inaccuracy, that we may well be surprised how the one physician should write, and the other print it. There seems in the first place to have been a mistake of Reaumur’s thermometer for Fahrenheit’s. But even this will not rectify the account. The zero or (0) on Reaumur’s scale is the freezing point of water; on Fahrenheit’s it is the cold produced by a mixture of salt and snow, 32 degrees below the freezing point of water. The freezing point of quicksilver has been fixed at 39, 39 1/2 or 40 degrees below the cold produced by salt and snow. When the thermometer therefore fell to 40 deg. below the freezing point of water, it was only eight degrees below the cold of salt and snow, and not equal to the congelation of mercury by more than thirty degrees. The difference between this and forty-two degrees below the freezing point of quicksilver is enormous and incredible. It indicates a degree of cold hitherto unobserved on the face of the earth, and scarcely equalled by the latest experiments made at Hudson’s bay, where, by means of vitriolic acid and snow, the thermometer was made to indicate a degree of cold 40 degrees below the freezing point of quicksilver. The inaccuracy and confusion of this account, however, does not affect the subsequent part relative to Mr. Billings’s journey.
[162] Here no account is made of the heat that the very cold snow upon which they lay must have absorbed, which we know must have been very considerable, though it cannot be calculated.
[163] If sulphur be a simple substance, as the new chemists pretend, there ought never to be any variation in its properties, except what arises from mere impurity; but the following is a remarkable instance to the contrary: Dr. Crawford (brother to the celebrated Adair Crawford) informed me, that for his oil of vitriol works at Lisburn, in Ireland, he had purchased five tons of sulphur produced from copper mines in the island of Anglesey. The sulphur looked well, and was not more impure than what he commonly used; but, on trial, the produce of acid fell so much short of what he had been accustomed to receive, that it would not afford the expense of manufacturing. An experiment on such a large scale could not be erroneous. If sulphur is a simple substance, the fact is unaccountable: if it is composed of phlogiston and acid, an over proportion of the former will easily account for it.
[164] Medical Repos. vol. i, p. 170.
[165] Medical Repos. vol. ii, p. 313.
[166] Account of the Bilious Yellow Fever, p. 107.
[167] Med. Repos. vol. i, p. 171.
[168] Haygarth’s Sketch of a Plan to exterminate Casual Small Pox, vol. ii, p. 270.
[169] Med. Repos. vol. ii, p. 291.
[170] See Medical Annals, vol. iii, p 400.
[171] The following account of the poisonous insects of Russia, extracted from Dr. Guthrie’s letter to Dr. Duncan (Med. Annals vol. iii, p. 396) may be not unacceptable to the reader: “I have lately seen (says Dr. Guthrie) a woman with her hand and arm in a most violent state of irritation from the lodgement of the lumbricus melitensis, a worm not much thicker than a horse-hair which had entered her thumb whilst at work in a marshy spot, and was, when I saw her, a day after the accident, on its way up the arm, with excruciating pain. I must own that I should not have known the nature of the disease, if a fellow-peasant had not immediately declared that it was produced by the dangerous worm; which many of these people are acquainted with to their cost, as an inhabitant of the stagnant pools and marshes in that district, about sixty versts to the southwest of Petersburgh. I must farther acknowledge, that I was happy to hear the patient was to be instantly transported to another village, where a famous operator lived, well skilled in the art of extracting the venomous insect; as I should certainly have gone very awkwardly to work if I had been obliged to operate; though the simple peasants perform it with success and safety, gradually winding the worm round a quill, till the whole animal be extracted; a work of much patience and perseverance. I was very sorry that duty obliged me to be in town the same evening, a drive of sixty versts. It was therefore impossible for me to accompany the patient, though I was very desirous of witnessing this village-operation.
