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UNIVERSITY

OF PITTSBURGH

LIBRARY

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THIS BOOK PRESENTED BY

T. R. Parker

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2009 with funding from

Uniyersity of Pittsburgh Library System

http://www.archive.org/details/medicalinquiries01inrush

MEDICAL INQUIRIES

OBSERVATIONS.

BY BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.

7AOFESSOR OF THE INSTITUTES AND PRACTICE OF MEOICIIfE

AND OF CLINICAL PRACTICE, IN THE UNIVERSITY

OF PENNSYLVANIA.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

THE THIRD EDITION,

REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR.

PHILADELPHIA,

Published by Mathew Carey, Hopkins and Earle, Johnson and Wamer,
Kimber and Conrad, Bradford and Inskeep, Thomas and William
Bradford, Benjamin and Thomas Kite, and Benne'f and WaUon

1 809.

Rin

V, 1

District of Pennsylvania, to wit :

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the sixteenth day of
October, in the thh'ty-fourth year of the Independence of the
United States of America, A. D. 1809, Mathew Carey, Hop-
kins and Earle, Johnson and Warner, Kimber and Conrad,
Bradford and Inskeep, Thomas and William Bradford, Benja-
min and Thomas Kite, and Bennett and Walton, of the said
District, have deposited in this office, the title of a book, the
ris^ht whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following
to wit :

" 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. The third edition, revised and enlarged by the author J"

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States,
entitled, " an act for the encouragement of learning, by secur-
ing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and
proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned."
And also to the act, entitled " an act supplementary to an act,
entitled, " an act for the encouragement of learning, by secur-
ing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and
proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned,"
and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, en-
j^raving, and etching historical and other prims."

D. CALDWELL,

Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1.

^ Page

An Inquiry into the Cause of Animal Life 1
An Inquiry into the Natural History of Me-
dicine among the Indians of North Ame-
rica^ and a Comparative View of their
Diseases and Remedies with those of Civil-
ized Nations. . . . . .101

An Inquiry into the Influence of Physical

Causes upon the Moral Faculty . . 169
An Account of the Influence of the Military
and Political events of the American Re-
volution upon the Human Body. . . 227
An Inquiry into the Relation of Tastes and
Aliments to each other ^ and into the influ-
ence of this relation upon Health and
Pleasure . . . . . .245

The result of Observations made upon the
Diseases which occurred in the Military
Hospitals of the United States, during the
revolutionary war between Great Britain
and the United States . . . .259

IV CONTENTS.

Page

An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spi-
rits upon the Human Body and Mind,
with an Account of the means of Prevent-
ing^ and the Remedies for Curing them 269

Observations upon the Tetanus . .315

An Account of the Disease occasioned by
drinking Cold Water in warm weather^
and of the means of curing it . . 339

An Account of the Cure of Several Diseases
by the Extraction of Decayed Teeth 347

Observations upon Worms, and upon Anthel-
mintic Medicines . . - . . ^55

An Account of the External use of Arsenic
in the Cure of Cancers . . .375

An Inquiry into the Cause and Cure of Sore
Legs ....... 385

An Account of the state of the Body and
Mind in Old Age, with Observations on
its Diseases and Remedies . . .401

Observations upon the Duties of a Physician,
and the Methods of Improving Medicine,
accommodated to the present stateof man-
ners and society in the United States 433

PREFACE.

THE author of the following edition of Medi-
cal Inquiries and Observations has changed the
order in which several of the subjects were ar-
ranged in the former editions. He has given the
Lectures upon Animal Life the first place in the
first volume, and has arranged the Histories of
Epidemics in succession to each other. Some
facts have been added to several of the Inquiries,
particularly to the Lectures upon Animal Life, to
the History of the Phasnomena of Fever, to the
Observations upon the Gout, and to the Defence
of Blood-letting ; but no alteration has been made
in any of the Medical principles of the author. He
has preferred the term of " phgenomena" to that of
" theory" of fever, because he conceives the doc-
trine he has aimed to establish upon that subject,
rests upon facts only, obvious not only to reason,
but in most instances, to the senses.

PREFACE.

He has omitted the Lecture upon Inoculation
for the Small-pox, from a belief that the universal
practice of Vaccination has rendered it in a great
measure an unnecessary part of the education and
knowledge of a physician.

The Observations upon the Cure of Obstinate
Intermitting Fevers by means of Blood-letting,
contained in the former editions, have been incor-
porated with the defence of that remedy.

