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MEDICAL INQUIRIES
AND
OBSERVATIONS.

BY BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.
PROFESSOR OF THE INSTITUTES AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, AND OF CLINICAL PRACTICE, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
THE SECOND EDITION,
REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR.
PHILADELPHIA,
PUBLISHED BY J. CONRAD & CO. CHESNUT-STREET, PHILADELPHIA; M. & J. CONRAD & CO. MARKET-STREET, BALTIMORE; RAPIN, CONRAD, & CO. WASHINGTON; SOMERVELL & CONRAD, PETERSBURG; AND BONSAL, CONRAD, & CO. NORFOLK.
PRINTED BY T. & G. PALMER, 116, HIGH-STREET.
1805.

PREFACE.

In this second edition of the following Medical Inquiries and Observations, the reader will perceive many additions, some omissions, and a few alterations.

A number of facts have been added to the Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Body and Mind, and to the Observations upon the Tetanus, Cynanche Trachealis, and Old Age, in the first volume; also to the Observations upon Dropsies, Pulmonary Consumption, and Hydrophobia, contained in the second volume.

The Lectures upon Animal Life, which were published, a few years ago, in a pamphlet, have received no other additions than a few notes.

The phænomena of fever have not only received a new title, but several new terms have been adopted in detailing them, chiefly to remove the mistake into which the use of Dr. Brown's terms had led some of the author's readers, respecting his principles. A new order has likewise been given, and some new facts added, to the inquiry upon this subject.

In the Account of the Yellow Fever of 1793, many documents, interesting to the public at the time of their first publication, are omitted; and many of the facts and observations, which related to the origin of the fevers of 1794 and 1797, now form a part of a separate inquiry upon that subject, in the fourth volume.

The histories of the yellow fever as epidemics, and of its sporadic cases, have been published in the order in which they have appeared in Philadelphia, to show the influence of the weather upon it, and the impropriety and danger of applying the same remedies for the same epidemic, in different and even successive seasons. The records of the first cases of yellow fever, which have appeared in each of the twelve years that have been noticed, are intended further to show the inefficacy of all the means, at present employed, to prevent its future recurrence.

In the fourth volume, the reader will find a retraction of the author's former opinion of the yellow fever's spreading by contagion. He begs forgiveness of the friends of science and humanity, if the publication of that opinion has had any influence in increasing the misery and mortality attendant upon that disease. Indeed, such is the pain he feels, in recollecting that he ever entertained or propagated it, that it will long, and perhaps always, deprive him of the pleasure he might otherwise have derived from a review of his attempts to fulfil the public duties of his profession.

Considerable additions are made to the facts and arguments in favour of the domestic origin of the yellow fever, and to the Defence of Blood-letting.

The Account of the Means of Preventing the Usual Forms of Summer and Autumnal Disease, appears for the first time in this edition of the author's Inquiries. Part of the facts intended to prove the yellow fever not to be contagious, were published in the sixth volume of the New-York Medical Repository. The reader will perceive, among many additions to them, answers to all the arguments usually employed to defend the contrary opinion.

The Inquiry into the Comparative State of Medicine, in Philadelphia, between the years 1760 and 1766, and 1805, was delivered, in the form of an oration, before the Medical Society of Philadelphia, on the 18th of February, 1804. Some things have been omitted, and a few added, in the form in which it is now offered to the public.

If this edition of Medical Inquiries and Observations should be less imperfect than the former, the reader is requested to ascribe it to the author having profited by the objections he encouraged his pupils to make to his principles, in their inaugural dissertations, and in conversation; and to the many useful facts which have been communicated to him by his medical brethren, whose names have been mentioned in the course of the work.

For the departure, in the modes of practice adopted or recommended in these Inquiries, from those which time and experience have sanctioned, in European and in East and West-Indian countries, the author makes the same defence of himself, that Dr. Baglivi made, near a century ago, of his modes of practice in Rome. “Vivo et scribo in aere Romano,” said that illustrious physician. The author has lived and written in the climate of Pennsylvania, and in the city of Philadelphia.

November 18th, 1805.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

AN INQUIRY
INTO THE
NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE
AMONG THE
INDIANS OF NORTH-AMERICA;
AND A
COMPARATIVE VIEW
OF THEIR
DISEASES AND REMEDIES WITH THOSE OF CIVILIZED NATIONS.
Read before the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, on the 4th of February, 1774.

Gentlemen[1],

I rise with peculiar diffidence to address you upon this occasion, when I reflect upon the entertainment you proposed to yourselves from the eloquence of that learned member, Mr. Charles Thompson, whom your suffrages appointed to this honour after the delivery of the last anniversary oration. Unhappily for the interests of science, his want of health has not permitted him to comply with your appointment. I beg, therefore, that you would forget, for a while, the abilities necessary to execute this task with propriety, and listen with candour to the efforts of a member, whose attachment to the society was the only qualification that entitled him to the honour of your choice.

The subject I have chosen for this evening's entertainment, is “An inquiry into the natural history of medicine among the Indians in North-America, and a comparative view of their diseases and remedies, with those of civilized nations.” You will readily anticipate the difficulty of doing justice to this subject. How shall we distinguish between the original diseases of the Indians and those contracted from their intercourse with the Europeans? By what arts shall we persuade them to discover their remedies? And lastly, how shall we come at the knowledge of facts in that cloud of errors, in which the credulity of the Europeans, and the superstition of the Indians, have involved both their diseases and remedies? These difficulties serve to increase the importance of our subject. If I should not be able to solve them, perhaps I may lead the way to more successful endeavours for that purpose.

I shall first limit the tribes of Indians who are to be the objects of this inquiry, to those who inhabit that part of North-America which extends from the 30th to the 60th degree of latitude. When we exclude the Esquimaux, who inhabit the shores of Hudson's bay, we shall find a general resemblance in the colour, manners, and state of society, among all the tribes of Indians who inhabit the extensive tract of country above-mentioned.

Civilians have divided nations into savage, barbarous, and civilized. The savage live by fishing and hunting; the barbarous, by pasturage or cattle; and the civilized, by agriculture. Each of these is connected together in such a manner, that the whole appear to form different parts of a circle. Even the manners of the most civilized nations partake of those of the savage. It would seem as if liberty and indolence were the highest pursuits of man; and these are enjoyed in their greatest perfection by savages, or in the practice of customs which resemble those of savages.

The Indians of North-America partake chiefly of the manner of savages. In the earliest accounts we have of them, we find them cultivating a spot of ground. The maize is an original grain among them. The different dishes of it which are in use among the white people still retain Indian names.

It will be unnecessary to show that the Indians live in a state of society adapted to all the exigencies of their mode of life. Those who look for the simplicity and perfection of the state of nature, must seek it in systems, as absurd in philosophy, as they are delightful in poetry.

Before we attempt to ascertain the number or history of the diseases of the Indians, it will be necessary to inquire into those customs among them which we know influence diseases. For this purpose I shall,

First, Mention a few facts which relate to the birth and treatment of their children.

Secondly, I shall speak of their diet.

Thirdly, Of the customs which are peculiar to the sexes, and,

Fourthly, Of those customs which are common to them both[2].

I. Of the birth and treatment of their children.

Much of the future health of the body depends upon its original stamina. A child born of healthy parents always brings into the world a system formed by nature to resist the causes of diseases. The treatment of children among the Indians, tends to secure this hereditary firmness of constitution. Their first food is their mother's milk. To harden them against the action of heat and cold (the natural enemies of health and life among the Indians) they are plunged every day into cold water. In order to facilitate their being moved from place to place, and at the same time to preserve their shape, they are tied to a board, where they lie on their backs for six, ten, or eighteen months. A child generally sucks its mother till it is two years old, and sometimes longer. It is easy to conceive how much vigour their bodies must acquire from this simple, but wholesome nourishment. The appetite we sometimes observe in children for flesh is altogether artificial. The peculiar irritability of the system in infancy forbids stimulating aliment of all kinds. Nature never calls for animal food till she has provided the child with those teeth which are necessary to divide it. I shall not undertake to determine how far the wholesome quality of the mother's milk is increased by her refusing the embraces of her husband, during the time of giving suck.

II. The diet of the Indians is of a mixed nature, being partly animal and partly vegetable. Their animals are wild, and therefore easy of digestion. As the Indians are naturally more disposed to the indolent employment of fishing than hunting, in summer, so we find them living more upon fish than land animals, in that season of the year.—Their vegetables consist of roots and fruits, mild in themselves, or capable of being made so by the action of fire. Although the interior parts of our continent abound with salt springs, yet I cannot find that the Indians used salt in their diet, till they were instructed to do so by the Europeans. The small quantity of fixed alkali contained in the ashes on which they roasted their meat, could not add much to its stimulating quality. They preserve their meat from putrefaction, by cutting it into small pieces, and exposing it in summer to the sun, and in winter to the frost. In the one case its moisture is dissipated, and in the other so frozen, that it cannot undergo the putrefactive process. In dressing their meat, they are careful to preserve its juices. They generally prefer it in the form of soups. Hence we find, that among them the use of the spoon, preceded that of the knife and fork. They take the same pains to preserve the juice of their meat when they roast it, by turning it often. The efficacy of this animal juice, in dissolving meat in the stomach, has not been equalled by any of those sauces or liquors which modern luxury has mixed with it for that purpose.

The Indians have no set time for eating, but obey the gentle appetites of nature as often as they are called by them. After whole days spent in the chace or in war, they often commit those excesses in eating, to which long abstinence cannot fail of prompting them. It is common to see them spend three or four hours in satisfying their hunger. This is occasioned not more by the quantity they eat, than by the pains they take in masticating it. They carefully avoid drinking water in their marches, from an opinion that it lessens their ability to bear fatigue.

III. We now come to speak of those customs which are peculiar to the sexes. And, first, of those which belong to the WOMEN. They are doomed by their husbands to such domestic labour as gives a firmness to their bodies, bordering upon the masculine. Their menses seldom begin to flow before they are eighteen or twenty years of age, and generally cease before they are forty. They have them in small quantities, but at regular intervals. They seldom marry till they are about twenty. The constitution has now acquired a vigour, which enables it the better to support the convulsions of child-bearing. This custom likewise guards against a premature old age. Doctor Bancroft ascribes the haggard looks, the loose hanging breasts, and the prominent bellies of the Indian women at Guiana, entirely to their bearing children too early[3]. Where marriages are unfruitful (which is seldom the case) a separation is obtained by means of an easy divorce; so that they are unacquainted with the disquietudes which sometimes arise from barrenness. During pregnancy, the women are exempted from the more laborious parts of their duty: hence miscarriages rarely happen among them. Nature is their only midwife. Their labours are short, and accompanied with little pain. Each woman is delivered in a private cabin, without so much as one of her own sex to attend her. After washing herself in cold water, she returns in a few days to her usual employments; so that she knows nothing of those accidents which proceed from the carelessness or ill management of midwives; or those weaknesses which arise from a month's confinement in a warm room. It is remarkable that there is hardly a period in the interval between the eruption and the ceasing of the menses, in which they are not pregnant, or giving suck. This is the most natural state of the constitution during that interval; and hence we often find it connected with the best state of health, in the women of civilized nations.

The customs peculiar to the Indian MEN, consist chiefly in those employments which are necessary to preserve animal life, and to defend their nation. These employments are hunting and war, each of which is conducted in a manner that tends to call forth every fibre into exercise, and to ensure them the possession of the utmost possible health. In times of plenty and peace, we see them sometimes rising from their beloved indolence, and shaking off its influence by the salutary exercises of dancing and swimming. The Indian men seldom marry before they are thirty years of age: they no doubt derive considerable vigour from this custom; for while they are secured by it from the enervating effects of the premature dalliance of love, they may insure more certain fruitfulness to their wives, and entail more certain health upon their children. Tacitus describes the same custom among the Germans, and attributes to it the same good effects. “Sera juvenum venus, eoque inexhausta pubertas; nec virgines festinantur; eadem juventa, similis proceritas, pares validique miscentur; ac robora parentum liberi referunt[4].”