“But Russia is pestered with a still more dangerous worm; the furia infernalis. It is still smaller than the former, not being thicker than a human hair. This infernal insect, from its extreme lightness, is often carried up into the air, with the dust, by whirlwinds; and, if it unfortunately falls on the uncovered part of a man or beast, it enters the flesh in an instant, and soon proves mortal, if a remedy be not quickly applied.
“Our new vice-governor of Petersburg lately came down from Siberia, where he was commandant of a fort. He tells me, that in the district of Nerchinsk, where he commanded, the peasants, as well as their cattle, are often destroyed by an insect falling upon them. To prevent this accident from proving fatal, the part is instantly scarified, and rubbed with a mixture of snuff and sal ammoniac.
“This I am convinced must be the furia infernalis; more especially as he assured me, that the insect was so very minute, that none of the peasants had ever seen it when it fell upon them, and that they had no idea of its nature and form. But one circumstance of his, recited, almost staggered my belief; that the carcase of an animal killed by this insect is almost as dangerous as the insect itself. This phenomenon I cannot account for in any other way but by supposing, as the accident always happens in the hot months of the year, that a high degree of putridity is produced by the venomous worm, when the case proves fatal.
“I informed the vice-governor of the manner in which the Dalecarlian peasants in Sweden treat the accident, in order that he might communicate their mode of cure to his Siberian acquaintance, which is merely applying to the part affected a piece of sweet curd. The insect possibly prefers this to flesh, and leaves the one for the other. I am, however, much afraid that this simple remedy will seldom be at hand in Russia, as the peasants are unacquainted with the use of rennet, but prepare a sour curd by means of heat, throughout the whole empire; evidently taking its origin in the Tartar Koumis, and shewing them to be a people of Scythian extraction. They likewise separate butter from milk by heat, instead of the churn; a curious circumstance probably unknown to you before.
“These two dangerous insects are, however, not all which threaten the life of man in this empire: the southern provinces are infected with a third, the bite of which is as mortal as that of the deadly rattlesnake, if the part be not instantly scarified, and rubbed with fresh butter. This is a species of crab-spider, the phalangium acaroides, resembling the tarantula, but rather thinner and smaller. It however kills and devours that formidable spider in a few minutes, which, when compared with it, is an innocent animal.
“Your acquaintance, Mrs. Guthrie, lately returned from a tour on account of health, along the north shore of the Black Sea. Among much important and curious information, she gave me some account of the cure employed for the bite of this mortal spider, which finds many lurking-places among the ruined buildings of the ancient Chersonesus Taurica, or Crimea, laid waste in the last Turkish war. It is a curious fact, that animal oil counteracts the venom of the spider tribes, as vegetable oils do the venom of serpents. I suspect, however, that either of them would counteract both poisons; indeed, I think we have a proof of animal oil acting wonderfully on serpents, in the anecdote related by Bruce, when the deadly cerastes, or viper of the Nile, turned away its head from the oily breast of the prime minister of Fenaar, when he carelessly took it up in his hand, and applied it to his naked bosom, to show Mr. Bruce how innocent it was to men of his colour, whose very skin sickened the animal, and made it avoid all contact.”
[173] The same physician, in the very letter quoted by Dr. Seaman, says that all the times this fever had appeared in Carolina, the origin of it was evidently traced to some vessel arrived from the West Indies.
[174] Arguments of this kind involve us in an endless dispute similar to that relative to the equivocal generation of plants and animals; that is, the production of plants without a seed, and animals without parents. As some diseases are confessed to arise from some kind of seed, we are puzzled to account for the origin of the first disease of that kind. Nevertheless, as these diseases do exist, the difficulty arising from a consideration of their origin is overlooked. In the yellow fever, which is not of so long standing, the origin is more disputed. But it is likewise undeniable, that some contagious distempers (the itch particularly) though capable of being propagated by contagion, may yet arise from want of cleanliness, and living on particular kinds of food. May not this also be the case with the yellow fever? And is it not the safe and rational way to act as though it might not only be produced at home, but imported from abroad?