The author has added to this edition an Account
of the Cure of Several Diseases by the Extraction
of Decayed Teeth, published originally in the New
York Medical Repository.

BENJAMIN RUSH.

October 31, 1809.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE.

IN THREE LECTURES,

DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

VOL. I.

AN INQUIRY, &c.

LECTURE L

Gentlemen,

MY business in this chair is to teach the
institutes of medicine. They have been divided
into physiology, pathology, and therapeutics. The
objects of the first are, the laws of the human body
in its healthy state. The second includes the his-
tory of the causes and seats of diseases. The sub-
jects of the third are the remedies for those diseases. (
In entering upon the first part of our course, I am
met by a remark delivered by Dr. Hunter in his
introductory lectures to his course of anatomy.
" In our branch (says the doctor) those teachers
who study to captivate young minds with ingeni-
ous speculations, will not leave a reputation be-
hind them that will outlive them half a century.

4 INqUIRY INTO THE

When they cease from their labours, their labours
will be buried along with them. There never
was a man more followed and admired in physio-
logy, than Dr. Boerhaave. I remember the ve-
neration in which he was held. And now, in the

space of forty years, his physiology is it

shocks me to think in what a light it appears."^
Painful as this premonition may be to the teachers
of physiology, it should not deter them from spe-
culating upon physiological subjects. Simple ana-
tomony is a mass of dead matter. It is physiology
which infuses life into it. A knowledge of the
structure of the human body occupies only the me-
mory. Physiology introduces it to the higher and
more noble faculties of the mind. The compo-
nent parts of the body may be compared to the
materials of a house, lying without order in a yard.
It is physiology, like a skilful architect, which con-
nects them together, so as to form from them an
elegant and useful building. The writers against
physiology resemble, in one particular, the writers
against luxury. They forget that the functions
they know and describe belong to the science of
physiology ; just as the declaimers against luxury
forget that all the conveniences which they enjoy
beyond what are possessed in the most simple
stage of society, belong to the luxuries of life.

* Lect. xi, p. 198.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 5

The anatomist who describes the circulation of the
blood, acts the part of a physiologist, as much
as he does, who attempts to explain the functions
of the brain. In this respect Dr. Hunter did ho-
nour to our science ; for few men ever explained
that subject, and many others equally physiologi-
cal, with more perspicuity and eloquence, than that
illustrious anatomist. Upon all new and difficult
subjects there must be pioneers. It has been my
lot to be called to this office of hazard and drudge-
ry ; and if in discharging its duties I should meet
the fate of my predecessors, in this branch of me-
dicine, I shall not perish in vain. My errors, like
the bodies of those who fall in forcing a breach,
will serve to compose a bridge for those who shall
come after me, in our present difficult enterprise.
This consideration, aided by just views of the na-
ture and extent of moral obligation, will overba-
lance the evils anticipated by Dr. Hunter, from
the loss of posthumous fame. Had a prophetic
voice whispered in the ear of Dr. Boerhaave in the
evening of his life, that in the short period of forty
years, the memory of his physiological works would
perish from the earth, I am satisfied, from the
knowledge we have of his elevated genius and
piety, he would have treated the prediction with
the same indifference that he would have done, had
he been told, that in the same time, his name

>^ 6 INqyiRY INTO THE

should be erased from a pane of glass, in a noisy
and vulgar country tavern.

The subjects of the lectures I am about to deli-
ver, you will find in a syllabus which I have pre-
pared and published, for the purpose of giving you
a succinct view of the extent and connection of
our course. Some of these subjects will be new
in lectures upon the institutes of medicine, parti-
cularly those which relate to morals, metaphysics,
and theology. However thorny these questions
may appear, we must approach and handle them ;
for they are intimately connected with the history
of the faculties and operations of the human mind ;
and these, form an essential part of the animal eco-
nomy. Perhaps it is because physicians have hi-
therto been restrained from investigating, and de-
ciding upon these subjects, by an erroneous belief
that they belong exclusively to another profession,
that physiology has so long been an obscure and
conjectural science.

