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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.

                                                                   _page_

  _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_               1

  _An account of the climate of Pennsylvania, and its influence
  upon the human body_                                                69

  _An account of the bilious remitting fever, as it appeared in
  Philadelphia in the summer and autumn of the year 1780_            115

  _An account of the scarlatina anginosa, as it appeared in
  Philadelphia in the years 1783 and 1784_                           135

  _An inquiry into the cause and cure of the cholera infantum_       153

  _Observations on the cynanche trachealis_                          167

  _An account of the efficacy of blisters and bleeding, in the cure
  of obstinate intermitting fevers_                                  177

  _An account of the disease occasioned by drinking cold water in
  warm weather, and the method of curing it_                         181

  _An account of the efficacy of common salt in the cure of
  hæmoptysis_                                                        189

  _Thoughts on the cause and cure of pulmonary
  consumption_                                                       197

  _Observations upon worms in the alimentary canal, and upon
  anthelmintic medicines_                                            215

  _An account of the external use of arsenic in the cure of
  cancers_                                                           235

  _Observations on the tetanus_                                      245

  _The result of observations made upon the diseases which occurred
  in the military hospitals of the United States, during the
  revolutionary war_                                                 267

  _An account of the influence of the military and political events
  of the American revolution upon the human body_                    277

  _An inquiry into the relation of tastes and aliments to each
  other, and into the influence of this relation upon health and
  pleasure_                                                          295

  _The new method of inoculating for the small-pox_                  309

  _An inquiry into the effects of ardent spirits upon the human
  body and mind, with an account of the means of preventing, and
  the remedies for curing them_                                      335

  _Observations on the duties of a physician, and the methods of
  improving medicine; accommodated to the present state of society
  and manners in the United States_                                  385

  _An inquiry into the causes and cure of sore legs_                 401

  _An account of the state of the body and mind in old age, with
  observations on its diseases, and their remedies_                  425

                            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.

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

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].

  [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.

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.

  [3] Natural History of Guiana.

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]."

  [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.

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.

  [5] Theory of Moral Sentiments.

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].

  [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.

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.

  [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."

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 diarrh[oe]a, 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].

  [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.

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].

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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].

  [13] Hoffman de hypothesium medicarum damno, sect. xv.

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.

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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].

  [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.

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].

  [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.

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.

  [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."

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].

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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].

  [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.

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.

  [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.

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.

                               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.

  [30] American Philosophical Transactions, vol. I.

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].

  [31] I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Kirwan, in one of his remarks
       upon the science of meteorology, in the preface to his estimate
       of the temperature of different latitudes. "This science (says
       he), if brought to perfection, would enable us at least to
       foresee those changes in the weather which we could not prevent.
       Great as is the distance between such knowledge and our own
       present attainments, we have no reason to think it above the
       level of the powers of the human mind. The motions of the
       planets must have appeared as perplexed and intricate to those
       who first contemplated them; yet, by persevering industry, they
       are now known to the utmost precision. The present is (as the
       great Leibnitz expresses it) in every case pregnant with the
       future, and the connection must be found by long and attentive
       observation."

       The influence which the perfection of this science must have upon
       health, agriculture, navigation, and commerce, is too obvious to
       be mentioned.

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.

  [32] The following account of the thaw of the river Susquehannah, in
       the spring of 1784, was published by the author in the Columbian
       Magazine, for November, 1786. It may serve to illustrate a fact
       related formerly in the history of the winters in Pennsylvania,
       as well as to exhibit an extraordinary instance of the
       destructive effects of a sudden thaw.

       "The winter of 1783-4 was uncommonly cold, insomuch that the
       mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer stood several times at 5
       degrees below 0. The snows were frequent, and, in many places,
       from two to three feet deep, during the greatest part of the
       winter. All the rivers in Pennsylvania were frozen, so as to
       bear waggons and sleds with immense weights. In the month of
       January a thaw came on suddenly, which opened our rivers so as to
       set the ice a-driving, to use the phrase of the country. In the
       course of one night, during the thaw, the wind shifted suddenly
       to the north-west, and the weather became intensely cold. The
       ice, which had floated the day before, was suddenly obstructed;
       and in the river Susquehannah, the obstructions were formed in
       those places where the water was most shallow, or where it had
       been accustomed to fall. This river is several hundred miles in
       length, and from half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth, and
       winds through a hilly, and in many places a fertile and highly
       cultivated country. It has as yet a most difficult communication
       with our bays and the sea, occasioned by the number and height
       of the falls which occur near the mouth of the river. The ice in
       many places, especially where there were falls, formed a kind
       of dam, of a most stupendous height. About the middle of March
       our weather moderated, and a thaw became general. The effects
       of it were remarkable in all our rivers; but in none so much as
       in the river I have mentioned. I shall therefore endeavour in a
       few words to describe them. Unfortunately the dams of ice did
       not give way all at once, nor those which lay nearest to the
       mouth of the river, first. While the upper dams were set afloat
       by the warm weather, the lower ones, which were the largest, and
       in which, of course, the ice was most impacted, remained fixed.
       In consequence of this, the river rose in a few hours, in many
       places, above 30 feet, rolling upon its surface large lumps of
       ice, from 10 to 40 cubic feet in size. The effects of this sudden
       inundation were terrible. Whole farms were laid under water.
       Barns, stables, horses, cattle, fences, mills of every kind, and,
       in one instance, a large stone house, 40 by 30 feet, were carried
       down the stream. Large trees were torn up by the roots; several
       small islands, covered with woods, were swept away, and not a
       vestige of them was left behind. On the barns which preserved
       their shape, in some instances, for many miles were to be seen
       living fowls; and, in one dwelling, a candle was seen to burn
       for some time, after it was swept from its foundation. Where the
       shore was level, the lumps of ice, and the ruins of houses and
       farms, were thrown a quarter of a mile from the ordinary height
       of the river. In some instances, farms were ruined by the mould
       being swept from them by the cakes of ice, or by depositions of
       sand; while others were enriched by large depositions of mud.
       The damage, upon the whole, done to the state of Pennsylvania by
       this fresh, was very great. In most places it happened in the day
       time, or the consequences must have been fatal to many thousands."

       "I know of but one use that can be derived from recording the
       history of this inundation. In case of similar obstructions of
       rivers, from the causes such as have been described, the terrible
       effects of their being set in motion by means of a general thaw
       may in part be obviated, by removing such things out of the
       course of the water and ice as are within our power; particularly
       cattle, hay, grain, fences, and farming utensils of all kinds."

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