Among the Indian men, it is deemed a mark of heroism to bear the most exquisite pain without complaining; upon this account they early inure themselves to burning part of their bodies with fire, or cutting them with sharp instruments. No young man can be admitted to the honours of manhood or war, who has not acquitted himself well in these trials of patience and fortitude. It is easy to conceive how much this contributes to give a tone to the nervous system, which renders it less subject to the occasional causes of diseases.

IV. We come now to speak of those customs which are common to both sexes: these are PAINTING, and the use of the COLD BATH. The practice of anointing the body with oil is common to the savages of all countries; in warm climates it is said to promote longevity, by checking excessive perspiration. The Indians generally use bear's grease mixed with a clay, which bears the greatest resemblance to the colour of their skins. This pigment serves to lessen the sensibility of the extremities of the nerves; it moreover fortifies them against the action of those exhalations, which we shall mention hereafter, as a considerable source of their diseases. The COLD BATH likewise fortifies the body, and renders it less subject to those diseases which arise from the extremes and vicissitudes of heat and cold. We shall speak hereafter of the Indian manner of using it.

It is a practice among the Indians never to drink before dinner, when they work or travel. Experience teaches, that filling the stomach with cold water in the forenoon, weakens the appetite, and makes the system more sensible of heat and fatigue.

The state of society among the Indians excludes the influence of most of those passions which disorder the body. The turbulent effects of anger are concealed in deep and lasting resentments. Envy and ambition are excluded by their equality of power and property. Nor is it necessary that the perfections of the whole sex should be ascribed to one, to induce them to marry. “The weakness of love (says Dr. Adam Smith) which is so much indulged in ages of humanity and politeness, is regarded among savages as the most unpardonable effeminacy. A young man would think himself disgraced for ever, if he showed the least preference of one woman above another, or did not express the most complete indifference, both about the time when, and the person to whom, he was to be married[5].” Thus are they exempted from those violent or lasting diseases, which accompany the several stages of such passions in both sexes among civilized nations.

It is remarkable that there are no deformed Indians. Some have suspected, from this circumstance, that they put their deformed children to death; but nature here acts the part of an unnatural mother. The severity of the Indian manners destroy them[6].

From a review of the customs of the Indians, we need not be surprised at the stateliness, regularity of features, and dignity of aspect by which they are characterized. Where we observe these among ourselves, there is always a presumption of their being accompanied with health, and a strong constitution. The circulation of the blood is more languid in the Indians, than in persons who are in the constant exercise of the habits of civilized life. Out of eight Indian men whose pulses I once examined at the wrists, I did not meet with one in whom the artery beat more than sixty strokes in a minute.

The marks of old age appear more early among Indian, than among civilized nations.

Having finished our inquiry into the physical customs of the Indians, we shall now proceed to inquire into their diseases.

A celebrated professor of anatomy has asserted, that we could not tell, by reasoning à priori, that the body was mortal, so intimately woven with its texture are the principles of life. Lord Bacon declares, that the only cause of death which is natural to man, is that from old age; and complains of the imperfection of physic, in not being able to guard the principle of life, until the whole of the oil that feeds it is consumed. We cannot as yet admit this proposition of our noble philosopher. In the inventory of the grave in every country, we find more of the spoils of youth and manhood than of age. This must be attributed to moral as well as physical causes.

We need only recollect the custom among the Indians, of sleeping in the open air in a variable climate; the alternate action of heat and cold upon their bodies, to which the warmth of their cabins exposes them; their long marches; their excessive exercise; their intemperance in eating, to which their long fasting and their public feasts naturally prompt them; and, lastly, the vicinity of their habitations to the banks of rivers, in order to discover the empire of diseases among them in every stage of their lives. They have in vain attempted to elude the general laws of mortality, while their mode of life subjects them to these remote, but certain causes of diseases.

From what we know of the action of these powers upon the human body, it will hardly be necessary to appeal to facts to determine that FEVERS constitute the only diseases among the Indians. These fevers are occasioned by the insensible qualities of the air. Those which are produced by cold and heat are of the inflammatory kind, such as pleurisies, peripneumonies, and rheumatisms. Those which are produced by the insensible qualities of the air, or by putrid exhalations, are intermitting, remitting, inflammatory, and malignant, according as the exhalations are combined with more or less heat or cold. The DYSENTERY (which is an Indian disease) comes under the class of fevers. It appears to be the febris introversa of Dr. Sydenham.

The Indians are subject to ANIMAL and VEGETABLE POISONS. The effects of these upon the body, are in some degree analogous to the exhalations we have mentioned. When they do not bring on sudden death, they produce, according to their force, either a common inflammatory, or a malignant fever.

The SMALL POX and the VENEREAL DISEASE were communicated to the Indians of North-America by the Europeans. Nor can I find that they were ever subject to the SCURVY. Whether this was obviated by their method of preserving their flesh, or by their mixing it at all times with vegetables, I shall not undertake to determine. Their peculiar customs and manners seem to have exempted them from this, as well as from the common diseases of the skin.

I have heard of two or three cases of the GOUT among the Indians, but it was only among those who had learned the use of rum from the white people. A question naturally occurs here, and that is, why does not the gout appear more frequently among that class of people, who consume the greatest quantity of rum among ourselves? To this I answer, that the effects of this liquor upon those enfeebled people, are too sudden and violent, to admit of their being thrown upon the extremities; as we know them to be among the Indians. They appear only in visceral obstructions, and a complicated train of chronic diseases. Thus putrid miasmata are sometimes too strong to bring on a fever, but produce instant debility and death. The gout is seldom heard of in Russia, Denmark, or Poland. Is this occasioned by the vigour of constitution peculiar to the inhabitants of those northern countries? or is it caused by their excessive use of spirituous liquors, which produce the same chronic complaints among them, which we said were common among the lower class of people in this country? The similarity of their diseases makes the last of these suppositions the most probable. The effects of wine, like tyranny in a well formed government, are felt first in the extremities; while spirits, like a bold invader, seize at once upon the vitals of the constitution.

After much inquiry, I have not been able to find a single instance of FATUITY among the Indians, and but few instances of MELANCHOLY and MADNESS; nor can I find any accounts of diseases from WORMS among them. Worms are common to most animals; they produce diseases only in weak, or increase them in strong constitutions[7]. Hence they have no place in the nosological systems of physic. Nor is DENTITION accompanied by disease among the Indians. The facility with which the healthy children of healthy parents cut their teeth among civilized nations, gives us reason to conclude that the Indian children never suffer from this quarter.

The Indians appear moreover to be strangers to diseases and pains in the teeth.

The employments of the Indians subject them to many accidents; hence we sometimes read of WOUNDS, FRACTURES, and LUXATIONS among them.

Having thus pointed out the natural diseases of the Indians, and shown what diseases are foreign to them, we may venture to conclude, that FEVERS, OLD AGE, CASUALTIES, and WAR are the only natural outlets of human life. War is nothing but a disease; it is founded in the imperfection of political bodies, just as fevers are founded on the weakness of the animal body. Providence in these diseases seems to act like a mild legislature, which mitigates the severity of death, by inflicting it in a manner the least painful, upon the whole, to the patient and the survivors.

Let us now inquire into the REMEDIES of the Indians. These, like their diseases, are simple, and few in number. Among the first of them we shall mention the POWERS OF NATURE. Fevers, we said formerly, constituted the chief of the diseases among the Indians; they are likewise, in the hands of nature, the principal instruments to remove the evils which threaten her dissolution; but the event of these efforts of nature, no doubt, soon convinced the Indians of the danger of trusting her in all cases; and hence, in the earliest accounts we have of their manners, we read of persons who were intrusted with the office of physicians.

It will be difficult to find out the exact order in which the Indian remedies were suggested by nature or discovered by art; nor will it be easy to arrange them in proper order. I shall, however, attempt it, by reducing them to NATURAL and ARTIFICIAL.

To the class of NATURAL REMEDIES belongs the Indian practice of abstracting from their patients all kinds of stimulating aliment. The compliance of the Indians with the dictates of nature, in the early stage of a disease, no doubt, prevents, in many cases, their being obliged to use any other remedy. They follow nature still closer, in allowing their patients to drink plentifully of cold water; this being the only liquor a patient calls for in a fever.

Sweating is likewise a natural remedy. It was probably suggested by observing fevers to be terminated by it. I shall not inquire how far these sweats are essential to the crisis of a fever. The Indian mode of procuring this evacuation is as follows: the patient is confined in a close tent, or wigwam, over a hole in the earth, in which a red hot stone is placed; a quantity of water is thrown upon this stone, which instantly involves the patient in a cloud of vapour and sweat; in this situation he rushes out, and plunges himself into a river, from whence he retires to his bed. If the remedy has been used with success, he rises from his bed in four and twenty hours, perfectly recovered from his indisposition. This remedy is used not only to cure fevers, but remove that uneasiness which arises from fatigue of body.

A third natural remedy among the Indians, is PURGING. The fruits of the earth, the flesh of birds, and other animals feeding upon particular vegetables, and, above all, the spontaneous efforts of nature, early led the Indians to perceive the necessity and advantages of this evacuation.

VOMITS constitute their fourth natural remedy. They were probably, like the former, suggested by nature, and accident. The ipecacuanha is one of the many roots they employ for that purpose.

The ARTIFICIAL REMEDIES made use of by the Indians, are BLEEDING, CAUSTICS, and ASTRINGENT medicines. They confine bleeding entirely to the part affected. To know that opening a vein in the arm, or foot, would relieve a pain in the head or side, supposes some knowledge of the animal economy, and therefore marks an advanced period in the history of medicine.

Sharp stones and thorns are the instruments they use to procure a discharge of blood.

We have an account of the Indians using something like a POTENTIAL CAUSTIC, in obstinate pains. It consists of a piece of rotten wood called punk, which they place upon the part affected, and afterwards set it on fire: the fire gradually consumes the wood, and its ashes burn a hole in the flesh.

The undue efforts of nature, in those fevers which are connected with a diarrhœa, or dysentery, together with those hemorrhages to which their mode of life exposed them, necessarily led them to an early discovery of some ASTRINGENT VEGETABLES. I am uncertain whether the Indians rely upon astringent, or any other vegetables, for the cure of the intermitting fever. This disease among them probably requires no other remedies than the cold bath, or cold air. Its greater obstinacy, as well as frequency, among ourselves, must be sought for in the greater feebleness of our constitutions, and in that change which our country has undergone, from meadows, mill-dams, and the cutting down of woods; whereby morbid exhalations have been multiplied, and their passage rendered more free, through every part of country.

This is a short account of the remedies of the Indians. If they are simple, they are like their eloquence, full of strength; if they are few in number, they are accommodated, as their languages are to their ideas, to the whole of their diseases.

We said, formerly, that the Indians were subject to ACCIDENTS, such as wounds, fractures, and the like. In these cases, nature performs the office of a surgeon. We may judge of her qualifications for this office, by observing the marks of wounds and fractures, which are sometimes discovered on wild animals. But further, what is the practice of our modern surgeons in these cases? Is it not to lay aside plasters and ointments, and trust the whole to nature? Those ulcers which require the assistance of mercury, bark, and a particular regimen are unknown to the Indians.

The HEMORRHAGES which sometimes follow their wounds, are restrained by plunging themselves into cold water, and thereby producing a constriction upon the bleeding vessels.