[175] This is the very point in question; but our author, instead of enumerating the facts by which his position may be supported, refers to Dr. Lind, whose evidence shall be afterwards considered.
[176] No greater latitude, or very little more, is required by the advocates for the contagious nature of the yellow fever than Dr. Seaman must allow in a distemper which he himself owns to be contagious. It is well known, on the eastern continent at least, that a gonorrhœa will come on at any time between the first and fifteenth day after the infection is received. Dr. Guthrie supposes the time intervening between the reception of pestilential contagion and the appearance of the symptoms to be four days; and Dr. Chisholm thinks that in the Boullam fever it is somewhat short of two days: but it is plain that much must depend on the quantity of contagion, and the predisposition of the body to receive it.
[178] Sketch of a Plan to exterminate Casual Small Pox.
[180] Dr. Seaman, having at last, as he thinks, completely overthrown his adversaries, and ranked himself with the more considerate and reasonable part of the community, likens those who differ from him to such as believe in the power of imagination to mark the child in the womb; and which he is of opinion that the women of America would not disbelieve, though all the physicians on the continent were to unite in persuading them to the contrary. On this subject the writer of this treatise is happy at having it in his power to declare himself of the same opinion with the ladies, and to offer, in support of their opinion and his, the following fact. A pregnant woman, having been employed in dyeing some cotton yarn, and rinsed it, after it had got the colour, in cold water, threw it, while wet and cold, about her neck. It touched the skin on the back part of the neck, and part of her arm. The woman started, shivered, and instantly said that her child would be marked. It happened exactly according to her prediction. The back part of the neck, and corresponding part of the arm to that which the cotton touched, being covered with purple spots in the child, exactly similar to what might have been made by drops of the purple liquid in which the yarn was dyed falling upon the skin. Of this fact I am as certain as of my own existence; having been present when the cotton was dyed, having heard the woman call out as above related, and seen the child after it was born, and particularly inspected the marks.
[181] Medical Review, vol. iv.
[182] Dr. Moseley who has written at some length on the interruption given to military operations by diseases, gives an account of general Dalling’s expedition in 1780, where the English troops, confined in the castle of St. Juan, in an unhealthy situation on the river Nicaragua, were cut off by diseases; but these were fluxes and intermittents. He doth not mention the yellow fever among them. He tells us indeed that the troops under general Garth brought the jail fever along with them, and that those who returned to Jamaica were harassed with obstinate intermittents, with diarrhœa, dysentery, or painful enlargements of the liver and spleen.
[184] Treatise on Tropical Diseases, p. 173.
[185] If physicians censure one another at this rate, how is it to be determined who gives a true state of the matter?
[186] This position of Dr. Moseley is not universally received. The meaning of the word remission certainly is a temporary abatement, and implies a recurrence, of the same symptoms which originally took place. Dr. Moseley describes the yellow fever as beginning with one kind of symptoms which suddenly cease and are succeeded after a certain interval by others of a quite different kind; and he claims the discovery as his own. If he be right in this description, the yellow fever is certainly not a remittent; if otherwise, it must be difficult to establish any true distinction between them.
[187] At Strasburg, in Germany, our author says that he saw a man who had been an idiot for more than a year from a stroke of the sun. The 8th of July 1707 was so hot in England that many people died at their work, and many horses and oxen were killed by the sun’s rays. In 1743, eleven thousand people perished from the 14th to the 25th of July in the streets of Pekin in China. On the 30th of July, 1705, the heat at Montpelier was so great, that eggs were roasted by it. Chalmers, in his account of the weather and diseases of South Carolina, says, that he has seen a beef-steak, laid on a cannon for twenty minutes, deprived of its juices, and overdone by the excessive force of the sun’s rays.
[189] Med. Repos. vol. i, p. 316.
[190] Webster’s Collection.