In beholding the human body, the first thing
that strikes us, is its life. This, of course, should
be the first object of our inquiries. It is a most im-
portant subject ; for the end of all the studies of a
physician is to preserve life ; and this cannot be
perfectly done, until we know in what it consists.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 7

I include in animal life, as applied to the human
body, motion^ heat^ sensation^ and thought. These
four when united, compose perfect life. It may
exist without thought, sensation, or heat, but none
of them can exist without motion. The lowest
gi'ade of life, probably exists in the absence of
even motion, as I shall mention hereafter. I have
preferred the term motion to those of oscillation and
vibration, which have been employed by Dr. Hart-
ley in explaining the laws of animal matter; because
I conceived it to be more simple, and better adapted
to common apprehension.

In treating upon this subject, I shall first con-
sider animal life as it appears in the waking and
sleeping states in a healthy adult, and shall after-
wards inquire into the modification of its causes in
the foetal, infant, youthful, and middle states of life,
in certain diseases, in diiferent states of society, in
different climates, and in different animals.

Before I proceed any further, I shall remark,
that there are certain grades of matter ; and that in
all its forms it is necessarily quiescent, or in other
words, possesses no self-moving power. Every
form of it is moved by a force external to it, and
each form has its appropriate or specific stimulus,

8 INC^UIRY INTO THE

or stimuli, from the waves that are moved by the
w^ind, and the sand upon the sea shore which is
moved by the waves, up to the human body which
is moved by the stimuli to be mentioned presently.
From this view of matter, I am naturally led to
reject the common division of it into active and
passive, or into substances that possess a power to
move themselves, and into such as require a power
to move them. I believe that animals, like water,
earth and air, nay further, thai the mind of man
are all moved only by their appropriate stimuli ;
and that water, eartli and air do not become more
certainly quiescent from the abstraction of the
causes that move them, than motion, heat, sensa-
tion and thought cease from the abstraction of im-
pressions upon the human body. The only differ-
ence between what is called animated and inani-
mate matter consists in the stimuli which move
the former, acting constantly, and in health, with
uniformity ; whereas the stimuli which act upon
the latter, act occasionally and with intermissions.
However diversified the motions and effects of these
stimuli may be, the causes of their motions are
exactly the same.

I shall begin by delivering a few general propo-
sitions.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. »

I. Every part of the human body (the nails and
hair excepted) is endowed with sensibility, or ex-
citability, or with both of them. By sensibility is
meant the power of having sensation excited by the
action of impressions. Excitability denotes that
property in the human body, by which motion is
excited by means of impressions. This property
has been called by several other names, such as ir-
ritability, contractibility, mobility, and stimulability.

I shall make use of the term excitability, for the
most part, in preference to any of them. I mean
by it, a capacity of imperceptible,- as well as obvi-
ous motion. It is of no consequence to our pre-
sent inquiries, whether this excitability be a quality
of animal matter, or a substance. The latter opi-
nion has been maintained by Dr. Girtanner, and
has some probability in its favour.

II. The whole human body is so formed and con-
nected, that impressions made in the healthy state
upon one part, excite motion, or sensation, or both,
in every other part of the body. From this view,
it appears to be a unit, or a simple and indi-
visible substance. I , capacity for receiving
motion, and sensation, is variously modified by
means of what are called the senses. It is external,

VOL. I, B

10 INQUIRY INTO THE

and internal. The impressions which act upon it
shall be enumerated in order.

III. Certain motions are voluntary, and others
are performed in an involuntary manner.

IV. Different parts of the body possess different
degrees of what has been called excitability, that
is, different degrees of susceptibility to the action of
the same stimuli upon them.

V. Life is the effect of certain stimuli acting
upon the sensibility and excitability which are ex-
tended, in different degrees, over every external
and internal part of the body. These stimuli are
as necessary to its existence, as air is to flame.
Animal life is truly (to use the words of Dr. Brown)
" a forced state." I have said the words of Dr.
Brown; for the opinion was delivered by Dr. Cul-
len in the university of Edinburgh, in the year
1766, and was detailed by me in this school, many
years before the name of Dr. Brown was kno^vn as
a teacher of medicine. It is true, Dr. Cullen af-
terwards deserted it ; but it is equally true, I
never did ; and the belief of it has been the foun-
dation of many of the principles and modes of
practice in medicine which I have since adopted.
In a lecture which I delivered in the year 1771, I

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 11

find the following ^vo^ds, which are taken from a
manuscript copy of lectures given by Dr. CuUen
upon the institutes of medicine. " The human
body is not an automaton, or self-moving machine ;
but is kept alive and in motion, by the constant
action of stimuli upon it." In thus ascribing the
discovery of the cause of life which I shall endea-
vour to establish, to Dr. Cuilen, let it not be sup-
posed I mean to detract from the genius and merit
of Dr. Brown. To his intrepidity in reviving and
propagating it, as well as for the many other truths
contained in his system of medicine, posterity, I
have no doubt, will do him ample justice, after the-
errors that are blended with them have been
corrected, by their unsuccessful application to the-
cure of diseases.

