nor does it lay hold of the African* new comer; though both belong within the tropics: nor is it common that any person has it twice, unless he returns to a high northern latitude and remains there some considerable time, and then revisits the tropics again. It may also be remarked, if native inhabitants of the tropics reside any length of time in a cold climate, and afterwards return to the TORRID ZONE, they are very liable to become the subjects of this disease.

3dly. The remittent endemic fever, when it rages with malignancy among that class of people called Creoles, is sometimes marked with symptoms that are common to the yellow fever, such as profuse bleeding at the mouth, vomiting of blood, and a yellow tinge of the skin. But it must be confessed that these three symptoms rarely occurred,and never happened to the same subject; although I have seen all three of them in different patients, at different intervals of time.

From which premises, it appears to me, that the very same causes generate the endemic fever of the West-Indies and the yellow fever. But the origin of their different symptoms must be sought for in the varying diathesis of the solids, and those daily changes, which a northern constitution is known to undergo. At no time has my residence in the West-Indies been of so permanent a nature, as to afford the means of definitely determining the possible influence that climate has on the constitution. More experienced physicians may hereafter determine these questions. But this may be stated as a fact, that a small dose of mercury given to a native frequently alarms the physician by an unexpected ptyalism; while foreigners are only affected by the same quantity, in the same mode, as is common among the inhabitants of cold climates.

Memory furnishes, among other instances, the particular case of a young Creole lady, whose complaint was an obstinate constipation of the borvels. Aloetic preparations were administered, as well as castor oil, &c. which did not produce the desired effect. At length 7 grs. of calomel were administered. This medicine, some days after the alvine tube was cleansed, produced so great a flow of saliva, that life itself was in the most imminent danger. The discharge of black fœtid blood and spittle from the salivary glands,

The NORTH AMERICAN NEGROES were however no more exempt from this fever at Demerary, than the Whites from a cold climate. Its attack was of equal violence and as frequently fatal.

gums and fauces, was so copious as to excite fainting fits. The organs of speech were inflamed and tumefied to such a degree, that speech was unintelligible and deglutition almost arrested. Laudanum and the most powerful astringents, with an epispastic applied on the back of the neck, were insufficient to restrain the flow of saliva, until eight or ten days had elapsed.

This fever rages as an epidemic principally in the dry season, though sometimes during the wet, in that colony among new-comers from higher northern latitudes. It made shocking havoc, in point of numbers, among the Dutch soldiers* and seamen at the commencement of the year 1803, immediately after the colony was given up by the British to the Dutch, agreeably to the treaty of AMIENS; and also among the British and American seamen, soon after the colony was retaken by the British in the same year. It may in truth be said, that "They fell unblessed, untended, and unmourned." I was frequently reminded of the following lines of the late DR. DARWIN in his Botanic Garden.

When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read,
No dirge slow chaunted, and no pall outspread;
While death and night piled up the naked throng,
And silence drove their ebon cars along.

The afflux of strangers to Demerary at those two periods was immense, which no doubt was the cause of its being more prevalent. When a few individuals only were attacked, the fever was less malignant and the danger consequently less. It was more particularly mortal among foreigners of sanguine habits and rigid fibres, and especially to soldiers and seamen who were subjected to hard labour, and exposed to the action of the solar rays; and who afterwards cooled themselves suddenly by plunging into the water, or by chilling breezes of air, or being accidentally caught in a shower of rain. These sons of MARS and NEPTUNE might with propriety have repeated the words of Æneas, as he did, soon after he landed on the CRETAN shores, to wit.

-Subito cum tabida membris,

Corrupto cœli tractu, miserandaque venit

The uniform and clothing generally of this class of people could not have been more injudiciously chofen than theirs was for a tropical climate. Their hats were black and had very little or no rims to them, the abfence of which admitted the fun's rays directly upon their faces. Their apparel was infinitely better adapted to the climate of NORWAY OF SWEDEN in the month of January. VOL. VI. 2 F

Arboribusque satisque lues, et letifer annus.
Linquebant dulces animas, aut ægra trahebant
Corpora: tum steriles exurere Sirius agros.†

I am confidently of opinion that this fever is not communicated by contagion; as no person living in the same house with the infected or the physicians or attendants, was ever known to take it, unless they happened to be strangers and thus predisposed to the fever. If any person sickened in the town of STABROEK, and was afterwards removed into the country on a plantation, nobody was ever known to be infected from him.

I never heard it suggested by any of the faculty residing in Demerary, that they ever supposed the yellow fever to have been imported into that colony.