[191] This proves that Dr. Treat was not the first person who suffered by this disease but it will not prove that the disease was not imported by capt. Bird’s vessel; for the fever spread in the vicinity of the vessel, not of the almshouse, where the first patient was carried.
[192] The following facts, in confirmation of the importation of the yellow fever, were communicated in a letter from an eminent practitioner in New Haven to a gentleman of the same profession in this town. They came to hand too late to be inserted otherwise than in a note, the sheet being already prepared for press:
A child was reported to have died of worms, and the parents were indulged in the common ceremonies of burial: but the truth was, that the disease had been the black vomit. The consequence was, a very extensive spread of the contagion. In less than a week six out of eight of the bearers were taken with the fever, and these were young persons from different parts of the town. “As to the suppositions (says the gentleman) with respect to local causes originating the disease, I conceive there is no occasion to seek for any other than what was contained in the chest (p. [444]) which was a blanket and clothing taken off the corpse of one who had died of the fever in the West Indies, and without the least formality of cleaning put down into a close chest, and brought to New Haven, and lodged in Austin’s store. Now it appears to me (these facts well ascertained) as idle to inquire after other causes, as it would, suppose it were the infection of the small pox brought in a chest, and a number of persons who had inspected the chest to be taken down with it. Would, in such a case, mankind have racked their inventions to have investigated other inducing causes? Surely not. . . . As to local putrefying substances, there was nothing but what has been common to the place, where the fever made its first appearance, for many years in dry summers.
“I might revert to the introduction of the fever by importation at Chatham on Connecticut river; at Providence, Rhode Island; in which the importation was as evident as at New Haven. In short, there is scarcely a place on the continent, where this fever has made its appearance, but what it may be traced to an imported origin. There have been but two or three exceptions which I have heard of.”
The following particulars relative to the disease at Portsmouth may likewise be deemed authentic, as communicated by a respectable gentleman (though not of the medical profession) in that place; “Most men of judgment and information on the subject suppose it was imported last year in a ship of Mr. Sheafe, which arrived from Martinico about the 20th of July. One man had died on board this ship in the West Indies: all the rest arrived in health; but the disorder made its appearance in a few days afterwards. Mr. Sheafe lost three of his own family. He lived within a stone’s throw of the wharf where his ship lay, and the fever spread in the neighbourhood. Mr. Plummer, in the next house to Mr. Sheafe’s, died about the 10th of August; Miss Parker, in the same house, four days afterwards; and Miss Smith, who had lived nearly opposite, removed to Berwick, and was there seized and died about the same time. It is worthy of remark, that this was always thought the most healthy part of the town.”
As a contrast to these evidences, we subjoin the following epitome of part of Dr. Rush’s address to the citizens of Philadelphia on the origin of the yellow fever, &c.[193] In this address, the Doctor considers it as indisputable that the disease is, in all countries, the offspring of putrid vegetable and animal exhalations; but it prevails only in hot climates and in hot seasons. In Philadelphia it arises, 1. From the docks; and hence, in New York, it has got the name of the dock fever. 2. From the foul air of ships. 3. From the common sewers. 4. From the gutters. 5. From dirty cellars and yards. 6. Privies. 7. Putrefying masses of matter lying in the neighbouring part of the city. 8. Impure pump water.
The disease is considered by the Doctor as an higher degree of bilious fever. He answers the objection by Dr. Chisholm (see p. [467].) where he speaks of the fever not being produced in 1778, “when it was left in a more filthy state by the British army than it has been at any time since.” To this he answers that for the production of the disease three things are necessary. 1. Putrid exhalations. 2. An inflammatory constitution of the atmosphere, and, 3. An exciting cause, such as great heat, cold, fatigue, or intemperance. The constitution of the atmosphere, however, he looks upon to be the principal cause; as without this constitution mild diseases would be produced, but along with it they become very malignant. “The pestilential constitution of the air in the United States began in 1791. It prevailed in Charleston in 1792, and it has been epidemic in one or more of the cities or country towns of the United States every year since. . . . It has not been confined to the seaports. It has prevailed since the year 1793 in many of the villages of New England, and of the southern states. On the Genesee river it has become so prevalent as to acquire the name of the Genesee fever. The bilious fevers which prevailed in all the above places before the year 1793 were of a mild nature, and seldom mortal. They have lately disappeared, or are much diminished; and have been succeeded by a fever which frequently terminates in death in five days, with a yellow skin and black vomiting.” These circumstances are supported by undeniable testimony.