110

Agreeably to our last proposition, I proceed to
remai'k, that the action of the br^dn, the diastole
and systole of the heart, the pulsation of the arte-
ries, the contraction of the muscles, the peristaltic
motion of the bowels, the absorbing power of the
lymphatics, secretion, excretion, hearing, seeing,
smelling, taste, and the sense of touch, nay more,
thought itself, are all the eifects of stimuli acting
upon the organs of sense and motion. These sti-
muli have been divided into external and internal.
The external are liajht, sound, odours, air, heat.

12 INqUIRY INTO THE

exercise, and the pleasures of the senses. The in-
ternal stimuli are food, drinks, chyle, the blood, a
certain tension of the glands, which contain secret-
ed liquors, and the exercises of the faculties of the
mind ; each of which I shall treat in the order in
which they have been mentioned.

1. Of external stimuli. Thcj^r^^ofthese is Air.
In support of this opinion, I shall produce the
highest authority, and that is, the history of the
creation of man, as recorded in the second chapter
of the book of Genesis. For this purpose, I beg
you would accompany me in your imaginations to
the garden of Eden, the birth place of the great
progenitor of the human race. In the midst of this
garden, behold a human figure ! Let us approach
it : How exquisitely formed are its head, its body, W
and its limbs ! All is symmetry and beauty ! Let us
approach still nearer, and examine it by the aid of
all our senses. It is motionless as the earth upon
which it stands. Its external surface is cold, but
soft. Its well formed face is pale, and its eyes,
mouth, and nostrils are all closed. But who is that
august figure that with slow and majestic steps ad-
vances towards it ? It is its Creator in a human
shape. Let us retire a little to make room for him
to come nearer to the beautiful workmanship of his
divine hands. What follows? Let the inspired

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 13

historian tell us. " And the Lord God formed man
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos-
trils the breath of life, and man became a living
soul."* The common explanation of this passage
of Scripture is, that God, in this act, infused a soul
into the torpid, or lifeless body of Adam, and that
his soul became its principle of life, or in other
words, that he thus changed a dead mass of ani-
malized matter, into an animated being* That this
was not the case, I infer, not only from the exis-
tence of life in many persons in whom the soul is
in a dormant or torpid state from diseases in the
brain, but from a more liberal and correct transla-
tion of the above passage of scripture, in which I
am warranted by several Hebrew scholars in our
city, alike eminent for their learning and piety. It
is as follows. " And the Lord God breathed into
his nostrils, the air of lives, and he became a living
soul." That is, he dilated his nostrils, and there-
by inflated his lungs with air, and thus excited in
him, animal, intellectual and spiritual life, in con-
sequence of which he became an animated human
creature. From this view of tlie origin of life in
Adam, it appears that his soul and body were cast
in the same mould, and at the same time, and that
both were animated by the same act of Divine

* Verse 7",

■i^'W

14 INqUIRY INTO THE

power by means of the same stream of air. The
resuscitation of the body after appearing to be dead,
by means of stimuli, more especially by the sti-
mulus of air, favours the explanation I have given
of the beginning of life in man. The air thus in-
fused into his lungs, by expanding and stimulating
them, communicated action, first to the heart, the
heart moved the quiescent blood, the blood moved
the quiescent brain, the brain moved the quiescent
mind, the eyes and the mouth are now opened, the
blood pervades the capillary vessels of the face, and
discharges a part of the paleness from it ; his skin
becomes warm; his will, the great executive faculty
of the mind, begins to act ; other stimuli co-operate
with the action of the air ; behold! he moves, he
walks, he is perfectly, and universally animated.
Thus gentlemen I believe began the life of man.

That the air, by exciting respiration, gave the
first impulse of life to the body and mind of Adam,
and that it is essential to it, I infer from many pas-
sages in the Old and New Testaments, besides
the one I have mentioned. I shall enumerate a few
of them.

1. The dry bones seen by Ezekiel in a vision,
when brought together, were devoid of life, until
the winds are invoked to inflate their lungs with

m

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 15

>iir.* Immediately afterwards they became liv-
ing and intelligent beings.