The more robust and sanguine the persons were, the more habituated to animal food and spirituous liquors, and the more exposed to solar heat, so much the more liable they were to take this fever: Hence the English, American and Dutch seamen, as well as the English and Dutch soldiers, were most frequently, as well as most violently seized with this malady; and one material cause of this may be traced to the filth and nastiness that American vessels, particularly, collect from their cargoes on their outward-bound passages; which cargoes are composed principally of salted fish, meats, both dry and pickle-salted, lard and butter, cheese, onions, potatoes, live stock, such as oxen, horses, &c.

Women and infants, the aged, the feeble, emaciated, light livers and light workers, are attacked less dangerously than those habits just enumerated. Officers among the troops, and commanders of vessels, are favoured with more mild symptoms, and their convalescence is much shorter than common soldiers and sailors: and this appears to result, 1st. from the latter undergoing much severer fatigue, and 2ndly. they seldom apply for medical aid, until it is too late; conceiving they have only caught a common cold.

Experience has taught me to divide this fever into two

Virg. Æn.

+ Sleeping in the open air by night and efpecially in the moon-fbine; intemperance in new undiluted rum; acid drinks long persisted in; eating of tropical fruits to excefs; long expofure to wet or damp weather or fleeping in wet clothes; conftipation of the bowels; had water, fear, anxiety of mind; filth or naftinefs attached to the body or clothing of perfois, &c. are not among the fmalleft exciting caufes of this fever.

grades, viz. the malignant and mild: acknowledging at the same time, that these distinctions will not always hold good; as the mildest form sometimes degenerates into the most malignant. The principal difference that exists may be found in the greater violence of the symptoms which occur in the first stage; in the frequency and strength of the spasmodic affections of the second, and in the rapid transit of the second into the third and last stage. The true causes of all these variations are to be sought for in the difference of different constitutions; and in the PARTICULAR GENUS of the prevailing epidemic, which has a natural tendency, either to an inflammatory or spasmodic form.

(To be continued.)

OBSERVATIONS ON MERCURIAL SALIVATION; in which an attempt is made to obviate some of the objections urged against this remedy. BY DR. AARON C. WILLEY, OF BLOCK ISLAND.

A

MONG the great variety of agents which medical science employs in arresting the disorders of the human frame, Mercury justly claims a very high rank. Such is the wonderful power of this active substance over the morbid derangements of organic life, that it may not improperly be considered as in some measure superseding a great part of the materia medica now in use. Other medicines, though of drastic nature, are more limited in their operation, more confined to particular maladies; but this, with supe. rior sway, resists, with some success, the greater portion of diseases incident to man. But extensive as is the present use of this invaluable article of the healing art, yet experience is daily enlarging its bounds, and gaining an ascendency over the "congregated legion of ignorance and prejudice," which have unceasingly assailed it from its first discovery.

There is a diversity of methods of using this medicine, with salutary effect; but no mode, I believe, has met with more opposition than that which is the subject of the present communication. The idea of salivation frequently alarms the vulgar and superstitious, and fills the mind of credulity with fantastic and fearful apprehensions. But happy would

it be for a vast number of the human race if these chimerical notions ended here. Instead of this, they extend, with equal predominance, to many of the faculty. The prejudices of some of our physicians are as strong against ptyalism, as of those who have imbibed their uncouth ideas from the fireside-stories of their grandmothers, or the fabrications of designing quacks. I have listened to an hoary-headed son of Esculapius while he anathematized salivation, and the use of mercury generally, as an impious and unpardonable species of medical heresy: but his arguments were like the ideot's tale,

-Full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Salivation has long been known; but the knowledge of its most important efficacy, is, I believe, of recent date. Our ancestors never dared to use it in many of those cases where modern practice employs it with great success. In former times, it was chiefly confined to lues venerea. But in this it

is now found sometimes unnecessary.

One of those diseases in which salivation is employed with distinguished benefit, is the Synochus Icteroides, or yellow fever. Hundreds who are now enjoying the blessings of health, owe, in my belief, their terrestrial existence to this peculiar operation of mercury; and as many more, who are now tenants of the mansions of rest, might probably have been in the full fruition of life, had this affection of the mouth been excited before the day of medical grace was forever past.

Several medical writers have controverted this method of endeavouring to obviate the fatal tendency of malignant fevers; but none, that I have seen, has advanced any thing of sufficient validity to induce me to change the opinion I have formed respecting its important efficacy. My faith is founded upon the firm basis of experience, and sup ported by the united testimony of many respectable physicians. To facts I pay unbounded homage. These are the foundation of all systematic knowledge; on these alone can theories, with any degree of certainty, be built.

Some of the objections brought against salivation are, that - ulceration and gangrene sometimes occur; that hemorrhages sometimes attend; or that a "sudden revulsion of the inflammation and fluids may take place into other viscera, and