Their practice of attempting to recover DROWNED PEOPLE, is irrational and unsuccessful. It consists in suspending the patient by the heels, in order that the water may flow from his mouth. This practice is founded on a belief that the patient dies from swallowing an excessive quantity of water. But modern observations teach us that drowned people die from another cause. This discovery has suggested a method of cure, directly opposite to that in use among the Indians; and has shown us that the practice of suspending by the heels is hurtful.

I do not find that the Indians ever suffer in their limbs from the action of COLD upon them. Their mokasons[8], by allowing their feet to move freely, and thereby promoting the circulation of the blood, defend their lower extremities in the day-time, and their practice of sleeping with their feet near a fire, defends them from the morbid effects of cold at night. In those cases where the motion of their feet in their mokasons is not sufficient to keep them warm, they break the ice, and restore their warmth by exposing them for a short time to the action of cold water[9].

We have heard much of their specific antidotes to the VENEREAL DISEASE. In the accounts of these anti-venereal medicines, some abatement should be made for that love of the marvellous, and of novelty, which are apt to creep into the writings of travellers and physicians. How many medicines which were once thought infallible in this disease, are now rejected from the materia medica! I have found upon inquiry that the Indians always assist their medicines in this disease, by a regimen which promotes perspiration. Should we allow that mercury acts as a specific in destroying this disease, it does not follow that it is proof against the efficacy of medicines which act more mechanically upon the body[10].

There cannot be a stronger mark of the imperfect state of knowledge in medicine among the Indians, than their method of treating the SMALL-POX. We are told that they plunge themselves in cold water in the beginning of the disease, and that it often proves fatal to them.

Travellers speak in high terms of the Indian ANTIDOTES TO POISONS. We must remember that many things have been thought poisonous, which later experience hath proved to possess no unwholesome quality. Moreover, the uncertainty and variety in the operation of poisons, renders it extremely difficult to fix the certainty of the antidotes to them. How many specifics have derived their credit for preventing the hydrophobia, from persons being wounded by animals, who were not in a situation to produce that disease! If we may judge of all the Indian antidotes to poisons, by those which have fallen into our hands, we have little reason to ascribe much to them in any cases whatever.

I have heard of their performing several remarkable cures upon STIFF JOINTS, by an infusion of certain herbs in water. The mixture of several herbs together in this infusion calls in question the specific efficacy of each of them. I cannot help attributing the whole success of this remedy to the great heat of the water in which the herbs were boiled, and to its being applied for a long time to the part affected. We find the same medicine to vary frequently in its success, according to its strength, or to the continuance of its application. De Haen attributes the good effects of electricity, entirely to its being used for several months.

I have met with one case upon record of their aiding nature in PARTURITION. Captain Carver gives us an account of an Indian woman in a difficult labour, being suddenly delivered in consequence of a general convulsion induced upon her system, by stopping, for a short time, her mouth and nose, so as to obstruct her breathing.

We are sometimes amused with accounts of Indian remedies for the DROPSY, EPILEPSY, COLIC, GRAVEL, and GOUT. If, with all the advantages which modern physicians derive from their knowledge in anatomy, chemistry, botany, and philosophy; if, with the benefit of discoveries communicated from abroad, as well as handed down from our ancestors, by more certain methods than tradition, we are still ignorant of certain remedies for these diseases; what can we expect from the Indians; who are not only deprived of these advantages, but want our chief motive, the sense of the pain and danger of those diseases, to prompt them to seek for such remedies to relieve them? There cannot be a stronger proof of their ignorance of proper remedies for new or difficult diseases, than their having recourse to enchantment. But to be more particular; I have taken pains to inquire into the success of some of these Indian specifics, and have never heard of one well attested case of their efficacy. I believe they derive all their credit from our being ignorant of their composition. The influence of secrecy is well known in establishing the credit of a medicine. The sal seignette was supposed to be an infallible medicine for the intermitting fever, while the manufactory of it was confined to an apothecary at Rochelle; but it lost its virtues as soon as it was found to be composed of the acid of tartar and the fossil alkali. Dr. Ward's famous pill and drop ceased to do wonders in scrophulous cases, as soon as he bequeathed to the world his receipts for making them.

I foresee an objection to what has been said concerning the remedies of the Indians, drawn from that knowledge which experience gives to a mind intent upon one subject. We have heard much of the perfection of their senses of seeing and hearing. An Indian, we are told, will discover not only a particular tribe of Indians by their footsteps, but the distance of time in which they were made. In those branches of knowledge which relate to hunting and war, the Indians have acquired a degree of perfection that has not been equalled by civilized nations. But we must remember, that medicine among them does not possess the like advantages with the arts of war and hunting, of being the chief object of their attention. The physician and the warrior are united in one character; to render him as able in the former as he is in the latter profession, would require an entire abstraction from every other employment, and a familiarity with external objects, which are incompatible with the wandering life of savages.

Thus have we finished our inquiry into the diseases and remedies of the Indians in North-America. We come now to inquire into the diseases and remedies of civilized nations.

Nations differ in their degrees of civilization. We shall select one for the subject of our inquiries which is most familiar to us; I mean the British nation. Here we behold subordination and classes of mankind established by government, commerce, manufactures, and certain customs common to most of the civilized nations of Europe. We shall trace the origin of their diseases through their customs, in the same manner as we did those of the Indians.

I. It will be sufficient to name the degrees of heat, the improper aliment, the tight dresses, and the premature studies children are exposed to, in order to show the ample scope for diseases, which is added to the original defect of stamina they derive from their ancestors.

II. Civilization rises in its demands upon the health of women. Their fashions; their dress and diet; their eager pursuits and ardent enjoyment of pleasure; their indolence and undue evacuations in pregnancy; their cordials, hot regimen, and neglect, or use of art, in child-birth, are all so many inlets to disease.

Humanity would fain be silent, while philosophy calls upon us to mention the effects of interested marriages, and of disappointments in love, increased by that concealment which the tyranny of custom has imposed upon the sex[11]. Each of these exaggerates the natural, and increases the number of artificial diseases among women.

III. The diseases introduced by civilization extend themselves through every class and profession among men. How fatal are the effects of idleness and intemperance among the rich, and of hard labour and penury among the poor! What pallid looks are contracted by the votaries of science from hanging over the “sickly taper!” How many diseases are entailed upon manufacturers, by the materials in which they work, and the posture of their bodies! What monkish diseases do we observe from monkish continence and monkish vices! We pass over the increase of accidents from building, sailing, riding, and the like. War, as if too slow in destroying the human species, calls in a train of diseases peculiar to civilized nations. What havoc have the corruption and monopoly of provisions, a damp soil, and an unwholesome sky, made, in a few days, in an army! The achievements of British valour, at the Havannah, in the last war, were obtained at the expence of 9,000 men, 7,000 of whom perished with the West-India fever[12]. Even our modern discoveries in geography, by extending the empire of commerce, have likewise extended the empire of diseases. What desolation have the East and West-Indies made of British subjects! It has been found, upon a nice calculation, than only ten of a hundred Europeans, live above seven years after they arrive in the island of Jamaica.

IV. It would take up too much of our time to point out all the customs, both physical and moral, which influence diseases among both sexes. The former have engendered the seeds of diseases in the human body itself: hence the origin of catarrhs, jail and miliary fevers, with a long train of other diseases, which compose so great a part of our books of medicine. The latter likewise have a large share in producing diseases. I am not one of those modern philosophers, who derive the vices of mankind from the influence of civilization; but I am safe in asserting, that their number and malignity increase with the refinements of polished life. To prove this, we need only survey a scene too familiar to affect us: it is a bedlam; which injustice, inhumanity, avarice, pride, vanity, and ambition, have filled with inhabitants.

Thus have I briefly pointed out the customs which influence the diseases of civilized nations. It remains now that we take notice of their diseases. Without naming the many new fevers, fluxes, hemorrhages, swellings from water, wind, flesh, fat, pus, and blood; foulnesses on the skin, from cancers, leprosy, yawes, poxes, and itch; and, lastly, the gout, the hysteria, and the hypochondriasis, in all their variety of known and unknown shapes; I shall sum up all that is necessary upon this subject, by adding, that the number of diseases which belong to civilized nations, according to Doctor Cullen's nosology, amounts to 1387; the single class of nervous diseases form 612 of this number.

Before we proceed to speak of the remedies of civilized nations, we shall examine into the abilities of NATURE in curing their diseases. We found her active and successful in curing the diseases of the Indians. Are her strength, wisdom, or benignity, equal to the increase of those dangers which threaten her dissolution among civilized nations? In order to answer this question, it will be necessary to explain the meaning of the term nature.

By nature, in the present case, I understand nothing but physical necessity. This at once excludes every thing like intelligence from her operations: these are all performed in obedience to the same laws which govern vegetation in plants, and the intestine motions of fossils. They are as truly mechanical as the laws of gravitation, electricity, or magnetism. A ship when laid on her broadside by a wave, or a sudden blast of wind, rises by the simple laws of her mechanism; but suppose this ship to be attacked by fire, or a water-spout, we are not to call in question the skill of the ship-builder, if she be consumed by the one, or sunk by the other. In like manner, the Author of nature hath furnished the body with powers to preserve itself from its natural enemies; but when it is attacked by those civil foes which are bred by the peculiar customs of civilization, it resembles a company of Indians, armed with bows and arrows, against the complicated and deadly machinery of fire-arms. To place this subject in a proper light, I shall deliver a history of the operations of nature in a few of the diseases of civilized nations.

I. There are cases in which nature is still successful in curing diseases.

In fevers she still deprives us of our appetite for animal food, and imparts to us a desire for cool air and cold water.

In hemorrhages she produces a faintness, which occasions a coagulum in the open vessels; so that the further passage of blood through them is obstructed.

In wounds of the flesh and bones she discharges foreign matter by exciting an inflammation, and supplies the waste of both with new flesh and bone.

II. There are cases where the efforts of nature are too feeble to do service, as in malignant and chronic fevers.

III. There are cases where the efforts of nature are over proportioned to the strength of the disease, as in the cholera morbus and dysentery.

IV. There are cases where nature is idle, as in the atonic stages of the gout, the cancer, the epilepsy, the mania, the venereal disease, the apoplexy, and the tetanus[13].

V. There are cases in which nature does mischief. She wastes herself with an unnecessary fever, in a dropsy and consumption. She throws a plethora upon the brain and lungs in the apoplexy and peripneumonia notha. She ends a pleurisy and peripneumony in a vomica, or empyema. She creates an unnatural appetite for food in the hypochondriac disease. And, lastly, she drives the melancholy patient to solitude, where, by brooding over the subject of his insanity, he increases his disease.

We are accustomed to hear of the salutary kindness of nature in alarming us with pain, to prompt us to seek for a remedy. But,

VI. There are cases in which she refuses to send this harbinger of the evils which threaten her, as in the aneurism, schirrhous, and stone in the bladder.

VII. There are cases where the pain is not proportioned to the danger, as in the tetanus, consumption, and dropsy of the head. And,

VIII. There are cases where the pain is over-proportioned to the danger, as in the paronychia and tooth-ach.

This is a short account of the operations of nature, in the diseases of civilized nations. A lunatic might as well plead against the sequestration of his estate, because he once enjoyed the full exercise of his reason, or because he still had lucid intervals, as nature be exempted from the charges we have brought against her.

But this subject will receive strength from considering the REMEDIES of civilized nations. All the products of the vegetable, fossil, and animal kingdoms, tortured by heat and mixture into an almost infinite variety of forms; bleeding, cupping, artificial drains by setons, issues, and blisters; exercise, active and passive; voyages and journies; baths, warm and cold; waters, saline, aërial, and mineral; food by weight and measure; the royal touch; enchantment; miracles; in a word, the combined discoveries of natural history and philosophy, united into a system of materia medica, all show, that although physicians are in speculation the servants, yet in practice they are the masters of nature. The whole of their remedies seem contrived on purpose to arouse, assist, restrain, and controul her operations.