In answer to the question, “Can the yellow fever be imported?” Our author answers as follows; “I once thought it might; but the foregoing facts authorise me to assert, that it cannot, so as to become epidemic in any city or country. There are but two authorities on which the belief of this disease being imported rests. These are Dr. Lining’s and Dr. Lind’s. The former says it was imported into Charleston in 1732, 1739, 1745 and 1748. The latter says it was conveyed into Philadelphia, where it afterwards became epidemic, by means of the clothes of a young man who died in Barbadoes. No circumstances of ships or names are mentioned with these assertions to entitle them to credit, and from the facility with which vague reports of the foreign origin of this disease have been admitted and propagated by physicians in other countries, there is reason to believe the assertions of those two physicians are altogether without foundation. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, after two weeks investigation, were unable to discover any ships, clothes, or sick person, that could have introduced the disease into Philadelphia in the year 1793. The Academy of Medicine have clearly proved, by many documents, that the disease was not imported in the years 1797 and 1798. The origin of a few cases, reported by Dr. Griffitts and other members of the College of Physicians, which have lately appeared in our city, has in vain been sought for from a prize sloop of the Ganges. Two affidavits of Messieurs Hill and Ingersol prove that she had been healthy in the West Indies, and that no person had been sick on board of her during her voyage, nor after her arrival in our port. Equally unsuccessful have been the attempts to derive those cases from beds and blankets infected by the fever of last year. In Boston, Connecticut, New York, Baltimore, Norfolk and Charleston, both physicians and citizens have long ago rejected the opinion of the importation of the fever. Some physicians suppose it possible for the contagion of this fever to adhere to the timbers of ships that have sailed from West India ports, and that it may be propagated from them to a whole neighbourhood, although houses, and even streets, interpose between them. This opinion is too absurd to stand in need of refutation. Indeed every thing that relates to the importation of this fever is contrary to reason and facts—It is an error, substituted in the room of a belief that all pestilential diseases were derived from the planets.”
[193] Printed in 1799.
[194] This author relates the following curious anecdote concerning tea-drinking: “We had a gentleman in Switzerland, who in every respect knew how to assume the tone of majesty. He was told one day that nothing elevated the dignity of a king so much as when every thing around him had a pale look. This intimation was sufficient for him. He directed all his servants to be blooded once a month, and obliged each of them to swallow fifty dishes of tea every day.” Tea is said to produce a cadaverous hue in the person who drinks it after bloodletting.
[195] If this be chiefly composed of fixed air and azote, as has been said in p. 146, it is difficult to see how putrefaction can take place in it.
[196] It is not easy to understand this. Nitre cannot deflagrate or burn, unless it be mixed with charcoal, sulphur, or some inflammable substance. The iron heater could only expel the water, with a small proportion of acid.
[197] Perhaps this vapour may be as efficacious as the other in destroying contagion, but its smell is so extremely offensive and disagreeable to the lungs, that on this account nitrous vapour seems much preferable.
[198] Medicina Nautica, p. 229.
[199] Willich, p. 13.
