[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!”