There are some truths like certain liquors, which require strong heads to bear them. I feel myself protected from the prejudices of vulgar minds, when I reflect that I am delivering these sentiments in a society of philosophers.

Let us now take a COMPARATIVE VIEW of the diseases and remedies of the Indians with those of civilized nations. We shall begin with their diseases.

In our account of the diseases of the Indians, we beheld death executing his commission, it is true; but then his dart was hid in a mantle, under which he concealed his shape. But among civilized nations we behold him multiplying his weapons in proportion to the number of organs and functions in the body; and pointing each of them in such a manner, as to render his messengers more terrible than himself.

We said formerly that fevers constituted the chief diseases of the Indians. According to Doctor Sydenham's computation, above 66,000 out of 100,000 died of fevers in London, about 100 years ago; but fevers now constitute but a little more than one-tenth part of the diseases of that city. Out of 21,780 persons who died in London between December, 1770, and December, 1771, only 2273 died of simple fevers. I have more than once heard Doctor Huck complain, that he could find no marks of epidemic fevers in London, as described by Dr. Sydenham. London has undergone a revolution in its manners and customs since Doctor Sydenham's time. New diseases, the offspring of luxury, have supplanted fevers; and the few that are left are so complicated with other diseases, that their connection can no longer be discovered with an epidemic constitution of the year. The pleurisy and peripneumony, those inflammatory fevers of strong constitutions, are now lost in catarrhs, or colds, which, instead of challenging the powers of nature or art to a fair combat, insensibly undermine the constitution, and bring on an incurable consumption. Out of 22,434 who died in London between December, 1769, and the same month in 1770, 4594 perished with that British disease. Our countryman, Doctor Maclurg, has ventured to foretel that the gout will be lost in a few years, in a train of hypochondriac, hysteric, and bilious diseases. In like manner, may we not look for a season when fevers, the natural diseases of the human body, will be lost in an inundation of artificial diseases, brought on by the modish practices of civilization?

It may not be improper to compare the PROGNOSIS of the Indians, in diseases, with that of civilized nations, before we take a comparative view of their remedies.

The Indians are said to be successful in predicting the events of diseases. While diseases are simple, the marks which distinguish them, or characterize their several stages, are generally uniform and obvious to the most indifferent observer. These marks afford so much certainty, that the Indians sometimes kill their physicians for a false prognosis, charging the death of the patient to their carelessness, or ignorance. They estimate the danger of their patients by the degrees of appetite; while an Indian is able to eat, he is looked upon as free from danger. But when we consider the number and variety in the signs of diseases, among civilized nations, together with the shortness of life, the fallacy of memory, and the uncertainty of observation, where shall we find a physician willing to risk his reputation, much less his life, upon the prediction of the event of our acute diseases? We can derive no advantage from the simple sign, by which the Indians estimate the danger of their patients; for we daily see a want of appetite for food in diseases which are attended with no danger; and we sometimes observe an unusual degree of this appetite to precede the agonies of death. I honour the name of Hippocrates: but forgive me, ye votaries of antiquity, if I attempt to pluck a few grey hairs from his venerable head. I was once an idolater at his altar, nor did I turn apostate from his worship, till I was taught, that not a tenth part of his prognostics corresponded with modern experience, or observation. The pulse[14], urine, and sweats, from which the principal signs of life and death have been taken, are so variable, in most of the acute diseases of civilized nations, that the wisest physicians have in some measure excluded the prognosis from being a part of their profession.

I am here insensibly led to make an apology for the instability of the theories and practice of physic. The theory of physic is founded upon the laws of the animal economy. These (unlike the laws of the mind, or the common laws of matter) do not appear at once, but are gradually brought to light by the phænomena of diseases. The success of nature in curing the simple diseases of Saxony, laid the foundation for the ANIMA MEDICA of Doctor Stahl. The endemics of Holland[15] led Doctor Boerhaave to seek for the causes of all diseases in the FLUIDS. And the universal prevalence of diseases of the NERVES, in Great-Britain, led Doctor Cullen to discover their peculiar laws, and to found a system upon them; a system, which will probably last till some new diseases are let loose upon the human species, which shall unfold other laws of the animal economy.

It is in consequence of this fluctuation in the principles and practice of physic, being so necessarily connected with the changes in the customs of civilized nations, that old and young physicians so often disagree in their opinions and practices. And it is by attending to the constant changes in these customs of civilized nations, that those physicians have generally become the most eminent, who have soonest emancipated themselves from the tyranny of the schools of physic; and have occasionally accommodated their principles and practice to the changes in diseases[16]. This variety in diseases, which is produced by the changes in the customs of civilized nations, will enable us to account for many of the contradictions which are to be found in authors of equal candour and abilities, who have written upon the materia medica.

In forming a comparative view of the REMEDIES of the Indians, with those of civilized nations, we shall remark, that the want of success in a medicine is occasioned by one of the following causes:

First, our ignorance of the disease. Secondly, an ignorance of a suitable remedy. Thirdly, a want of efficacy in the remedy.

Considering the violence of the diseases of the Indians, it is probable their want of success is always occasioned by a want of efficacy in their medicines. But the case is very different among the civilized nations. Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of the seats of diseases, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. How often are we disappointed in our expectation from the most certain and powerful of our remedies, by the negligence or obstinacy of our patients! What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts (if I may be allowed the expression) and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases. We have done more—we have increased their mortality.

I shall not pause to beg pardon of the faculty, for acknowledging, in this public manner, the weaknesses of our profession. I am pursuing Truth, and while I can keep my eye fixed upon my guide, I am indifferent whether I am led, provided she is my leader.

But further, the Indian submits to his disease, without one fearful emotion from his doubtfulness of its event; and at last meets his fate without an an anxious wish for futurity; except it is of being admitted to an “equal sky,” where

“His faithful dog shall bear him company.”

But, among civilized nations, the influence of a false religion in good, and of a true religion in bad men, has converted even the fear of death into a disease. It is this original distemper of the imagination which renders the plague most fatal, upon his first appearance in a country.

Under all these disadvantages in the state of medicine, among civilized nations, do more in proportion die of the diseases peculiar to them, than of fevers, casualties, and old age, among the Indians? If we take our account from the city of London, we shall find this to be the case. Near a twentieth part of its inhabitants perish one year with another. Nor does the natural increase of inhabitants supply this yearly waste. If we judge from the bills of mortality, the city of London contains fewer inhabitants, by several thousands, than it did forty years ago. It appears from this fact, and many others of a like nature, which might be adduced, that although the difficulty of supporting children, together with some peculiar customs of the Indians, which we mentioned, limit their number, yet they multiply faster, and die in a smaller proportion than civilized nations, under the circumstances we have described. The Indians, we are told, were numerous in this country, before the Europeans settled among them. Travellers agree likewise in describing numbers of both sexes who exhibited all the marks of extreme old age. It is remarkable that age seldom impairs the faculties of their minds.

The mortality peculiar to those Indian tribes who have mingled with the white people, must be ascribed to the extensive mischief of spiritous liquors. When these have not acted, they have suffered from having accommodated themselves too suddenly to the European diet, dress, and manners. It does not become us to pry too much into futurity; but if we may judge from the fate of the original natives of Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the provinces on the continent, we may venture to foretel, that, in proportion as the white people multiply, the Indians will diminish; so that in a few centuries they will probably be entirely extirpated[17].

It may be said, that health among the Indians, like insensibility to cold and hunger, is proportioned to their need of it; and that the less degrees, or entire want of health, are no interruption to the ordinary business of civilized life.

To obviate this supposition, we shall first attend to the effects of a single disease in those people who are the principal wheels in the machine of civil society. Justice has stopt its current, victories have been lost, wars have been prolonged, and embassies delayed, by the principal actors in these departments of government being suddenly laid up by a fit of the gout. How many offences are daily committed against the rules of good breeding, by the tedious histories of our diseases, which compose so great a part of modern conversation! What sums of money have been lavished in foreign countries in pursuit of health[18]! Families have been ruined by the unavoidable expences of medicines and watering-places. In a word, the swarms of beggars which infest so many of the European countries, urge their petitions for charity chiefly by arguments derived from real or counterfeit diseases, which render them incapable of supporting themselves[19].

But may not civilization, while it abates the violence of natural diseases, increase the lenity of those that are artificial, in the same manner that it lessens the strength of natural vices by multiplying them? To answer this question, it will only be necessary to ask another: Who should exchange the heat, thirst, and uneasiness of a fever, for one fit of the colic or stone?

The history of the number, combination, and fashions of the remedies we have given, may serve to humble the pride of philosophy; and to convince us, that with all the advantages of the whole circle of sciences, we are still ignorant of antidotes to many of the diseases of civilized nations. We sometimes sooth our ignorance, by reproaching our idleness in not investigating the remedies peculiar to this country. We are taught to believe that every herb that grows in our woods is possessed of some medicinal virtue, and that Heaven would be wanting in benignity, if our country did not produce remedies for all the different diseases of its inhabitants. It would be arrogating too much to suppose that man was the only creature in our world for whom vegetables grow. The beasts, birds, and insects, derive their sustenance either directly or indirectly from them; while many of them were probably intended, from their variety in figure, foliage, and colour, only to serve as ornaments for our globe. It would seem strange that the Author of nature should furnish every spot of ground with medicines adapted to the diseases of its inhabitants, and at the same time deny it the more necessary articles of food and clothing. I know not whether Heaven has provided every country with antidotes even to the natural diseases of its inhabitants. The intermitting fever is common in almost every corner of the globe; but a sovereign remedy for it has been discovered only in South-America. The combination of bitter and astringent substances, which serve as a succedaneum to the Peruvian bark, is as much a preparation of art, as calomel or tartar emetic. Societies stand in need of each other as much as individuals; and the goodness of the Deity remains unimpeached when we suppose, that he intended medicines to serve (with other articles) to promote that knowledge, humanity, and politeness among the inhabitants of the earth, which have been so justly attributed to commerce.

We have no discoveries in the materia medica to hope for from the Indians in North-America. It would be a reproach to our schools of physic, if modern physicians were not more successful than the Indians, even in the treatment of their own diseases.

Do the blessings of civilization compensate for the sacrifice we make of natural health, as well as of natural liberty? This question must be answered under some limitations. When natural liberty is given up for laws which enslave instead of protecting us, we are immense losers by the exchange. Thus, if we arm the whole elements against our health, and render every pore in the body an avenue for a disease, we pay too high a price for the blessings of civilization.

In governments which have departed entirely from their simplicity, partial evils are to be cured by nothing but an entire renovation of their constitution. Let the world bear with the professions of law, physic, and divinity; and let the lawyer, physician, and divine yet learn to bear with each other. They are all necessary, in the present state of society. In like manner, let the woman of fashion forget the delicacy of her sex, and submit to be delivered by a man-midwife[20]. Let her snatch her offspring from her breast, and send it to repair the weakness of its stamina, with the milk of a ruddy cottager[21]. Let art supply the place of nature in the preparation and digestion of all our aliment. Let our fine ladies keep up their colour with carmine, and their spirits with ratifia; and let our fine gentlemen defend themselves from the excesses of heat and cold, with lavender and hartshorn. These customs have become necessary in the corrupt stages of society. We must imitate, in these cases, the practice of those physicians who consult the appetite only, in diseases which do not admit of a remedy.

The state of a country in point of population, temperance, and industry, is so connected with its diseases, that a tolerable idea may be formed of it, by looking over its bills of mortality. Hospitals, with all their boasted advantages, exhibit at the same time monuments of the charity and depravity of a people[22]. The opulence of physicians, and the divisions of their offices, into those of surgery, pharmacy, and midwifery, are likewise proofs of the declining state of a country. In the infancy of the Roman empire, the priest performed the office of a physician; so simple were the principles and practice of physic. It was only in the declension of the empire that physicians vied with the emperors of Rome in magnificence and splendour[23].