2. Job places the life of the whole human race
in their breath. Hence he says, " In whose hand
(meaning the Deity's) is the soul of every living
creature, and the breath of all mankind."! Again
he says, " The Spirit of the Lord hath made me,
and the breath of the Almighty hath given me
life.t

3. St. Paul in his famous sermon preached at
Athens, makes life and breath synonimous ; hence
he says, " He (meaning the Creator of the world)
giveth to all, life and breath."^

The intimate and indissoluble connection be-
tween breath or air, and life, is established still
further by the connection which the scriptures
hold forth between the absence of breath, or air,
and the presence of death.

4. The son of the widow ofZarephath is said to
die, when " his sickness was so sore, that there
was no breath left in him."j|

* Chap, xxxvii. t Chap. xili» 10. | Chap. xxxHi. 4.
§ Acts xvii. 25. il 1 Kings xvii. 17.

16 INQUIRY INTO THf;

5. The author of the 164th Psalm says, " Thou
hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest
away their breath ; they die, and return to theit
dust."* Again, the author of the 146th Psalm, in
speaking of the death of man, says, " His breath
goeth forth, he returneth to his earth ; in that very
day his thoughts perish."!

Exactly in the same way in which I have sup-
posed life began in the first man in the garden of
Eden, does it begin in every child that comes into
the world. . The first portion of air that rushes
into its lungs, sets them in motion. They move
the heart.... hence tliey have been called " cordis
flabellum," or " ventilabrum," that is, the bellows
of the heart.... the heart moves the brain ; the. brain
gi-adually awakens and moves the mind ; and both
brain and mind by their re-action, move every
other part of the body. The first impression of
air upon the lungs of a new born infant is painful,
and lience its cries give the first notice of the pas-
sage of its head into the world. It is probable the
action of air upon its body likewise excites pain,
and that the red colour of its skin, may be the effect
of it. This sensation of pain is soon destroyed by
habit, and from the operation of a kind law in the

* Verse 29. t Verse 4.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 17

animal economy, it is afterwards followed by a sense
of pleasure. Respiration for a while in a new bom
infant is at first altogether involuntary. The heart
moves in like manner from the effects of respira-
tion upon it. After some time the will acquires,
from the influence of habit, a partial voluntary
power over the lungs, but the heart continues to
move through every stage of life, only in conse-
quence of the perpetual impressions which are
made upon it. Its action is therefore very pro-
perly said to be altogether involuntary.

I'hat an action originally involuntary may be-
come voluntary, and that actions originally volun-
tary may become involuntary, from habit, is obvi-
ous from many facts. The former appears not
only in respiration, but in the command \vhich all
men acquire over their arms and legs and over the
spincters of the rectum and bladder, and which
some men acquire over their stomachs and dia-
phragms, so as to puke and hiccup at their plea-
sure, while the latter appears in man)^ diseases,
and, as I shall say hereafter, in the last hours of life.
Convulsions in a limb, or muscle, are a striking-
proof of this change of a voluntary into an invo-
luntary action. The same things appear in the tre-
mors in the limbs in old people, and in the fatal
VOL. I. c

18 INqUIllY INTO THE

consequences which frequently attend their falling
down in walking. The whole weight of their heads
and bodies generally strikes the ground, and that
from the loss of the power of their wills over their
arms, M^hich by being protruded, break the force
of a fall in early and middle life.

I shall hereafter add a number of facts from the
history of life in other animals, which will, I hope,
support the important office I have ascribed to the
air in imparting the first impulse to life in the hu-
man species.

2. Light appears to occupy the next grade to
air, in the production of animal life. It is re-
markable that the progenitor of the human race
was not brought into existence until all the lu-
minaries of heaven were created. Light acts chief-
ly through the medium of the organs of vision.
Its influence upon animal life is feeble, compared
with some other stimuli to be mentioned hereafter;
but it has its proportion of force. / Sleep has been
said to be a tendency to death ; now the absence of
light we know invites to sleep, and the return of it
excites the waking state. The late Mr. Ritten-
house informed me, that for many years he had
constantly awoke with the first dawn of the morn-
ing light, both in summer and winter. Its influ-

