informed me that he had frequently seen these people purchase tainted meats in the market, during the hot weather, on account of their cheapness.

The disease was ushered in, as I was informed by one of the attending physicians, with a sense of heat in the stomach, nausea or vomiting, pain in the head and limbs; pulse not remarkably quick, nor full, so that blood-letting was seldom indicated.

In the vicinity of Boston I met with a physician of great experience and reputation, who informed me, that he had attended a very considerable number of patients in malignant fevers in the course of a few years past, and that he had generally been successful. Of his good success I was likewise informed by others. His mode of practice was, to cleanse the stomach with emetics, as well as the intestines with cathartics. These he frequently repeated, particularly the emetics. He also used the following formula as a febrifuge, viz. B. Sal. Absynth. i. Aquæ 3i. G. Trag. 9i. M. The dose, from 201 to 30 drops in a cup of water. Calomel was likewise employed; as also blisters.

He informed me, that in a vessel just arrived from sea a few years since, four persons were attacked with the yellow fever. Three of these died, and before death bload was ejected from their stomachs. He was called to the fourth, and found that blood had been thrown up from his stomach; yet he gave a dose of tartarized antimony, which operated ten times as an emetic. No blood was brought up by these vomitings. His other remedies for fever were then given, and the patient re

covered.

As I proceeded into the southern parts of Massachusetts, I met with a physician, who gave me an account of a fever which prevailed in Wellfleet, on Cape-Cod, in the summer and fall of 1770, and was attended with considerable mortality. This physician informed me that he attended nearly one hundred patients, which made about two-thirds of the sick.

The symptoms, according to his description, were not materially different from those which characterized the yellow fever in Philadelphia, 1793, as described by Dr. Rush.

This fever was supposed, by many, to have originated from the effluvium of black fish, which were caught in abundance, in the spring of 1770, and used by the farmer as manure, after the blubber was taken off. A large number of these fishes were also driven into a creek near the meeting-house, where their carcases putrefied, and the stench was very offensive to

the congregation when assembled. Some few, however, supposed that the fever might have been imported in a whaling vessel which arrived in the spring from the coast of Brazils, as a man had died of a fever on the passage, though the rest of the crew were not infected.

In the treatment of this fever, besides blood-letting in certain cases, seasonable emetics, as well as cathartics and neutral salts, were found to be attended with salutary effects.

In September, 1802, two aged persons, as a physician informed me, sickened with a malignant fever in a remote part of the county of Plymouth. One died on the sixth day, with hiccup and black-vomiting. The other recovered.

In the fatal case an emetic was not given, the cathartics were employed; but, in the other case, the stomach was seasonably cleansed with an emetic. They were situated on low ground, near a swamp, and lived in a very nasty hut. About the same time, nearly, a young woman was seized with a malignant fever, to whom cathartics and mercurials were given; but on the ninth day she was considered by her physicians as hopeless, and all means were laid aside. Her nurse, however, thought proper to give her one more jalap cathartic; but, through mistake, gave a tea-spoonful of powdered cantharides, which excited vomiting. She then discovered her mistake, and immediately called in the physician, who, at this critical juncture, did not hesitate to give an emetic, which ejected a large quantity of bottle-green matter, and she happily recovered.

In the fall, the measles appeared in Plymouth, and was remarkably prevalent. The disease, as a physician of that town informed me, not unusually affected the bowls, and produced dysentery, or seized the lungs, and brought on pneumony.

On my return, in November, through some of the inland towns, I was informed that the dysentery had been prevalent, and unusually mortal.

In the vicinity of Cambridge, as Professor Waterhouse informed me, the dysentery had been prevalent the season past, and great success had attended the use of alkaline salts in the disease, as he was informed by a respectable physician who made a liberal use of them.

In November and December the measles appeared in some country villages in Maine, which had escaped the disease. It was considerably prevalent, but not mortal.

The last of December a brig arrived at Portland from Jamaica. While the vessel was detained at that island, four of the crew were attacked with a malignant fever. Three were

sent to an hospital, where they were bled, purged, and took mercury; but these all died. The other patient remained on board, and took two grains of tart. emetic, which operated several times. He also drank freely of water, strongly impreg nated with pearl ash, which he had on board; he took also some castor oil. His fever subsided in a few days, and he recovered.

After the goods were taken out of the vessel at Portland, the mate cleared out the filth from the bottom of the hold. A few days after, he complained of loss of appetite, stomach sickness, and great pain in his head, to which succeeded thirst and fever. An alkaline emetic was administered on the second day of the disease, and castor oil, as well as alkaline salts, were liberally given. His fever was subdued by the sixth day, and he was soon restored to health.

ARTICLE VI.

REMARKS on the CONNECTION between CATARRH and MALIGNANT FEVERS; together with Conjectures on the Theory of Fever: Communicated in a Letterfrom NOAH WEBSTER, Esq. to Dr. MILLER, dated New-Haven, September 28, 1803.