I am sorry to add, in this place, that the number of patients in the HOSPITAL, and incurables in the ALMSHOUSE of this city, show that we are treading in the enervated steps of our fellow subjects in Britain. Our bills of mortality likewise show the encroachments of British diseases upon us. The NERVOUS FEVER has become so familiar to us, that we look upon it as a natural disease. Dr. Sydenham, so faithful in his history of fevers, takes no notice of it. Dr. Cadwallader informed me, that it made its first appearance in this city about five and twenty years ago. It will be impossible to name the CONSUMPTION without recalling to our minds the memory of some friend or relation, who has perished within these few years by that disease. Its rapid progress among us has been unjustly attributed to the growing resemblance of our climate to that of Great-Britain. The HYSTERIC and HYPOCHONDRIAC DISEASES, once peculiar to the chambers of the great, are now to be found in our kitchens and workshops. All these diseases have been produced by our having deserted the simple diet and manners of our ancestors.

The blessings of literature, commerce, and religion were not originally purchased at the expence of health. The complete enjoyment of health is as compatible with civilization, as the enjoyment of civil liberty. We read of countries, rich in every thing that can form national happiness and national grandeur, the diseases of which are nearly as few and simple as those of the Indians. We hear of no diseases among the Jews, while they were under their democratical form of government, except such as were inflicted by a supernatural power[24]. We should be tempted to doubt the accounts given of the populousness of that people, did we not see the practice of their simple customs producing nearly the same populousness in Egypt, Rome, and other countries of antiquity. The empire of China, it is said, contains more inhabitants than the whole of Europe. The political institutions of that country have exempted its inhabitants from a large share of the diseases of other civilized nations. The inhabitants of Switzerland, Denmark, Norway[25], and Sweden, enjoy the chief advantages of civilization without having surrendered for them the blessings of natural health. But it is unnecessary to appeal to ancient or remote nations to prove, that health is not incompatible with civilization. The inhabitants of many parts of New-England, particularly of the province of Connecticut, are but little affected by artificial diseases. Some of you may remember the time, and our fathers have told those of us who do not, when the diseases of Pennsylvania were as few and as simple as those of the Indians. The food of the inhabitants was then simple; their only drink was water; their appetites were restrained by labour; religion excluded the influence of sickening passions; private hospitality supplied the want of a public hospital; nature was their only nurse, and temperance their principal physician. But I must not dwell upon this retrospect of primæval manners; and I am too strongly impressed with a hope of a revival of such happy days, to pronounce them the golden age of our province.

Our esteem for the customs of our savage neighbours will be lessened, when we add, that civilization does not preclude the honours of old age. The proportion of old people is much greater among civilized, than among savage nations. It would be easy to decide this assertion in our favour, by appealing to facts in the natural histories of Britain, Norway, Sweden, North-America[26], and several of the West-India islands.

The laws of decency and nature are not necessarily abolished by the customs of civilized nations. In many of these, we read of women among whom nature alone still performs the office of a midwife[27], and who feel the obligations of suckling their children to be equally binding with the common obligations of morality.

Civilization does not render us less fit for the necessary hardships of war. We read of armies of civilized nations, who have endured degrees of cold, hunger, and fatigue, which have not been exceeded by the savages of any country[28].

Civilization does not always multiply the avenues of death. It appears from the bills of mortality, of many countries, that fewer in proportion die among civilized, than among savage nations.

Even the charms of beauty are heightened by civilization. We read of stateliness, proportion, line teeth[29] and complexions, in both sexes, forming the principal outlines of national characters.

The danger of many diseases is not proportioned to their violence, but to their duration. America has advanced but a few paces in luxury and effeminacy. There is yet strength enough in her vitals to give life to those parts which are decayed. She may tread back her steps. For this purpose,

I. Let our children be educated in a manner more agreeable to nature.

II. Let the common people (who constitute the wealth and strength of our country) be preserved from the effects of ardent spirits. Had I a double portion of all that eloquence which has been employed in describing the political evils that lately threatened our country, it would be too little to set forth the numerous and complicated physical and moral evils which these liquors have introduced among us. To encounter this hydra requires an arm accustomed, like that of Hercules, to vanquish monsters. Sir William Temple tells us, that formerly in Spain no man could be admitted as an evidence in a court, who had once been convicted of drunkenness. I do not call for so severe a law in this country. Let us first try the force of severe manners. Lycurgus governed more by these, than by his laws. “Boni mores non bonæ leges,” according to Tacitus, were the bulwarks of virtue among the ancient Germans.

III. I despair of being able to call the votaries of Bacchus from their bottle, and shall therefore leave them to be roused by the more eloquent twinges of the gout.

IV. Let us be cautious what kind of manufactures we admit among us. The rickets made their first appearance in the manufacturing towns in England. Dr. Fothergill informed me, that he had often observed, when a pupil, that the greatest part of the chronic patients in the London Hospital were Spittal-field weavers. I would not be understood, from these facts, to discourage those manufactures which employ women and children: these suffer few inconveniences from a sedentary life: nor do I mean to offer the least restraint to those manufactories among men, which admit of free air, and the exercise of all their limbs. Perhaps a pure air, and the abstraction of spiritous liquors, might render sedentary employments less unhealthy in America, even among men, than in the populous towns of Great-Britain.

The population of a country is not to be accomplished by rewards and punishments. And it is happy for America, that the universal prevalence of the protestant religion, the checks lately given to negro slavery, the general unwillingness among us to acknowledge the usurpations of primogeniture, the universal practice of inoculation for the small-pox, and the absence of the plague, render the interposition of government for that purpose unnecessary.

These advantages can only be secured to our country by AGRICULTURE. This is the true basis of national health, riches, and populousness. Nations, like individuals, never rise higher than when they are ignorant whether they are tending. It is impossible to tell from history what will be the effects of agriculture, industry, temperance, and commerce, urged on by the competition of colonies, united in the same general pursuits, in a country, which for extent, variety of soil, climate, and number of navigable rivers, has never been equalled in any quarter of the globe. America is the theatre where human nature will probably receive her last and principal literary, moral, and political honours.

But I recall myself from the ages of futurity. The province of Pennsylvania has already shown to her sister colonies, the influence of agriculture and commerce upon the number and happiness of a people. It is scarcely a hundred years since our illustrious legislator, with a handful of men, landed upon these shores. Although the perfection of our government, the healthiness of our climate, and the fertility of our soil, seemed to ensure a rapid settlement of the province; yet it would have required a prescience bordering upon divine, to have foretold, that in such a short space of time, the province would contain above 300,000 inhabitants; and that nearly 30,000 of this number should compose a city, which should be the third, if not the second in commerce in the British empire. The pursuits of literature require leisure and a total recess from clearing forests, planting, building, and all the common toils of settling a new country: but before these arduous works were accomplished, the SCIENCES, ever fond of the company of liberty and industry, chose this spot for the seat of their empire in this new world. Our COLLEGE, so catholic in its foundation, and extensive in its objects, already sees her sons executing offices in the highest departments of society. I have now the honour of speaking in the presence of a most respectable number of philosophers, physicians, astronomers, botanists, patriots, and legislators; many of whom have already seized the prizes of honour, which their ancestors had allotted to a much later posterity. Our first offering had scarcely found its way into the temple of fame, when the oldest societies in Europe turned their eyes upon us, expecting with impatience to see the mighty fabric of science, which, like a well-built arch, can only rest upon the whole of its materials, completely finished from the treasures of this unexplored quarter of the globe.

It reflects equal honour upon our society and the honourable assembly of our province, to acknowledge, that we have always found the latter willing to encourage by their patronage, and reward by their liberality, all our schemes for promoting useful knowledge. What may we not expect from this harmony between the sciences and government! Methinks I see canals cut, rivers once impassable rendered navigable, bridges erected, and roads improved, to facilitate the exportation of grain. I see the banks of our rivers vying in fruitfulness with the banks of the river of Egypt. I behold our farmers nobles; our merchants princes. But I forbear—imagination cannot swell with the subject.

I beg leave to conclude, by deriving an argument from our connection with the legislature, to remind my auditors of the duty they owe to the society. Patriotism and literature are here connected together; and a man cannot neglect the one, without being destitute of the other. Nature and our ancestors have completed their works among us; and have left us nothing to do, but to enlarge and perpetuate our own happiness.

Footnotes:

[1] This Inquiry was the subject of an Anniversary Oration. The style of an oration is therefore preserved in many parts of it.

[2] Many of the facts contained in the Natural History of Medicine among the Indians in this Inquiry, are taken from La Hontan and Charlevoix's histories of Canada; but the most material of them are taken from persons who had lived or travelled among the Indians. The author acknowledges himself indebted in a particular manner to Mr. Edward Hand, surgeon in the 18th regiment, afterwards brigadier-general in the army of the United States, who, during several years' residence at Fort Pitt, directed his inquiries into their customs, diseases, and remedies, with a success that does equal honour to his ingenuity and diligence.

[3] Natural History of Guiana.

[4] Cæsar, in his history of the Gallic war, gives the same account of the ancient Germans. His words are “Qui diutissimi impuberes permanserunt, maximam inter suos ferunt laudem: hoc ali staturam, ali vires, nervasque confirmari putant.” Lib. vi. xxi.

[5] Theory of Moral Sentiments.

[6] Since the intercourse of the white people with the Indians, we find some of them deformed in their limbs. This deformity, upon inquiry, appears to be produced by those accidents, quarrels, &c. which have been introduced among them by spiritous liquors.

[7] Indian children are not exempted from worms. It is common with the Indians, when a fever in their children is ascribed by the white people to worms (from their being discharged occasionally in their stools), to say, “the fever makes the worms come, and not the worms the fever.”

[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.

[17] Even the influence of CHRISTIAN principles has not been able to put a stop to the mortality introduced among the Indians, by their intercourse with the Europeans. Dr. Cotton Mather, in a letter to sir William Ashurst, printed in Boston, in the year 1705, says, “that about five years before there were about thirty Indian congregations in the southern parts of the province of Massachusetts-Bay.” The same author, in his history of New-England, says, “That in the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, there were 3000 adult Indians, 1600 of whom professed the christian religion.” At present there is but one Indian congregation in the whole Massachusetts province.

It may serve to extend our knowledge of diseases, to remark, that epidemics were often observed to prevail among the Indians in Nantucket, without affecting the white people.

[18] It is said, there are seldom less than 20,000 British subjects in France and Italy; one half of whom reside or travel in those countries upon the account of their health.

[19] Templeman computes, that Scotland contains 1,500,000 inhabitants; 100,000 of whom, according to Mr. Fletcher, are supported at the public expence. The proportion of poor people is much greater in England, Ireland, France, and Italy.

[20] In the enervated age of Athens, a law was passed which confined the practice of midwifery only to the men. It was, however, repealed, upon a woman's dying in childbirth, rather than be delivered by a man-midwife. It appears from the bills of mortality in London and Dublin, that about one in seventy of those women die in childbirth, who are in the hands of midwives; but from the accounts of the lying-in hospitals in those cities, which are under the care of man-midwives, only one in a hundred and forty perishes in childbirth.

[21] There has been much common-place declamation against the custom among the great, of not suckling their children. Nurses were common in Rome, in the declension of the empire: hence we find Cornelia commended as a rare example of maternal virtue, as much for suckling her sons, as for teaching them eloquence. That nurses were common in Egypt, is probable from the contract which Pharaoh's daughter made with the unknown mother of Moses, to allow her wages for suckling her own child. The same degrees of civilization require the same customs. A woman whose times for eating and sleeping are constantly interrupted by the calls of enervating pleasures, must always afford milk of an unwholesome nature. It may truly be said of a child doomed to live on this aliment, that, as soon as it receives its

———“breath,
It sucks in “the lurking principles of death.”