CAUSE OF ANIAIAL LIFE. 19

ence upon the animal spirits strongly demonstrates
its connection with animal life, and hence we find
a cheerful and a depressed state of mind in many
people, and more especially in invalids, to be inti-
mately connected with the presence or absence of
the rays of the sun. The well-known pedestrian
traveller, Mr. Stewart, in one of his visits to this
city, informed me, that he had spent a summer in
Lapland, in the latitude of 69°, during the greatest
part of which time the sun was seldom out of sight.
He enjoyed, he said, during this period, uncom-
mon health and spirits, both of which he ascribed
to the long duration, and invigorating influence of
light. These facts will surprise us less when we
attend to the effects of light upon vegetables Some
of them lose their colour by being deprived of it ;
many of them discover a partiality to it in the di-
rection of their flowers ; and all of them discharge
their pure air only while they are exposed to it.*

* Organization, sensation, spontaneous motion, 'and life,
exist only at the surface of the earth, and in places exposed
\o4ight. We might affirm the flame of Prometheus's torch
was the expression of a philosophical truth that did not es-
cape the ancients. Without light, nature was lifeless, ina-
nimate, and dead. A benevolent God, by producing life, has
spread organization, sensation, and thought over the surface
of the earth." — Lavoisier.

2Q INQUIRY INTO THE

3. Sound has an extensive influence upon hu-
man life. Its numerous artificial and natural sour-
ces need not be mentioned. I shall only take no-
tice, that the currents of winds, the passage of
insects through the air, and even the growth of
vegetables, are all attended with an emission of
sound ; and although they become imperceptible
from hab'*^ ' "^^^ there is reason to believe they all
act upon*!, jody, through the medium of the
ears. The existence of these sounds is established
by the reports of persons who have ascended two
or three miles from the eardi in a balloon. They
tell us that the silence which prevails in those re-
gions of the air is so new and complete, as to pro-
duce an awful solemnity in their minds. It is not
necessary that these sounds should excite sensation
or perception, in order to their exerting a degree of
stimulus upon the body. There are a hundred
impressions daily made upon it, which from habit
are not followed by sensation. ) The stimulus of
aliment upon the stomach, and of blood upon the
heart and arteries, probably cease to be felt, only
from the influence of habit. The exercise of walk-
ing, which was originally the result of a deliberate
act of the will, is performed from habit without the
least degree of consciousness. It is unfortunate for
this, and many other parts of physiology, that we

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 21

forget what passed in our minds the first two or
three years of our lives. Could we recollect the
manner in which we acquired our first ideas, and
the progress of our knowledge with the evolution
of our senses and faculties, it would relieve us
from many difficulties- and controversies upon this
subject. Perhaps this forgetfulness l)y children,
of the origin and progress of thei' ; i -vledge,
might be remedied by our attending mo- o closely
to the first effects of impressions, sen3iition, and
perception upon them, as discovered by their little
actions ; all of which probably have a meaning, as
determined as any of the actions of men or women.

The influence of sounds of a certain kind in pro-
ducing excitement, and thereby increasing life,
cannot be denied. Fear produces debility, which
is a tendency to death. Sound obviates this debi-
lity, and thus restores the system to the natural and
healthy grade of life. The school-boy and the
clown invigorate their feeble and trembling limbs
by wliistling or singing as they pass by a country
churcn-yard, and the soldier feels his departing life
recalled in the onset of a battle by the noise of the
fife, and of the poet's " spirit stirring drum." In-
toxication is frequently attended with a higher de-
gree of life than is natural. Now sound we know
will produce this vtith a very moderate portion of

22 INQUIRY INTO THE

fermented liquor; hence we find men are more
easily and highly excited by it at public entertain-
ments where there is music, loud talking, and hal-
looing, than in private companies where there is no
auxiliary stimulus added to that of the wine. I
wish these effects of sound upon animal life to be •
remembered ; for I shall mention it hereafter as a
remedy for the weak state of life in many diseases,
and shall relate an instance in which a scream sud-
denly extorted by grief, proved the means of re-
suscitating a person who was supposed to be dead,
and who had exhibited the usual ,recent marks of
the extinction of life.

I shall conclude this head by remarking, that
persons who are destitute of hearing and seeing
possess life in a more languid state than other peo-
ple ; and hence arise the dulness and want of spi-
rits which they discover in their intercourse with
the world.

4. Odours have a sensible'^effect in promoting
animal life. The greater healthiness of the coun-
try, than cities, is derived in part from the effluvia
of odoriferous plants, which float in the atmosphere
in the spring and summer months, .acting upon
the system, through the medium of the sense of
smelling. The effects of odours upon animal life

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 23

appear still more obvious in the sudden revival of
it, v\^hich they produce in cases of fainting. Here
the smell of a few drops of hartshorn, or even of
a burnt feather, has frequently in a few minutes
restored the system, from a state of weakness bor-
dering upon death, to an equable and regular de-
gree of excitement.