[200] Dr. Rush pathetically laments the loss of Dr. Nicholas Way, who had been his intimate friend. In a poem called the Political Greenhouse we find some account of the death of Drs. Smith, Cooper and Scandella, who also perished; and the fates of Drs. Smith and Scandella were connected with one another. Dr. Cooper of Philadelphia was seized with the disease in that city. A friend who attended him sickened during his attendance, and Dr. Cooper, before he had thoroughly recovered, attended in his turn the friend who had taken care of him. A relapse ensued, and the Doctor died. Dr. Smith was intimate with Dr. Scandella of Venice, who had come from thence to America, and was at New York during the time of the fever in 1798. Intending to return to Europe, he waited there for the English packet boat; but, being informed that a foreign lady in Philadelphia, for whose daughter he had an attachment, was sick of the yellow fever, he returned to that city; but could not save either mother or daughter from the cruel disease. On Scandella’s coming to New York the second time he could find no body that would receive him as a lodger. In this forlorn situation he wrote to Dr. Smith, who instantly gave him an invitation to his house. Here he was seized with the fever, and was attended by Dr. Smith, until the latter also fell sick. A friend who lived in the house attended first Dr. Scandella, and then Dr. Smith, until both died.
[201] Typhus Icteroides.
[202] The Doctor’s letter is dated December, 1797.
[203] Lind on hot climates.
[204] Memoirs of Yellow Fever, p. 137.
[205] Medical Repof. vol. ii, p. 149.
[206] In this mixture the fixed air in the alkaline salt would instantly destroy the virtues of the lime water by precipitating the lime. What is sold for salt of wormwood is neither more nor less than common pearl ash.
[207] From the accounts of the most eminent practitioners it appears that the fever of 1798 differed considerably in its nature from that of 1793. In Philadelphia particularly there were many cases that could not bear the stroke of a lancet. In Boston it seems to have partaken more of the nature of the true plague than in other places and other years. The dissections of Drs. Rand and Warren manifest a difference between the effects of it on the body at that time, and what they were in former years. Buboes, carbuncles, or what were thought to be so, and petechiæ, were observed here, as well as in New York. One remarkable case, related in the next section, shows a disposition to induration, very uncommon in the yellow fever, though so common in the true plague that in the former part of this treatise it is taken for the characteristic mark of the disease. None of those eschars called tokens, however, were in any case observed. The disease here bore bleeding much better than at Philadelphia; but mercury was always the most efficacious remedy, where a salivation could be raised. The warm bath was used in some cases with success. Large evacuations were useful, and some patients bore three or four bleedings, with repeated doses of jalap and calomel. The distemper is by one gentleman styled a novel disease, and differing essentially from other bilious complaints. In one case the patient died of apoplexy; and another would probably have shared the same fate, had it not been for timely bleeding. The black vomit was almost inevitably attended with death. The matter evacuated was thought to be extravasated blood from vessels in some cases mortified. The yellow colour was judged merely accidental; but Dr. Lind’s opinion of its arising from a dissolution of the blood seems now to be universally abandoned, and the colour is supposed to arise from a suffusion of bile, owing either to the obstruction of the ducts, or too great secretion.
The names of the gentlemen upon whole authority the above facts stand cannot be mentioned, as permission for so doing has not been obtained. Their authenticity, however, can be proved by undeniable documents.
The origin of the fever at Boston has, as usual, been disputed; but the common opinion is that it was generated. It now appears, however, that, though there are very strong reasons for supposing it to have originated in the place, there are others equally strong for believing that it was imported. It is ascertained that a vessel on board which persons had died with the yellow fever lay in the neighbourhood of the family first seized with the disease in 1798. On the other hand, there were instances of many that were seized with the distemper who had not even left their houses for months previous to the contagious period. This year (1799) there have been unquestionable proofs of the importation of the fever from the Havana. The quarantine, however has kept the infection from spreading; though the state of the atmosphere has been much less favourable to the disease than last year, and has therefore no doubt contributed to preserve the health of the people.