[22] “Aurengezebe, emperor of Persia, being asked, Why he did not build hospitals? said, I will make my empire so rich, that there shall be no need of hospitals. He ought to have said, I will begin by rendering my subjects rich, and then I will build hospitals.

“At Rome, the hospitals place every one at his ease, except those who labour, those who are industrious, those who have lands, and those who are engaged in trade.

“I have observed, that wealthy nations have need of hospitals, because fortune subjects them to a thousand accidents; but it is plain, that transient assistances are better than perpetual foundations. The evil is momentary; it is necessary, therefore, that the succour should be of the same nature, and that it be applied to particular accidents.” Spirit of Laws, b. xxiii. ch. 29.

It was reserved for the present generation to substitute in the room of public hospitals private DISPENSARIES for the relief of the sick. Philosophy and christianity alike concur in deriving praise and benefit from these excellent institutions. They exhibit something like an application of the mechanical powers to the purposes of benevolence; for in what other charitable institutions do we perceive so great a quantity of distress relieved by so small an expence?

[23] The first regular practitioners of physic in Rome, were women and slaves. The profession was confined to them above six hundred years. The Romans, during this period, lived chiefly upon vegetables, particularly upon PULSE; and hence they were called, by their neighbours, PULTIFAGI. They were likewise early inured to the healthy employments of war and husbandry. Their diseases, of course, were too few and simple to render the cure of them an object of liberal profession. When their diseases became more numerous and complicated, their investigation and cure required the aids of philosophy. The profession from this time became liberal; and maintained a rank with the other professions which are founded upon the imperfection and depravity of human institutions. Physicians are as necessary in the advanced stages of society as surgeons, although their office is less ancient and certain. There are many artificial diseases, in which they give certain relief; and even where their art fails, their prescriptions are still necessary, in order to smooth the avenues of death.

[24] The principal employments of the Jews, like those of the Romans in their simple ages, consisted in war and husbandry. Their diet was plain, consisting chiefly of vegetables. Their only remedies were plasters and ointments; which were calculated for those diseases which are produced by accidents. In proportion as they receded from their simple customs, we find artificial diseases prevail among them. The leprosy made its appearance in their journey through the wilderness. King Asa's pains in his feet, were probably brought on by a fit of the gout. Saul and Nebuchadnezzar were afflicted with a melancholy. In the time of our Saviour, we find an account of all those diseases in Judea, which mark the declension of a people; such as, the palsy, epilepsy, mania, blindness, hæmorrhagia uterina, &c. It is unnecessary to suppose, that they were let loose at this juncture, on purpose to give our Saviour an opportunity of making them the chief subject of his miracles. They had been produced from natural causes, by the gradual depravity of their manners. It is remarkable, that our Saviour chose those artificial diseases for the subject of his miracles, in preference to natural diseases. The efforts of nature, and the operation of medicines, are too slow and uncertain in these cases to detract in the least from the validity of the miracle. He cured Peter's mother-in-law, it is true, of a fever; but to show that the cure was miraculous, the sacred historian adds (contrary to what is common after a fever), “that she arose immediately, and ministered unto them.”

[25] In the city of Bergen, which consists of 30,000 inhabitants, there is but one physician; who is supported at the expense of the public. Pontoppidan's Nat. Hist. of Norway.

[26] It has been urged against the state of longevity in America, that the Europeans, who settle among us, generally arrive to a greater age than the Americans. This is not occasioned so much by a peculiar firmness in their stamina, as by an increase of vigour which the constitution acquires by a change of climate. A Frenchman (cæteris paribus) outlives an Englishman in England. A Hollander prolongs his life by removing to the Cape of Good Hope. A Portuguese gains fifteen or twenty years by removing to Brazil. And there are good reasons to believe, that a North-American would derive the same advantages, in point of health and longevity, by removing to Europe, which a European derives from coming to this country.

From a calculation made by an ingenious foreigner, it appears, that a greater proportion of old people are to be found in Connecticut, than in any colony in North-America. This colony contains 180,000 inhabitants. They have no public hospitals or poor-houses; nor is a beggar to be seen among them. There cannot be more striking proofs than these facts of the simplicity of their manners.

[27] Parturition, in the simple ages of all countries, is performed by nature. The Israelitish women were delivered even without the help of the Egyptian midwives. We read of but two women who died in child-birth in the whole history of the Jews. Dr. Bancroft says, that child-bearing is attended with so little pain in Guiana, that the women seem to be exempted from the curse inflicted upon Eve. These easy births are not confined to warm climates. They are equally safe and easy in Norway and Iceland, according to Pontoppidan and Anderson's histories of those countries.

[28] Civilized nations have, in the end, always conquered savages as much by their ability to bear hardships, as by their superior military skill. Soldiers are not to be chosen indiscriminately. The greatest generals have looked upon sound constitutions to be as essential to soldiers, as bravery or military discipline. Count Saxe refused soldiers born and bred in large cities; and sought for such only as were bred in mountainous countries. The King of Prussia calls young soldiers only to the dangers and honours of the field, in his elegant poem, Sur l'Art de la Guerre, chant 1. Old soldiers generally lose the advantages of their veteranism, by their habits of idleness and debauchery. An able general, and experienced officers, will always supply the defects of age in young soldiers.

[29] Bad teeth are observed chiefly in middle latitudes, which are subject to alternate heats and colds. The inhabitants of Norway and Russia are as remarkable for their fine teeth as the inhabitants of Africa. We observe fine teeth to be universal likewise among the inhabitants of France, who live in a variable climate. These have been ascribed to their protecting their heads from the action of the night air by means of woollen night-caps, and to the extraordinary attention to the teeth of their children. These precautions secure good teeth; and are absolutely necessary in all variable climates, where people do not adopt all the customs of the savage life.

AN ACCOUNT
OF THE
CLIMATE OF PENNSYLVANIA,
AND ITS
INFLUENCE UPON THE HUMAN BODY.

In order to render the observations upon the epidemic diseases which compose the following volumes more useful, it will be necessary to prefix to them a short account of the climate of Pennsylvania, and of its influence upon the human body. This account may perhaps serve further, to lead to future discoveries, and more extensive observations, upon this subject.

The state of Pennsylvania lies between 39° 43′ 25″, and 42° north latitude, including, of course, 2° 16′ 35″, equal to 157 miles from its southern to its northern boundary. The western extremity of the state is in the longitude of 5° 23′ 40″, and the eastern, is that of 27′ from the meridian of Philadelphia, comprehending in a due west course 311 miles, exclusive of the territory lately purchased by Pennsylvania from the United States, of which as yet no accurate surveys have been obtained. The state is bounded on the south by part of the state of Delaware, by the whole state of Maryland, and by Virginia to her western extremity. The last named state, the territory lately ceded to Connecticut, and Lake Erie, (part of which is included in Pennsylvania) form the western and north-western boundaries of the state. Part of New-York, and the territory lately ceded to Pennsylvania, with a part of Lake Erie, compose the northern, and another part of New-York, with a large extent of New-Jersey (separated from Pennsylvania by the river Delaware), compose the eastern boundaries of the state. The lands which form these boundaries (except a part of the states of Delaware, Maryland, and New-Jersey) are in a state of nature. A large tract of the western and north-eastern parts of Pennsylvania are nearly in the same uncultivated situation.

The state of Pennsylvania is intersected and diversified with numerous rivers and mountains. To describe, or even to name them all, would far exceed the limits I have proposed to this account of our climate. It will be sufficient only to remark, that one of these rivers, viz. the Susquehannah, begins at the northern boundary of the state, twelve miles from the river Delaware, and winding several hundred miles, through a variegated country, enters the state of Maryland on the southern line, fifty-eight miles westward of Philadelphia; that each of these rivers is supplied by numerous streams of various sizes; that tides flow in parts of two of them, viz. in the Delaware and Schuylkill; that the rest rise and fall alternately in wet and dry weather; and that they descend with great rapidity, over prominent beds of rocks in many places, until they empty themselves into the bays of Delaware and Chesapeak on the east, and into the Ohio on the western part of the state.

The mountains form a considerable part of the state of Pennsylvania. Many of them appear to be reserved as perpetual marks of the original empire of nature in this country. The Allegany, which crosses the state about two hundred miles from Philadelphia, in a north, inclining to an eastern course, is the most considerable and extensive of these mountains. It is called by the Indians the back-bone of the continent. Its height, in different places, is supposed to be about 1,300 feet from the adjacent plains.

The soil of Pennsylvania is diversified by its vicinity to mountains and rivers. The vallies and bottoms consist of a black mould, which extends from a foot to four feet in depth. But in general a deep clay forms the surface of the earth. Immense beds of limestone lie beneath this clay in many parts of the state. This account of the soil of Pennsylvania is confined wholly to the lands on the east side of the Allegany mountain. The soil on the west side of this mountain, shall be described in another place.

The city of Philadelphia lies in the latitude of 39° 57′, in longitude 75° 8′ from Greenwich, and fifty-five miles west from the Atlantic ocean.

It is situated about four miles due north from the conflux of the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill. The buildings, which consist chiefly of brick, extend nearly three miles north and south along the Delaware, and above half a mile due west towards the Schuylkill, to which river the limits of the city extend, the whole of which includes a distance of two miles from the Delaware. The land near the rivers, between the city and the conflux of the rivers, is in general low, moist, and subject to be overflowed. The greatest part of it is meadow ground. The land to the northward and westward, in the vicinity of the city, is high, and in general well cultivated. Before the year 1778, the ground between the present improvements of the city, and the river Schuylkill, was covered with woods. These, together with large tracts of wood to the northward of the city, were cut down during the winter the British army had possession of Philadelphia. I shall hereafter mention the influence which the cutting down of these woods, and the subsequent cultivation of the grounds in the neighbourhood of the city, have had upon the health of its inhabitants.

The mean height of the ground on which the city stands, is about forty feet above the river Delaware. One of the longest and most populous streets in the city rises only a few feet above the river. The air at the north is much purer than at the south end of the city; hence the lamps exhibit a fainter flame in its southern than its northern parts.

The tide of the Delaware seldom rises more than six feet. It flows four miles in an hour. The width of the river near the city is about a mile.

The city, with the adjoining districts of Southwark and the Northern Liberties, contains between 70 and 80,000 inhabitants.

From the accounts which have been handed down to us by our ancestors, there is reason to believe that the climate of Pennsylvania has undergone a material change. Thunder and lightning are less frequent, and the cold of our winters and heat of our summers are less uniform, than they were forty or fifty years ago. Nor is this all. The springs are much colder, and the autumns more temperate than formerly, insomuch that cattle are not housed so soon by one month as they were in former years. Within the last eight years, there have been some exceptions to part of these observations. The winter of the year 1779–80, was uniformly and uncommonly cold. The river Delaware was frozen near three months during this winter, and public roads for waggons and sleighs connected the city of Philadelphia in many places with the Jersey shore. The thickness of the ice in the river near the city, was from sixteen to nineteen inches, and the depth of the frost in the ground was from four to five feet, according to the exposure of the ground, and the quality of the soil. This extraordinary depth of the frost in the earth, compared with its depth in more northern and colder countries, is occasioned by the long delay of snow, which leaves the earth without a covering during the last autumnal and the first winter months. Many plants were destroyed by the intenseness of the cold during this winter. The ears of horned cattle and the feet of hogs exposed to the air, were frost-bitten; squirrels perished in their holes, and partridges were often found dead in the neighbourhood of farm houses. The mercury in January stood for several hours at 5° below 0, in Fahrenheit's thermometer; and during the whole of this month (except on one day), it never rose in the city of Philadelphia so high as to the freezing point.

