[8] Indian shoes.
[9] It was remarked in Canada, in the winter of the year 1759, during the war before last, that none of those soldiers who wore mokasons were frost-bitten, while few of those escaped that were much exposed to the cold who wore shoes.
[10] I cannot help suspecting the anti-venereal qualities of the lobelia, ceanothus and ranunculus, spoken of by Mr. Kalm, in the Memoirs of the Swedish Academy. Mr. Hand informed me, that the Indians rely chiefly upon a plentiful use of the decoctions of the pine-trees for the cure of the venereal disease. He added, moreover, that he had often known this disease prove fatal to them.
[11] “Married women are more healthy and long-lived than single women. The registers, examined by Mr. Muret, confirm this observation; and show particularly, that of equal numbers of single and married women between fifteen and twenty-five years of age, more of the former died than of the latter, in the proportion of two to one: the consequence, therefore, of following nature must be favourable to health among the female sex.” Supplement to Price's Observations on Reversionary Payments. p. 357.
[12] The modern writers upon the diseases of armies, wonder that the Greek and Roman physicians have left us nothing upon that subject. But may not most of the diseases of armies be produced by the different manner in which wars are carried on by the modern nations? The discoveries in geography, by extending the field of war, expose soldiers to many diseases from long voyages, and a sudden change of climate, which were unknown to the armies of former ages. Moreover, the form of the weapons, and the variety in the military exercises of the Grecian and Roman armies, gave a vigour to the constitution, which can never be acquired by the use of muskets and artillery.
[13] Hoffman de hypothesium medicarum damno, sect. xv.
[14] Doctor Cullen used to inform his pupils, that after forty years' experience, he could find no relation between his own observations on the pulse, and those made by Doctor Solano. The climate and customs of the people in Spain being so different from the climate and customs of the present inhabitants of Britain, may account for the diversity of their observations. Doctor Heberden's remarks upon the pulse, in the second volume of the Medical Transactions, are calculated to show how little the issue of diseases can be learned from it.
[15] “The scurvy is very frequent in Holland; and draws its origin partly from their strong food, sea-fish, and smoked flesh, and partly from their dense and moist air, together with their bad water.” Hoffman on Endemical Distempers.
“We are now in North-Holland; and I have never seen, among so few people, so many infected with the leprosy as here. They say the reason is, because they eat so much fish.” Howell's Familiar Letters.
[16] We may learn from these observations, the great impropriety of those Egyptian laws which oblige physicians to adopt, in all cases, the prescriptions which had been collected, and approved of, by the physicians of former ages. Every change in the customs of civilized nations, produces a change in their diseases, which calls for a change in their remedies. What havoc would plentiful bleeding, purging, and small beer, formerly used with so much success by Dr. Sydenham in the cure of fevers, now make upon the enfeebled citizens of London! The fevers of the same, and of more southern latitudes, still admit of such antiphlogistic remedies. In the room of these, bark, wine, and other cordial medicines, are prescribed in London in almost every kind of fever.