neglect of cleanliness and decency, by the number of them that have fallen facrifices. Whole families in fuch houses have funk into one filent and undistinguished grave.

As I have been obliged to note a variety of horrid circumstances, which have a tendency to throw a shade over the human character, it is proper to reflect a little light on the fubject, wherever juftice and truth will permit it. Here it ought to be recorded, that some of the convicts in the jail voluntarily offered themfelves as nurses to attend the fick at BUSHHILL, and have in that capacity conducted themselves with so much fidelity and tenderness, that they have had the repeated thanks of the managers.

In the progress of this disorder, from the numerous deaths of heads of families, a great number of children were left in a moft abandoned and forlorn ftate. The bettering houses, in which fuch helpless fubjects have been usually placed, was barred against them. Many of thefe little innocents were actually fuffering for want of even common neceffaries. The deaths of their parents and protectors, which fhould have been the ftrongest recommendation to public charity, was the very reafon of their distress, and of their being fhunned

as

as a peftilence. The children of a family, once in affluent circumstances, were found, their parents being dead, in a blacksmith's fhop, fqualid, dirty, and half ftarved, having been for a confiderable time without even a taste of bread. This early caught the attention of the humane, and 160 children were foon rescued from this forlorn condition, and lodged in a building called the Loganian Library.

Rarely has it happened, that fo large a proportion of the gentlemen of the faculty have funk beneath the labours of their very dangerous profeffion, as on this occafion. In little more than a month, exclufive of medical students, no less than ten physicians have been swept off. Hardly any of the apothecaries, who remained in the city, escaped from indifpofition. The venerable SAMUEL ROBESAN has been, like a good angel, indefatigably performing, in families where there was not one person able to help another, even the menial offices' of the kitchen, in every part of his neighbourhood. JOHN CONNELLY has spent hours befide the fick, when their own wives and children had abandoned them. Twice did he catch the diforder,-twice was he on the brink of the grave, which was yawning to receive him,

yet,

yet, unappalled by the imminent danger he had escaped, he again returned to the charge.

To habits defectively OXYGENATED, as with tiplers, and drunkards, and men of a corpulent habit, and women with child, this diforder proved very fatal. Of these many were feized, and the recoveries were very rare *.

If you examine the register of the weather, you will find there was no rain from the 25th of August until the 14th of October, except a few drops, hardly enough to lay the duft in the streets, which fell on the 9th of September, and the 12th of October. In confequence of which, the springs and wells failed in many parts of the country. The duft in fome places extended two feet below the furface of the ground. The pastures were deficient, or burnt up, and there was a scarcity of autumnal fruits in the neighbourhood of the city. The register of the weather fhews alfo how little the air was agitated by winds during the above time. In vain were the changes of the moon expected to alter the state of the atmosphere. The light of the morning, as conftantly mocked the

* Vide the Section on Fevers, in Part IV. ON THE NATURE OF DisBASES, AND THEIR PROPER TREATMENT.

hopes,

hopes, which were raised by a cloudy sky in the evening. Hundreds fickened each day beneath the influence of the fun; and even when his beams did not excite difeafe, they produced a languor in the body, and to use the country phrafe, the labourer in the field gave in, and that too when the mercury in the thermometer was under 80 degrees. On the 12th of September a meteor affrighted the inhabitants. Mufchetoes were uncommonly numerous. Here and there a dead cat added to the impurity of the air of the streets; for many of those animals perished with hunger in the city, in consequence of fo many houses being deferted by the inhabitants who had fled into the country.

However inoffenfive uniform heat, when agitated by gentle breezes, may be, there is I believe no record, where a dry and stagnating air has existed for any length of time without producing disease. HIPPOCRATES, in describing a peftilential fever, fays, the year in which it prevailed was without a breeze of wind. The same state of the atmosphere for fix weeks, is mentioned in many of the hiftories of the plague which prevailed in London in 1665. Even the fea air itself becomes unwholefome by stagnating; hence Dr. CLARK informs us, that failors become fickly after long calms in their voyages to the

Eaft

East Indies, Sir JOHN PRINGLE delivers the following aphorifm from a number of fimilar obfervations upon this fubject. "When the heat comes on foon, and con"tinues throughout autumn, not moderated by winds, or "rains, the feafon proves fickly, distempers appear early, "and are dangerous."

A TABLE OF DEATHS.