The cold in the winter of the year 1783–4 was as intense, but not so steady, as it was in the winter that has been described. It differed from it materially in one particular, viz. there was a thaw in the month of January, which opened all our rivers for a few days.

The summer which succeeded the winter of 1779–80, was uniformly warm. The mercury in the thermometer, during this summer, stood on one day (the 15th of August) at 95°, and fluctuated between 93°, and 80° for many weeks. The thermometer, in every reference that has been, or shall be made to it, stood in the shade in the open air.

I know it has been said by many old people, that the winters in Pennsylvania are less cold, and the summers less warm, than they were forty or fifty years ago. The want of thermometrical observations before, and during those years, renders it difficult to decide this question. Perhaps the difference of clothing and sensation between youth and old age, in winter and summer, may have laid the foundation of this opinion. I suspect the mean temperature of the air in Pennsylvania has not altered, but that the principal change in our climate consists in the heat and cold being less confined than formerly to their natural seasons. I adopt the opinion of Doctor Williamson[30] respecting the diminution of the cold in the southern, being occasioned by the cultivation of the northern parts of Europe; but no such cultivation has taken place in the countries which lie to the north-west of Pennsylvania, nor do the partial and imperfect improvements which have been made in the north-west parts of the state, appear to be sufficient to lessen the cold, even in the city of Philadelphia. I have been able to collect no facts, which dispose me to believe that the winters were colder before the year 1740, than they have been since. In the memorable winter of 1739–40, the Delaware was crossed on the ice, in sleighs, on the 5th of March, old style, and did not open till the 13th of the same month. The ground was covered during this winter with a deep snow, and the rays of the sun were constantly obscured by a mist, which hung in the upper regions of the air. In the winter of 1779-80, the river was navigable on the 4th of March; the depth of the snow was moderate, and the gloominess of the cold was sometime suspended for a few days by a cheerful sun. From these facts, it is probable the winter of 1739-40 was colder than the winter of 1779-80.

The winter of 1804–5 exhibited so many peculiarities that it deserves a place in the history of the climate of Pennsylvania. The navigation of the Delaware was obstructed on the 18th of December. The weather partook of every disagreeable and distressing property of every cold climate on the globe. These were intense cold, deep snows, hail, sleet, high winds, and heavy rains. They generally occurred in succession, but sometimes most of them took place in the course of four and twenty hours. A serene and star-light evening, often preceded a tempestuous day. The mercury stood for many days, in Philadelphia, at 4° and 6° above 0 in Fahrenheit's thermometer. The medium depth of the snow was two feet, but from its fall being accompanied with high winds, its height in many places was three and four feet, particularly in roads, which it rendered so impassable, as to interrupt business and social intercourse, in many parts of the state. From the great depth of the snow, the ground was so much protected from the cold, that the frost extended but six inches below its surface. The newspapers daily furnished distressing accounts of persons perishing with the cold by land and water, and of shipwrecks on every part of the coast of the United States. Poultry were found dead, or with frozen feet, in their coops, in many places.

This intense cold was not confined to Pennsylvania. In Norfolk, in Virginia, the mercury stood at 18° above 0 on the 22d of January. At Lexington, in Kentucky, it stood at 0 on the 21st of the same month. In Lower Canada the snow was seven feet in depth, which is three feet deeper than in common years. And such was the quantity of ice collected in the northern seas, that a ship was destroyed, and several vessels injured, by large masses of it, floating between the 41st and 42d degrees of north latitude.

Great fears were entertained of an inundation in Pennsylvania, from a sudden thaw of the immense quantities of snow and ice that had accumulated during the winter, in every part of the state; but happily they both dissolved away so gradually, as scarcely to injure a bridge or a road. On the 28th of February the Delaware was navigable, and on the 2d of March no ice was to be seen in it.

Having premised these general remarks, I proceed to observe, that there are seldom more than twenty or thirty days in summer or winter, in Pennsylvania, in which the mercury rises above 80° in the former, or falls below 30° in the latter season. Some old people have remarked, that the number of extremely cold and warm days in successive summers and winters, bears an exact proportion to each other. This was strictly true in the years 1787 and 1788.

The warmest part of the day in summer is at two, in ordinary, and at three o'clock in the afternoon, in extremely warm weather. From these hours, the heat gradually diminishes till the ensuing morning. The coolest part of the four and twenty hours, is at the break of day. There are seldom more than three or four nights in a summer in which the heat of the air is nearly the same as in the preceding day. After the warmest days, the evenings are generally agreeable, and often delightful. The higher the mercury rises in the day time, the lower it falls the succeeding night. The mercury at 80° generally falls to 68°, while it descends, when at 60°, but to 56°. This disproportion between the temperature of the day and night, in summer is always greatest in the month of August. The dews at this time are heavy in proportion to the coolness of the evening. They are sometimes so considerable as to wet the clothes; and there are instances in which marsh-meadows, and even creeks, which have been dry during the summer, have been supplied with their usual waters from no other source, than the dews which have fallen in this month, or in the first weeks of September.

There is another circumstance connected with the one just mentioned, which contributes very much to mitigate the heat of summer, and that is, it seldom continues more than two or three days without being succeeded with showers of rain, accompanied sometimes by thunder and lightning, and afterwards by a north-west wind, which produces a coolness in the air that is highly invigorating and agreeable.

The warmest weather is generally in the month of July. But intensely warm days are often felt in May, June, August, and September. In the annexed table of the weather for the year 1787, there is an exception to the first of these remarks. It shows that the mean heat of August was greater by a few degrees than that of July.

The transitions from heat to cold are often very sudden, and sometimes to very distant degrees. After a day in which the mercury has stood at 86° and even 90°, it sometimes falls, in the course of a single night, to the 65th, and even to the 60th degree, insomuch that fires have been found necessary the ensuing morning, especially if the change in the temperature of the air has been accompanied by rain and a south-east wind. In a summer month, in the year 1775, the mercury was observed to fall 20° in an hour and a half. There are few summers in which fires are not agreeable during some parts of them. My ingenious friend, Mr. David Rittenhouse, whose talent for accurate observation extends alike to all subjects, informed me, that he had never passed a summer, during his residence in the country, without discovering frost in every month of the year, except July.

The weather is equally variable in Pennsylvania during the greatest part of the winter. The mercury fell from 37° to 4-1/2° below 0 in four and twenty hours, between the fourth and fifth of February, 1788. In this season nature seems to play at cross purposes. Heavy falls of snow are often succeeded in a few days by a general thaw, which frequently in a short time leaves no vestige of the snow. The rivers Delaware, Schuylkill, and Susquehannah have sometimes been frozen (so as to bear horses and carriages of all kinds) and thawed so as to be passable in boats, two or three times in the course of the same winter. The ice is formed for the most part in a gradual manner, and seldom till the water has been previously chilled by a fall of snow. Sometimes its production is more sudden. On the night of the 31st of December, 1764, the Delaware was completely frozen over between ten o'clock at night and eight the next morning, so as to bear the weight of a man. An unusual vapour like a fog was seen to rise from the water, in its passage from a fluid to a solid state.

This account of the variableness of the weather in winter, does not apply to every part of Pennsylvania. There is a line about the 41° of the state, beyond which the winters are steady and regular, insomuch that the earth there is seldom without a covering of snow during the three winter months. In this line the climate of Pennsylvania forms a union with the climate of the eastern and northern states.

The time in which frost and ice begin to show themselves in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, is generally about the latter end of October or the beginning of November. But the intense cold seldom sets in till about the the 20th or 25th of December; hence the common saying, “as the day lengthens, the cold strengthens.” The coldest weather is commonly in January. The navigation of the river Delaware, after being frozen, is seldom practicable for large vessels, before the first week in March.

As in summer there are often days in which fires are agreeable, so there are sometimes days in winter in which they are disagreeable. Vegetation has been observed in all the winter months. Garlic was tasted in butter in January, 1781. The leaves of the willow, the blossoms of the peach tree, and the flowers of the dandelion and the crocus, were all seen in February, 1779; and I well recollect, when a school-boy, to have seen an apple orchard in full bloom, and small apples on many of the trees, in the month of December.

A cold day in winter is often succeeded by a moderate evening. The coldest part of the four and twenty hours, is generally at the break of day.

In the most intense cold which has been recorded in Philadelphia, within the last twenty years, the mercury stood at 5° below 0. But it appears from the accounts published by Messieurs Mason and Dixon, in the 58th volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, that the mercury stood at 22° below 0, on the 2d of January, 1767, at Brandywine, about thirty miles to the westward of Philadelphia. They inform us, that on the 1st of the same month, the mercury stood at 20°, and on the day before at 7° below 0. I have to lament that I am not able to procure any record of the temperature of the air in the same year in Philadelphia. From the variety in the height and quality of the soil, and from the difference in the currents of winds and the quantity of rain and snow which fall in different parts of the state, it is very probable this excessive cold may not have extended thirty miles from the place where it was first perceived.

The greatest degree of heat upon record in Philadelphia, is 95°.

The standard temperature of the air in the city of Philadelphia is 52-1/2°, which is the temperature of our deepest wells, as also the mean heat of our common spring water.

The spring in Pennsylvania is generally less pleasant than in many other countries. In March the weather is stormy, variable, and cold. In April, and sometimes in the beginning of May, it is moist, and accompanied by a degree of cold which has been called rawness, and which, from its disagreeable effects upon the temper, has been called the sirocco of this country. From the variable nature of the weather in the spring, vegetation advances very differently in different years. The colder the spring, the more favourable it proves to the fruits of the earth. The hopes of the farmer from his fruit-trees in a warm spring are often blasted by a frost in April and May. A fall of snow is remembered with regret by many of them, on the night between the 3d and 4th of May, in the year 1774; also on the morning of the 8th of May, 1803. Such was its quantity on the latter day, that it broke down the limbs of many poplar trees. This effect was ascribed to its not being accompanied with any wind. The colder the winter, the greater delay we generally observe in the return of the ensuing spring.

Sometimes the weather during the spring months is cloudy and damp, attended occasionally with a gentle fall of rain resembling the spray from a cataract of water. A day of this kind of weather is called, from its resemblance to a damp day in Great-Britain, “an English day.” This damp weather seldom continues more than three or four days. The month of May, 1786, will long be remembered, for having furnished a very uncommon instance of the absence of the sun for fourteen days, and of constant damp or rainy weather.

The month of June is the only month in the year which resembles a spring month in the southern countries of Europe. The weather is then generally temperate, the sky is serene, and the verdure of the country is universal and delightful.

The autumn is the most agreeable season in the year in Pennsylvania. The cool evenings and mornings, which generally begin about the first week in September, are succeeded by a moderate temperature of the air during the day. This kind of weather continues with an increase of cold scarcely perceptible, till the middle of October, when the autumn is closed by rain, which sometimes falls in such quantities as to produce destructive freshes in the rivers and creeks, and sometimes descends in gentle showers, which continue, with occasional interruptions by a few fair days, for two or three weeks. These rains are the harbingers of the winter; and the Indians have long ago taught the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, that the degrees of cold during the winter, are in proportion to the quantity of rain which falls during the autumn[31].

From this account of the temperature of the air in Pennsylvania, it is evident that there are seldom more than four months in which the weather is agreeable without a fire.

In winter the winds generally come from the north-west in fair, and from the north-east in wet weather. The north-west winds are uncommonly dry as well as cold. It is in consequence of the violent action of these winds that trees have uniformly a thicker and more compact bark on their northern than on their southern exposures. Even brick houses are affected by the force and dryness of these north-west winds: hence it is much more difficult to demolish the northern than the southern walls of an old brick house. This fact was communicated to me by an eminent bricklayer in the city of Philadelphia.

