[85] Medical Commentaries, vol. iii. p. 496.
[86] Volume V.
[87] The hoarse barking, or the total inability of mad dogs to bark, favours still further the idea that the mortal seat of the disease is in the glottis, and that the remedy which has been proposed is a rational one.
AN ACCOUNT
OF
THE MEASLES,
AS THEY
APPEARED IN PHILADELPHIA,
IN THE SPRING OF 1789.
The weather in December, 1788, and in January, 1789, was variable, but seldom very cold. On the first of February, 1789, at six o'clock in the morning, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer fell 5° below 0, in the city of Philadelphia. At twenty miles from the city, on the Schuylkill, it fell 12° below 0, at the same hour. On the 19th and 20th of this month, there fell a quantity of snow, the depth of which, upon an average, was supposed to be about eight or ten inches. On the 23d, 24th, 25th, and 27th, the weather was very cold. The mercury fluctuated during these days between 4° and 10° above 0.
In the intervals between these cold days, the weather frequently moderated, so that the Delaware was frozen and thawed not less than four times. It was not navigable till the 8th of March. There were in all, during the winter and month of March, sixteen distinct falls of snow.
In April and May there were a few warm days; but upon the whole, it was a very cold and backward spring. The peaches failed almost universally. There were no strawberries or cherries on the 24th of May, and every other vegetable product was equally backward. A country woman of 84 years of age informed me, that it was the coldest spring she had ever known. It was uncomfortable to sit without fire till the first of June.