frequently of a yellow colour. These symptoms were not always fucceeded by disease; yet they proved the præcurfors of the fever.

These premonitory fymptoms did not precede every case of fever. It would often feize upon its victims with fudden vio lence, while occupied in the various employments of life, or engaged in pursuits of business or of pleasure. A shaking or a chill would usher in the disease in fome, and from its degree of intensity we might suspect the violence of the enfuing cafe. Torti has made this application to intermittents: "Sufpecta itaque ab exordio erit, ne in continuam degeneret intermittens, quæ cum pauco aut nullo rigore folet invadere, fed potius cum fenfu caloris." A fenfe of chillinefs attended the whole progrefs of fome cases, while to the hand of another, the skin would feem parched with heat. On fome other occafions, we may fay with Cleghorn, that the most formidable paroxyfms broke out into a burning heat at the beginning without any previous cold.

Every person was not equally fubject to be affected with the yellow fever. Some efcaped it, who were conftantly expofed to the contagion, while the greater number fuffered, although but a fhort time fubjected to its action. Dr. Mofeley obferves, "Subjects most likely to be attacked with it, are the florid, the grofs, the plethoric ;--that sort of strong, full, youthful people, with tenfe fibres, who are faid to refemble the picture of health. In fhort fo are all people who are of an inflammatory diathefis, and do not perfpire freely." People in every stage of life fuffered under the yellow fever; although perfons in their meridian were moft fubject to it, yet it fometimes attacked thofe in advanced years, and fell with remorseless violence even on infancy itself. A child, but five months old, nearly funk under the fever, and was the first perfon in a large family, who contracted the difeafe. I believe that the proportion of mortality among young children equalled that of any other period of life. Hume fays, the yellow fever never attacks any person in the West Indies under puberty: but the opinion of the ancient Greek and Roman physicians, that children are most liable to

malignant tertians, is more applicable to our obfervations on the yellow fever, when prevailing in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Dr. LIND has remarked, that women were not fubject to this fever; but during its late prevalence, they did not appear to escape it, much more frequently than men; although it proved lefs mortal among them. They were not fo much exposed to all the exciting caufes, and being naturally lefs inclined to indirect debility, we might a priori conclude, that the disease would wear in them a milder form.

Dr. LINING has declared, that the negroes were not subject to the yellow fever; and CURTIN has faid, that the negroes in Jamaica were never affected by it; and that among them a pure tertian is extremely feldom known, while the whites are conftantly afflicted with both. But you remember that in Philadelphia, the negroes were not exempt from the fufferings of their fellow citizens; nor did they totally escape in Baltimore. Several died. They were, however, lefs endangered, both from their manner of living, and from being lefs injured by the common exciting caufes. MOSELEY has remarked, that among other perfons, they, who did not perfpire freely, were most subject to the yellow fever. Negroes are feldom liable to this. defect: their colour tends to preserve their health, in situations and under circumftances, that would prove fatal to a white man. The black livery, with which nature has invested them, incontrovertibly preferves an unimpeded discharge of perspiration, even under the influence of powerful oppofers of this excretion. The design obviously indicates the forming hand of an indulgent and omnipotent Father of the universe. The true negroes of Sennaar, the hottest country in the world, are of a jet black complexion, and owing to the great evaporation from their furfaces, are two degrees cooler than an European. "The African negroes," fays Lord Kaimes, "though living in the hottest known country, are yet stout and vigorous, and the moft healthy people in the univerfe." Thus they are born to endure heat, and defpotic man has fashioned them to fuffer labour and fatigue with equal immunity from harm. Wilson,

in his Effay on Climate, afcribes to their food, the freedom of the negroes from epidemics in the fugar colonies, when they rage among the whites, and even the domeftic flaves. It is certainly a power, which co-operates in no fmall degree in producing this effect.

People of different nations alfo fuffered unequally from the yellow fever. Thofe from the north and weft of Europe, the Danes, the Swedes, the Germans, the Irish, the English, who were not habituated to our climate, foon funk under its violence: The French West Indians only escaped the disease. You have noticed, fir, that according to Deigner, the French and the Jews efcaped a dyfentery, that prevailed univerfally among people of all other nations in Nimeguen in the year 1736--that the Jews at Modena, agreeably to Ramazini, efcaped a tertian fever, by which almost all the inhabitants of the town were affected. The Dutch and Italians, fays Shenkius, held an immunity from the plague, by which a town of Switzerland was affected two years; and in Dr. Bell's inaugural differtation we are informed, that the French prifoners escaped a jail fever, which attacked their guards, confisting of the foldiers of the Duke of Buccleugh's regiment. Befides thefe feveral facts, we meet with others of a fimilar nature. Cleghorn fays, that in Minorca the English are not fo fubject to pleurifies as the Spaniards. Timoni in his account of the plague at Conftantinople, obferves, that ftrangers generally fuffer more than the citizens; yet that the Armenians are far lefs fubject to the plague than the people of any other nation.* Peftilential fevers make great havock in Sennaar, but very feldom prevail among the Abyffinians, who live upon the borders of that kingdom. + The former profefs the principles of Mahometanism, the latter those of christianity.