The winds in fair weather in the spring, and in warm weather in the summer, blow from the south-west and from west-north-west. The raw air before-mentioned comes from the north-east. The south-west winds likewise usually bring with them those showers of rain in the spring and summer which refresh the earth. They moreover moderate the heat of the weather, provided they are succeeded by a north-west wind. Now and then showers of rain come from the west-north-west.

There is a common fact connected with the account of the usual winds in Pennsylvania, which it may not be improper to mention in this place. While the clouds are seen flying from the south-west, the scud, as it is called, or a light vapour, is seen at the same time flying below the clouds from the north-east.

The moisture of the air is much greater than formerly, occasioned probably by the exhalations which in former years fell in the form of snow, now descending in the form of rain. The depth of the snow is sometimes between two and three feet, but in general seldom exceeds between six and nine inches.

Hail frequently descends with snow in winter. Once in four or five years large and heavy showers of hail fall in the spring and summer. They generally run in narrow veins (as they are called) of thirty or forty miles in length, and two or three miles in breadth. The heaviest shower of hail that is remembered in Philadelphia, did not extend in breadth more than half a mile north and south. Some of the stones weighed half an ounce. The windows of many houses were broken by them. This shower fell in May, 1783.

From sudden changes in the air, rain and snow often fall together, forming what is commonly called sleet.

In the uncultivated parts of the state, the snow sometimes lies on the ground till the first week in April. The backwardness of the spring has been ascribed to the passage of the air over the undissolved beds of snow and ice which usually remain, after the winter months are past, on the north-west grounds and waters of the state, and of the adjacent country.

The dissolution of the ice and snow in the spring is sometimes so sudden as to swell the creeks and rivers in every part of the state to such a degree, as not only to lay waste the hopes of the husbandman from the produce of his lands, but in some instances to sweep his barns, stables, and even his dwelling house into their currents[32]. The wind, during a general thaw, comes from the south-west or south-east.

The air, when dry in Pennsylvania, has a peculiar elasticity, which renders the heat and cold less insupportable than the same degrees of both are in moister countries. It is in those cases only when summer showers are not succeeded by north-west winds, that the heat of the air becomes oppressive and distressing, from being combined with moisture.

From tradition, as well as living observation, it is evident, that the waters in many of the creeks in Pennsylvania have diminished considerably within the last fifty years. Hence many mills, erected upon large and deep streams of water, now stand idle in dry weather; and many creeks, once navigable in large boats, are now impassable even in canoes. This diminution of the waters has been ascribed to the application of a part of them to the purpose of making meadows.

The mean elevation of the barometer in Philadelphia, is about 30 inches. The variations in the barometer are very inconsiderable in the greatest changes of the weather, which occur in the city of Philadelphia. During the violent and destructive storm which blew from the south-west on the 11th of November, 1788, it suddenly fell from 30 to 29-3/10. Mr. Rittenhouse informs me, that long and faithful observations have satisfied him, that the alterations in the height of the mercury in the barometer do not precede but always succeed changes in the weather. It falls with the south and south-west, and rises with the north and north-west winds.

The quantity of water which falls in rain and snow, one year with another, amounts to from 24 to 36 inches. But to complete the account of variable qualities in the climate, it will be necessary to add, that our summers and autumns are sometimes marked by a deficiency, and sometimes by an excessive quantity of rain. The summer and autumn of 1782 were uncommonly dry. Near two months elapsed without a single shower of rain. There were only two showers in the whole months of September and October. In consequence of this dry weather, there was no second crop of hay. The Indian corn failed of its increase in many places, and was cut down for food for cattle. Trees newly planted, died. The pasture fields not only lost their verdure, but threw up small clouds of dust when agitated by the feet of men, or beasts. Cattle in some instances were driven many miles to be watered, every morning and evening. It was remarked during this dry weather, that the sheep were uncommonly fat, and their flesh well tasted, while all the other domestic animals languished from the want of grass and water. The earth became so inflammable in some places, as to burn above a foot below its surface. A complete consumption of the turf by an accidental fire kindled in the adjoining state of New-Jersey, spread terror and distress through a large tract of country. Springs of water and large creeks were dried up in many parts of the state. Rocks appeared in the river Schuylkill, which had never been observed before, by the oldest persons then alive. On one of them were cut the figures 1701. The atmosphere, during part of this dry weather, was often filled, especially in the mornings, with a thin mist, which, while it deceived with the expectation of rain, served the valuable purpose of abating the heat of the sun. A similar mist was observed in France by Dr. Franklin, in the summer of 1782. The winter which succeeded it was uncommonly cold in France, as well as in Pennsylvania. I am sorry that I am not able to furnish the mean heat of each of the summer months. My notes of the weather enable me to add nothing further upon this subject, than that the summer was “uncommonly cool.”

The summer of the year 1788 afforded a remarkable instance of excess in the quantity of rain which sometimes falls in Pennsylvania. Thirteen days are marked with rain in July, in the records of the weather kept at Spring-Mill. There fell on the 18th and 19th of August seven inches of rain in the city of Philadelphia. The wheat suffered greatly by the constant rains of July in the eastern and middle parts of the state. So unproductive a harvest in grain, from wet weather, had not been known, it is said, in the course of the last 70 years. The heat of the air, during these summer months was very moderate. Its mean temperature at Spring-Mill was 67,8 in June, 74,7 in July, and only 70,6 in August.

It is some consolation to a citizen of Pennsylvania, in recording facts which seem to militate against our climate, to reflect that the difference of the weather, in different parts of the state, at the same season, is happily accommodated to promote an increase of the same objects of agriculture; and hence a deficiency of crops has never been known in any one year throughout the whole state.

The aurora borealis and meteors are seen occasionally in Pennsylvania. In the present imperfect state of our knowledge of their influence upon the human body, it will be foreign to the design of this history of our climate to describe them.

Storms and hurricanes are not unknown in Pennsylvania. They occur once in four or five years, but they are most frequent and destructive in the autumn. They are generally accompanied by rain. Trees are torn up by the roots, and the rivers and creeks are sometimes swelled so suddenly as to do considerable damage to the adjoining farms. The wind, during these storms, generally blows from the south-east and south-west. In the storms which occurred in September, 1769, and in the same month of the year 1785, the wind veered round contrary to its usual course, and blew from the north.

After what has been said, the character of the climate of Pennsylvania may be summed up in a few words. There are no two successive years alike. Even the same successive seasons and months differ from each other every year. Perhaps there is but one steady trait in the character of our climate, and that is, it is uniformly variable.

To furnish the reader with a succinct view of the weather in Pennsylvania, that includes all the articles that have been mentioned, I shall here sub-join a table containing the result of meteorological observations made near the river Schuylkill, for one year, in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, by an ingenious French gentleman, Mr. Legeaux, who divides his time between rural employments, and useful philosophical pursuits. This table is extracted from the Columbian Magazine, for February, 1788. The height of Spring-Mill above the city of Philadelphia, is supposed to be about 70 feet.

It is worthy of notice, how near the mean heat of the year, and of the month of April, in two successive years, are to each other in the same place. The mean heat of April, 1787, was 54°3, that of April, 1788, was 52°2. By the table of the mean heat of each month in the year, it appears that the mean heat of 1787 was 53°5 at Spring-Mill.

The following accounts of the climates of Pekin and Madrid, which lie within a few minutes of the same latitude as Philadelphia, may serve to show how much climates are altered by local and relative circumstances. The account of the temperature of the air at Pekin will serve further to show, that with all the advantages of the highest degrees of cultivation which have taken place in China, the winters are colder, and the summers warmer there than in Pennsylvania, principally from a cause which will probably operate upon the winters of Pennsylvania for many centuries to come, viz. the vicinity of an uncultivated north-west country.

“Pekin, lat. 39° 54′, long. 116° 29′ W.

By five years observations, its annual mean temperature was found to be 55° 5′.

The temperature of the Atlantic under this parallel is 62, but the standard of this part of the globe is the North Pacific, which is here 4 or 5 degrees colder than the Atlantic. The Yellow Sea is the nearest to Pekin, being about 200 miles distant from it; but it is itself cooled by the mountainous country of Corea, which interposes between it and the ocean, for a considerable part of its extent. Besides, all the northern parts of China (in which Pekin lies) must be cooled by the vicinity of the mountains of Chinese Tartary, among which the cold is said to be excessive.

The greatest cold usually experienced during this period was 5°, the greatest heat, 98°: on the 25th of July, 1773, the heat arose to 108° and 110°: a N. E. or N. W. wind produces the greatest cold, a or W. or E. the greatest heat[33].”

“Madrid, lat. 40° 25′, long. 3° 20′ E.

The usual heat in summer is said to be from 75° to 85°; even at night it seldom falls below 70°; the mean height of the barometer is 27,96. It seems to be about 1900 feet above the level of the sea[34].”

The above accounts are extracted from Mr. Kirwan's useful and elaborate estimate of the temperature of different latitudes.

The history which has been given of the climate of Pennsylvania, is confined chiefly to the country on the east side of the Allegany mountain. On the west side of this mountain, the climate differs materially from that of the south-eastern parts of the state in the temperature of the air, in the effects of the winds upon the weather, and in the quantity of rain and snow which falls every year. The winter seldom breaks up on the mountains before the 25th of March. A fall of snow was once perceived upon it, which measured an inch and a half, on the 11th day of June. The trees which grow upon it are small, and Indian corn is with difficulty brought to maturity, even at the foot of the east side of it. The south-west winds on the west side of the mountain are accompanied by cold and rain. The soil is rich, consisting of near a foot, in many places, of black mould. The roads in this country are muddy in winter, but seldom dusty in summer. The arrangement of strata of the earth on the west side, differs materially from their arrangement on the east side the mountain. “The country (says Mr. Rittenhouse, in a letter to a friend in Philadelphia[35]), when viewed from the western ridge of the Allegany, appears to be one vast extended plain. All the various strata of stone seem to lie undisturbed in the situation in which they were first formed, and the layers of stone, sand, clay, and coal, are nearly horizontal.”

The temperature of the air on the west is seldom so hot, or so cold, as on the east side of the mountain. By comparing the state of a thermometer examined by Dr. Bedford at Pittsburg, 284 miles from Philadelphia, it appears that the weather was not so cold by twelve degrees in that town, as it was in Philadelphia, on the 5th of February, 1788.

To show the difference between the weather at Spring-Mill and in Pittsburg, I shall here sub-join an account of it, in both places, the first taken by Mr. Legeaux, and the other by Doctor Bedford.

From a review of all the facts which have been mentioned, it appears that the climate of Pennsylvania is a compound of most of the climates in the world. Here we have the moisture of Britain in the spring, the heat of Africa in summer, the temperature of Italy in June, the sky of Egypt in the autumn, the cold and snows of Norway and the ice of Holland in the winter, the tempests (in a certain degree) of the West-Indies in every season, and the variable winds and weather of Great-Britain in every month of the year.

From this history of the climate of Pennsylvania, it is easy to ascertain what degrees of health, and what diseases prevail in the state. As we have the climates, so we have the health, and the acute diseases, of all the countries that have been mentioned. Without attempting to enumerate the diseases, I shall only add a few words upon the time and manner in which they are produced.

I. It appears from the testimonies of many aged persons, that pleurisies and inflammatory diseases of all kinds, are less frequent now than they were forty or fifty years ago.

II. It is a well known fact, that intermitting and bilious fevers have increased in Pennsylvania in proportion as the country has been cleared of its wood, in many parts of the state.

III. It is equally certain that these fevers have lessened, or disappeared, in proportion as the country has been cultivated.

IV. Heavy rains and freshes in the spring seldom produce fevers, unless they are succeeded by unseasonably warm weather.