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of the body upon going into a cold bath; and if we país fuddenly from fuch an atmosphere into a warm room, what happens to the skin will in fome degree happen to the membrane lining these cavities; a glow or inflammation will enfue, according to the difference between the two temperatures and the length of time passed in the cold.

When the application of cold or moisture to a superficial part only is fucceeded by an inflammation of the refpiratory cavities, the confent of the whole fyftem cafily explains this remote local affection. The cause of difeafe pervades at once, and feels as it were, or fearches the whole body, but affects only in a degree to draw our notice to the organ which, from habit or structure is most tender. Should any other part, from previous circumstances, have been rendered more fenfible to its influence, we shall in confequence have either a fore throat, a diarrhoea, a stiff neck, or the rheumatism, in place of a catarrh.

CHILDREN are fo fufceptible of inflammation that a great part of the mortality among them is, as far as I have observed and can judge, to be ascribed to the ignorance of mothers and nurses of the power which even a moderate change of temperature, if fuddenly made, has to effect their tender and irritable frame.

Names

Names of the Parents.

L. D.

Names of the Parents.

L. D.

Marg. Jones

Mary Holmes

Thomas Sanford John Smouch Anne Roberts

E. Felton

E. Jinks
R. Richards
Robert Pigging
E. Ward
Sarah Colley
Lucy Clark

Elizabeth Higenfon
Jofeph Sonds
John Holyhead-
Thomas Felton -
Anne Williams
John Smith
Jofeph Hutchenfon
J. Ellis-

Elizabeth Poignnor
Anne Withington
Jane Underwood
Jane Fields-

James Ingram
John Afkey
John Smith
E. Horton

E. Hollinfhead

Samuel Holyhead

George Highwey

Conftant Richards
Mary Walker

Edward Evans
Anne Hughes
Jane Ingram
John Hammond
Elizabeth Smith
Mary Richards-
Sarah Richards-
Catherine Harper
Anne Hutchenfon

Philip Saunders
Elizabeth Heath
Mary Ames
Mary Bagnold -
Elizabeth Mansfield
Elizabeth Evans
Anne Horton

Thomas Ingram
Jofeph Ingram
Jane Swanwick
John Beefton
John Bostick
Jofeph Heans

55

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*Total

224 99

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* This enquiry was made by Dr. BEDDOES, at Shifnal in Shropshire, where firing is very plentiful and cheap. It was asked of each grown up perfon there, how many children he had had, and how many were dead? In the first column you have the name of the family; in the next the number of the children alive; and the third the number of the children dead. Whenever, accurate registers of the mortality of the human fpecies, in climates equally warm, fhall be kept, I expect that not half so many infants will be found to die as in GREAT BRITAIN.

Now

Now which, think you, is the most likely, that there fhould be fomething wrong in our management ? or that three parts in four of our fellow creatures fhould, in one of the most airy towns in GREAT BRITAIN, be doomed unavoidably to perish before they come to their full growth, without answering any other purpose than to give trouble and endure pain? If this last be the cafe, then of all the things in this wide world, the human frame is the worft contrived and executed. And I leave you to judge whether fuch a fuppofition-stands to reason. If then our management of our children be wrong in any material points, a ftop may be put to this exceffive mortality, for we fhould have only to find out what these points are, and fhape our conduct accordingly. One may with the greater propriety embrace an opportunity of diffeminating the knowledge, "how cOLDS, FEVERS, and RHEUMATISMS, are caught," as their remote and proximate causes, and the manner in which they are to be got rid of, though in my opinion perfectly afcertained, is far from being generally understood even by the members of the medical profeffion; and if any perfon, not belonging to that profeffion, should fufpect this to be a wanton paradoxical affertion, he may find in the cafe of opium, and of the cool treatment of fmall

pox, &c. inftances equally ftriking, where one genera← tion of pathologists passed away after another, without being able, in the cafe of opium *, to perceive the plainest appearances, or, in that of fmall-pox, to draw the fimpleft conclufion. So fervilely imitative an animal is man! So loath to employ his own powers of perception and thought!

THE fudden, and fometimes fevere, changes of weather to which this climate is fubject, are perhaps the moft unhappy circumstances attending our fituation; and the pernicious effects of them upon the human conftitution are fo frequently experienced, that difeafes of the breast may be truly confidered as endemical among the inhabitants of this ifland. We frequently find a cold and keen day fucceeded by one as mild as spring or warm as fummer; or, what is ftill worse, the forenoon accompanied with a sharp, dry, biting north-east wind, and the latter part of the day uncommonly warm. It is impoffible but this fudden change from cold to heat must, in

* One cannot compare HALLER's clear and fatisfactory parallel of wine and opium, published in 1769 (El. Phyfiolog, t. V. p. 610-11.) with CULLEN'S perplexed and hypothetical doctrine of opium, and his whole article sedentia, published in 1789 (Mat. Medica, t. ii. 217, et seq.) without a sense of humiliation!-Dr. BEDDOES.

delicate

delicate conftitutions efpecially, be productive of mifchief.

When alterations of weather from cold to heat fucceed gradually, thofe falutary powers of accommodation with which the animal economy is furnished, may prevent any mischief or disorders, though an alteration in the conftitution proportioned to that in external nature must neceffarily fucceed those changes; but that which might, without inconvenience to the conftitution, be produced gradually, will, if too fudden and abrupt, be felt as a difeafe; as a man may with ease and safety gradually defcend a flight of steps, when a fudden jump from them would endanger his life. Thus we bear without injury the beat of Spring after the coldest winter, though it must be confeffed that disorders take on at that season a more inflammatory appearance.

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But where the change is more violent than in the tranfition from one feason to another, as when Europeans go to the Eaft or Weft Indies, until the constitution becomes accommodated to the climate, the uncommon heat to which such persons are exposed, must have a moft powerful effect on their irritable frames. Immediately on the arrival of northern strangers within the tropics, their circulation becomes quicker, their perfpira

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