5. Heat is a uniform and active stimulus in pro-
moting life. It is derived, in certain seasons and
countries, in part from the sun ; but its principal
source is from that cause whatever it may be,
which produces animal heat. The extensive
influence of heat upon animal life, is evident from
its decay and suspension during the winter in cer-
tain animals, and from its revival upon the approach
and action of the vernal sun. It is true, life is di-
minished much less in man, from the distance and
absence of the sun, than in other animals ; but this
must be ascribed to his possessing reason in so high
a degree, as to enable him to supply the abstraction
of heat, by the action of other stimuli upon liis
system.

6. Exercise acts as a stimulus upon the body in
various ways. Its first impression is upon the mus-
cles. These act upon the blood-vessels, and they
upon the nerves and brain. The necessitv of ex-

24 INqUIRY INTO THE

ercise to animal life is indicated, by its being kindly
imposed upon man in paradise. The change which
the human body underwent by the fall, rendered
the same salutary stimulus necessary to its life, in
the more active form of labour. But we are not to
suppose, that motion is excited in the body by ex-
ercise or labour alone. It is constantly stimulated
by the positions of standing, sitting, and lying upon
the sides ; all of which act more or less upon mus-
cular fibres, and by their means, upon every part
of the system.

7. The pleasures we derive from our senses have
a powerful and extensive influence upon human
life. The number of these pleasures, and their
proximate cause, will form an agreeable subject for
two or three future lectures.

We proceed next to consider the internal stimuli
which produce animal life. These are

I. Food. This acts in the following ways. 1.
Upon the tongue. Such are the sensibility and
excitability of this organ, and so intimate is its con-
nection with every other part of the body, that the
whole system is invigorated by aliment, as soon as
it comes in contact with it. 2. By mastication.
This moves a number of muscles and blood- ves-

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 25

sels situated near the brain and heart, and of course
imparts impressions to them. 3. By deglutition,
which acts upon similar parts, and with the same
effect. 4. By its presence in the stomach, in
which it acts by its quantity and quality. Food,
by distending the stomach, stimulates the contigu-
ous parts of the body. A moderate degree of dis-
tention of the stomach and bowels is essential to
a healthy excitement of the system. Vegetable ali-
ment and drinks, which contain less nourishment
than animal food, serve this purpose in the human
body. Hay acts in the same manner in a horse.
Sixteen pounds of this light food m a day are ne-
cessary to keep up such a degree of distention in
the stomach and bowels of this animal, as to impart
to him his natural grade of strength and life. The
quality of food, when of a stimulating nature, sup-
plies the place of its distention from its quantity.
A single onion will support a lounging highlander
on the hills of Scotland for four and twenty hours.
A moderate quantity of salted meat, or a few ounces
of sugar, have supplied the place of pounds of less
stimulating food. Even indigestible substances,
which remain for days, or perhaps weeks in the
stomach, exert a stimulus there which has an in-
fluence upon animal life. It is in this way the tops
of briars, and the twigs of trees, devoid not only

VOL. I. D

26 INqUIRY INTO THE

of nourishing matter, but of juices, support the
camel in his journies through the deserts of the
eastern countries* Chips of ced^r posts moistened
with water have supported horses for two or three
weeks, during a long voyage from Boston to Suri-
nam ; and the indigestible cover of an old Bible pre-
served the life of a dog, accidentally confined in a
room at Newcastle upon Tyne, for twenty days.
5. Food stimulates the whole body by means of the
process of digestion which goes forward in the sto-
mach. This animal function is carried on by a
process, in which there is probably an extrication of
heat and air. Now both these, it has been remark-
ed, exert a stimulus in promoting animal life.

Drinks, when they consist of fermented or dis-
tilled liquors, stimulate from their quality ; but
when they consist of water, either in its simple
state, or impregnated with any sapid substance,
they act principally by distention.