We have been favoured with the following list of those affected with the disease this year at Newburyport:
| When taken. | Remarks. | |||
| Ossytaway June | 8. | A seaman on board the vessel. | ||
| * | March | 28. | do. | |
| * | Sol. Haskel July | 3. | On board while her cargo was discharging, &c. | |
| * | His nephew | 4. | do. | |
| Duggins | 5. | Present when the ballast was thrown out, also on board. | ||
| Tho’s Norwood | 6. |
| Worked in a hatter’s shop about 16 rods from the vessel when graving, the wind blowing all or most of the time from the vessel towards shop. | |
| Tho’s Nor’d jun. | 6. | |||
| * | Robert Lord | 6. | ||
| Stephen Tilton | 6. | Worked on the wharf where the vessel was hauled in. | ||
| Paine | 7. |
| Loaded and stowed the vessel for another outward bound voyage. These men lived at Amesbury. | |
| Herbert | 7. | |||
| * | Walleigh | 7. | ||
| * | Miss Dole | 9. | Worked in a tailor’s shop, by Norwood’s hatter’s shop. | |
| Sally Wood | 10. | do. | ||
| James Wood | 11. |
| Along side the vessel, and filled the old bread casks for her outward voyage. He also lived near the wharf. | |
| Widow Waite | 11. |
| Doubtful whether her disorder was the fever. Lived at the bottom of the wharf. | |
| * | Wm. Thompson | 11. | Lived at the bottom of the wharf, & was along side of the vessel. | |
| Jona Pearson | 13. | Kept a store near the wharf, & was along side the vessel. | ||
| Danl. Favour jun. | 15. | Worked near the bottom of the wharf. | ||
| Goodhue | 15. | On board the schooner, and trimmed the sugar casks. | ||
| * | Rev. Mr. Milton | 15. | Visited the sick at Norwood’s. | |
| * | Mary Dunn | 15. | Lived at Norwood’s. | |
| Giles Parsons | 16. |
| Handled the bags of money that came in the vessel, and counted it. Was along side of the vessel. | |
| * | Sol. Currier | 16. | On board the schooner. Helped to haul her in. | |
| * | Sam. Currier | 18. | On board. Helped to discharge the ballast. | |
| * | Greaty | 18. | On board when the vessel was discharging her cargo. | |
| Mrs. Wood | 19. | Widow of James Wood, above mentioned. | ||
| * | Sally Edwards | 19. | Lived with James Wood. | |
| * | Her brother | 19. | Lived opposite, & often in, Wood’s house during the sickness. | |
Those marked with asterisks recovered.
“The fever unequivocally the same which prevailed in this town in 1796, and in Boston and Portsmouth the last summer.
“The vessel supposed to have introduced the disease was the schooner Sally, Joseph Gunnison master, which arrived at Bartlett’s wharf on the morning of the 29th of June last, after a passage of 18 days, from St. Thomas’s, where the yellow fever prevailed and was very mortal, with 17 tierces of sugar, and cash in bags. She discharged her cargo before one o’clock on the day of her arrival. In the same afternoon her stone ballast, taken on board at St. Thomas’s, was thrown on deck. On the first of July she was moved to a wharf 10 rods below, and her ballast was thrown on a pier wholly covered with water. This ballast was covered with a viscous substance, which adhered to the fingers, and was very offensive to the people working on the pier. On the same day she was hauled in between the two wharves, and graved, and removed back to Bartlett’s wharf, where she was loaded with lumber for another voyage, on which the sailed the 11th of July.
“It is still questioned whether this fever was imported, or generated in the town. You will find that all who have had it have been connected with that vessel, or lived or worked near where she lay, or visited the sick near the place where the vessel was graved. And undoubtedly there were many persons alike connected and situated who did not take it, although the inhabitants living near the wharf very soon moved away. It is said that there is an old distil-house near the bottom of the wharf, which has not been used for many years, and that the tubs and cisterns are replete with putrid exhalations. I do not know that this fact has been verified. It is also said that back of the store used by the deceased Jonathan Pearson, were brewers’, soap boilers’ and tallow-chandlers’ works which had all been used in the last-spring. This is true; but I do not know that it is evident that any putrid substances were formed there. Dr. Vergnies informs me that there was one case of the yellow fever 2 days before the vessel arrived. In my mind the weight of evidence in favour of the importation greatly preponderates. In 1796 the evidence was very unequivocal that the fever was generated.