Religion, so far as it regulates the manners and diet of a nation, will alfo influence the difeafes, by which it is afflicted. Egypt, notwithstanding the inundations of the Nile, was much

• "Armeni omnium nationum minime ad peftem funt difpofiti: obfervo illos pauciffimis uti carnibus: cepis, porris, alliis, vinoque maxime utuntur." + Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, recueil iv.

more healthy, than it has been, fince it became a province of the Ottoman Empire. But to diet only, the exemption of a particular people from an epidemic cannot be attributed.---The French West Indians, during the late prevalence of the yellow fever, were fufficiently exposed to become impregnated with the contagion. We have formerly remarked, that fever did not invariably follow the reception of infection, because the quantity imbibed, might have been too weak of itself to have served alfo as an occafional caufe, and because an exciting power of fufficient force did not occur to roufe it into difeafe. If we reflect therefore, that beside the important peculiar predifpofing habit of body; heat of the fun and intemperance in the use of ardent fpirits, were the two moft general exciting causes of the fever, the difficulty of explaining the phenomenon will be diminished. The French, whose conftitutions have been formed by the hot climate of the West Indies, could not have been particularly affected by the heat of our fun. Even the natives of this place, or they who had long refided here, were fo fashioned to the climate, whofe fummers they had frequently endured, that they fuffered far lefs from the disease, than strangers of a colder region of this class were two-thirds of those who died. We are informed by Dr. Jackson, that negroes arriving immediately from the coaft of Africa, and the native Creoles of the West Indies, are never attacked with the yellow fever; but if they have been fome time abfent from the islands, and have paffed this period in the colder climate either of England or of the higher latitudes of America, they are as liable to an attack of the disease on their return, as any foreigner. Befides this form of conftitution impreffed by climate, the French are farther removed from the influence of the yellow fever by their mode of life. They indulge themselves frugally in the ufe of animal food, and almoft totally abstain from ardent fpirits. Their custom alfo of having frequent recourse to enemas, must be attended with the most beneficial effects.

But the natives of colder countries are of that habit of body, which we have obferved to dispose particularly to the yellow

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fever. Their food alfo, and attachment to fpirituous liquors affift greatly in precluding an escape.

Mofeley has declared, that the yellow fever "is ftrikingly the reverfe of any disease of one continued exacerbation." The obfervation is very applicable to the disease as it prevailed in Baltimore. It generally wore the garb of a remitting fever, and its remiffions were more irregular, but more obvious than in the usual autumnal disease of that name. The periods of remiffion were reduced to no greater regularity, than the hours of its first attack. They would frequently occur in the morning, and as frequently in the evening. In many inftances they appeared to take place two or three times in twenty-four hours. But the remiffions were of a peculiar nature, being attended neither with fweat, nor diminished tenfion of the pulfe, nor abatement of the pains; the skin only would become more cool.

Generally at the clofe of the third day, fuch an infidious remiffion would occur, as to deceive the phyfician, unless well acquainted with the disease, into a belief, that all danger had elapfed. But this pleafing illufion would quickly pass away: before the congratulations on the patient's rescue from the grave were finished, a violent exacerbation would return and too frequently terminate in death.

In many inftances, the yellow fever commenced under the form of a tertian intermittent. It continued to wear this form commonly till the close of the fecond paroxyfm, when the patient, who had flattered himself with pleafing hopes from his apparent health on the intermediate days, would now find them all dashed by the gloomy change of his diforder. After the moderation of the yellow fever by the occurrence of froft, it fhewed itself in fome inftances during its whole progrefs, under the form of the tertian intermittent. The variation however of the disease never demanded a change in the nature of the remedies, but required them only to be adapted to the violence of fymptoms. Of the variety of other fhapes affumed by the fever, bearing different characters, as it were in masquerade, I fhall treat particularly in another place.