DEAR SIR,

Na conversation with you, a few months ago, I menin

my History of Pestilential Diseases, respecting the close connection between severe catarrhal complaints and fevers of a malignant character. Imperfect as our observations on this subject have yet been, they afford much light on the history of diseases which are epidemic and pestilential; and they promise much fruit to the industrious investigator of facts and principles. If you deem the following facts and remarks useful, and calculated to afford further light on the subject, you are at liberty to commit them to your valuable Repository.

I have for many years heard the members of our House of Representatives complain, during the session of the legislature, of contracting obstinate colds. Without examining the fact with a philosophical eye, I had adopted the common opinion, that this effect was produced by a sudden transition from a heated room to the colder air of the open atmosphere. Nor did I ever suspect the fallacy of this opinion, until severe expe

rience led me to investigate the subject with more care. In 1802, I contracted an obstinate catarrh during my attendance in the legislature at Hartford. Upon the application of my usual remedies, the disease yielded, and discharges of well digested mucus from the head indicated a state of convalescence. But not willing, and indeed unable to leave public business, I continued to attend daily in the House of Representatives, and soon found the relief obtained to be temporary; the disease recurred with its former severity; nor was it subdued, but by the continued effect of heat in June, for three or four weeks after the close of the session. This complaint I ascribed to the weather, the whole month of May having been very rainy, and my feet frequently damp.

During the session at New-Haven, in October following, the same cause did not exist; the weather was generally dry; but, in a few days after the commencement of the session, the catarrh seized me. Nature made great efforts to throw off the load of obstructed secretions, and, at first, with some effect; but at last yielded to the operation of the morbid cause; the mucous membrane was wholly obstructed and rendered inert, and my head seemed as if made fast with cords. This catarrh continued for some weeks, and, finally, occasioned an inflammation in my eyes, from the effects of which I have not yet recovered.

Finding, by the incessant coughing in the house, and by inquiry, that great numbers of the members were affected nearly in the same manner, and knowing that my own complaint could not be ascribed to any transition from a warm to a cold air, as I had carefully guarded myself from any such effect, I began to be convinced that the catarrhal affection must be ascribed to the destruction of oxygene, and the superabundance of azotic air, combined perhaps with some portion of perspirable matter, excreted from the bodies of men, crowded into an apartment too small for them to sit with tolerable convenience. From the facts within my own observation, and from information derived from various sources, I have become satisfied that this opinion is correct.

This effect corresponds with the observation, that catarrh often introduces an attack of violent and malignant fever. It is enumerated among the affections which accompanied the dysentery, among the repackers of beef and pork in NewYork in 1799, supposed to be induced by the noxious gas extricated from putrefying meat. (Med. Repos. vol. iii. p. 310.) A few years ago, a member of the House of Representatives,

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in Connecticut, was seized with a chill, while sitting in a crowded house, retired immediately, and died of a malignant fever in a few days. Is it not rational to suppose the debility which induced the chill, and the subsequent disease, were occasioned by breathing air deprived of its vital principle? And does not this fact, with many others of analogous character, afford a clue to unravel the inystery of the fatal disease at the Oxford assizes in 1577? Stowe, who relates the fact, mentions, that a damp arose" which almost smothered the people, very few escaped that were not taken at that instant-the jurors died presently, and shortly after, Sir Robert Bell, Lord Chief Baron, &c." More than five hundred persons died between the sixth of July and twelfth of August; but it is expressly affirmed, that the disease exhibited no infection. If the court was held in a room with a floor in it, which is probable, no vapour could have been evolved from the earth beneath, to occasion this effect. But from the number of persons who died, we may, and ought to suppose the court-room to have been crowded with spectators. This conjecture receives strength from the consideration, that this was a trial of one Jenks, for "his seditious tongue"-a trial, doubtless, very interesting to the populace. To add probability to my conjectures, it should be considered, that at the period mentioned, the Gothic mode of building prevailed in England-the ceilings were low, and the windows few, small, and very high in the wall, so as to admit no considerable current of air.* Such houses must have been very favourable to the generation of disease, as well as to the accumulation of morbid miasm; for it was impossible to ventilate them. If we suppose an apartment of this construction, to be crowded with people for several hours, in July or August, without a possibility of receiving fresh air, in any considerable quantity, I see no reason to distinguish this case from that of the black hole at Calcutta. Indeed, we should judge, a priori, upon chemical principles, that the obstruction of the oxygenous principle, to support such a number of persons, must necessarily produce the effect of

* I do not remember to have seen any particular mention of this mode of building among the causes of generating and rendering more common, all kinds of pestilential distempers in former centuries than in the last. Yet, probably, this ought to be enumerated among the most influential causes. I remember some old houses of this construction in this country; the ceiling so low, that a tall man could scarcely stand upright in the rooms; the windows formed with glass, in small panes, of a rhombic figure, set in lead, the leaves swinging on hinges like doors; very small, and so high, that a person must be nearly full grown to look out when standing on his feet.