“Just before the vessel arrived we had some very warm weather, and the heat was oppressive to the feelings. The thermometer two afternoons was at 90 deg. Perhaps it may not be unuseful to mention that calomel was given liberally. All who recovered were salivated. All who could not be salivated died: and unfortunately some who were evidently salivated died. Since forming my table I find that a Mrs. Plummer who lived near the wharf will die.[208] Her case for the first seven days was supposed to be an intermittent fever; then it assumed the symptoms of the yellow fever. She was taken on the 11th July.
[208] “This patient is now dead.”
[209] Haygarth’s Sketch, vol. ii, p. 405.
[210] Chisholm’s Essay, p. 169.
[211] Hillary’s Observations, p. 175.
[212] The attending physician’s name is not mentioned, having no permission to do so.
[213] Medical Repository, vol. i, p. 210.
[214] Journal of the Plague Year.
[215] Hodges, p. 13, & seq.
[216] Hodges, p. 25.
[217] “The bishop of Marseilles, during the time of this miserable calamity, was indefatigable in the execution of his pastoral office, visiting, relieving, encouraging and absolving the sick with extreme tenderness; and though perpetually exposed to the infection, like Sir John Lawrence, the lord mayor of London in 1665, was never seized with the disease—This last gentleman, with undaunted resolution, continued in the city during the whole time of the calamity, executing the duties of his office with the utmost punctuality. The day after the disease was certainly known to be the plague, above 40,000 servants were dismissed, and turned into the streets to perish, for no one would receive them into their houses: and the villages near London drove them away with pitchforks and fire-arms. Sir John Lawrence supported them all, as well the needy as those who were sick; at first by expending his own fortune, till subscriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation.” (Darwin’s Botanic Garden. Loves of the Plants, canto ii, p. 61.)
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Spelling inconsistencies:
idiosyncracy/idiosyncrasy
occured/occurred
eat/ate
superintendant/superintendent
etherial/ethereal
oxygen/oxygene
syncopy/syncope
alledged/alleged
adviseable/advisable
Spelling corrections:
acccording → according
ackowledged → acknowledged
an an → an
and and → and
and thing → anything
attemps → attempts
authoriry → authority
bails → balls
bemost → be most
bilous → bilious
by → be
calls → call
certainiy → certainly
christain → Christian
debelitated → debilitated
destoyed → destroyed
determinining → determining
Diermerbroeck → Diemerbroeck
Dr. Power → Dr. Dover
draw → drawn
exeecd → exceed
flattering → fluttering
follwing → following
frequenly → frequently
fundemental → fundamental
gave → grave
his his → his
hulhed → hushed
imperceptiple → imperceptible
in in → in it
injuctions → injunctions
instanly → instantly
is → it
Lavosier → Lavoisier
let → lest
lways → always
must been → must have been
occuring → occurring
oelophagus → oesophagus
pamplet → pamphlet
particulaly → particularly
paticles → particles
peppercoorn → peppercorn
persons → person
phenomana → phenomena
plagae → plague
presumtive → presumptive
promiscously → promiscuously
Pythou → Python
reaching → retching
Reamur → Reaumur
Reamuru's → Reaumur's
recal → recall
remianing → remaining
sensibilty → sensibility
siuation → situation
slips → ships
steams → streams
surounding → surrounding
sypmtoms → symptoms
terrestial → terrestrial
that that → that
the → The
the the → the
though → through
to to → to
vaccillating → vacillating
vegatable → vegetable
whereever → wherever
willl → will
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