II. The chyle acts upon the lacteals, mesenteric
glands, and thoracic duct, in its passage through
them ; and it is highly probable, its first mixture
with the blood in the subclavian vein, and its first
action on the heart, are attended with considerable
stimulating effects.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 27

III. The blood is a very important internal sti-
mulus. It has been disputed whether it acts by
its quality, or only by distending the blood-vessels.
It appears to act in both ways. I believe with Dr.
VVhj'tt, that the blood stimulates the heart and ar-
teries by a specific action. But if this be not ad-
mitted, its influence in extending the blood-vessels
in every part of the body, and thereby imparting
extensive and uniform impressions to every animal
fibre, cannot be denied. In support of this asser-
tion it has been remarked, that m those persons
who die of hunger, there is no diminution of the
quantity of blood in the large blood-vessels.

IV. A certain tension of the glands, and of other
parts of the body, contributes to support animal
life. This is evident in the vigour which is im-
parted to the system, by the fulness of the seminal
vesicles and gall bladder, and by the distention of
the uterus in pregnancy. This disten ion is so
great, in some instances, as to prevent sleep for
many days and even weeks before delivery. It
serves the valuable purpose of rendering the female
system less Hable to death during its continuance,
than at any other time. By increasing the quantity
of life in the body, it often suspends the fatal issue
of pulmonary consumption, and ensures a tempo-
rary victory over the plague and other malignant

28 INqUIRY INTO THE

fevers; for death, from those diseases, seldom
takes place, until the stimulus, from the distention
of the uterus, is renioved by parturition.

V. The exercises of the faculties of the mind
have a wonderful influence in increasing the quan-
tity of human life. They all act by reflection only,
after having been previously excited into action
by impressions made upon the body. This view
of the re-action of the mind upon the body accords
with the simplicity of other operations in the ani-
mal economy. ' It is thus the brain repays the
heart for the blood it conveys to it, by re-acting
upon its muscular fibres. ] The influence of the
different faculties of the mind is felt in the pulse,
in the stomach, and in the liver, and is seen in the
face, and other external parts of the body. Those
which act most unequivocally in promoting life are
the understanding, the imagination, and the pas-
sions. Thinking belongs to the understanding, and
is attended with an obvious influence upon the de-
gree and duration of life. Intense study has often
rendered the body insensible to the debilitating ef-
fects of cold and hunger. Men of great and active
understandings, who blend with their studies tempe-
rance pnd exercise, are generally long lived. In
support of this assertion, a hundred names might
be added to those of Newton and Franklin. Its

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 29

truth will be more fully established by attending
to the state of human life in persons of an opposite
intellectual character. The Cretins, a race of idiots
in Valais, in Switzerland, travellers tell us, are all
short lived. Common language justifies the opi-
nion of the stimulus of the understanding upon the
brain : hence it is common to say of dull men, that
they have scarcely ideas enough to keep themselves
awake.

The imagination acts with great force upon the
body, whether its numerous associations produce
pleasure or pain. But the passions pour a constant
stream upon the wheels of life. They have been
subdivided into emotions and passions properly so
called. The former have for their objects present,
the latter, future good aiid evil. All the objects
of the passions are accompanied with desire or
aversion. To the former belong chiefly, hope,
love, ambition, and avarice ; to the latter, fear, ha-
tred, malice, envy, and the like. Joy, anger, and
terror, belong to the class of emotions. The pas-
sions and emotions have been further divided into
stimulating and sedative. Our business at present
is to consider their first effect only upon the body.
In the original constitution of human nature, we
were made to be stimulated by such passions and
emotions only as have moral good for their objects.

30 IN(^UIRY IxNTO THE

Mail was designed to be always under the influence
of hope, love, and joy. By the loss of his inno-
cence, he has subjected himself to the dominion of
passions and emotions of a malignant nature ; but
they possess, in common with such as are good, a
stimulus which renders them subservient to the
purpose of promoting animal life. It is true, they
lire like the stimulus of a dislocated bone in their
operation upon the body, compared vidth the action
of antagonist muscles stretched over bones, which
gently move in their natural sockets. The effects
of the good passions and emotions, in promoting
health and longevity, have been taken notice of by
many writers. They produce a flame, gentle and
pleasant, like oil perfumed with frankincense, in the
lamp of life. There are instances likewise of per-
sons who have derived strength and long life from
the influence of the evil passions and emotions that,
have been mentioned. Dr. Darwin relates the
history of a man, who used to overcome the fa-
tigue induced by ti-avelliiig, by thinking of a per-
son whom he hated. The debility induced by
disease is often removed by a sudden change in
the temper. This is so common, that even nurses
predict a recovery in persons as soon as they be-
come peevish and ill-natured, after having been
patient during the worst stage of their sickness.
This peevishness acts as a gentle stimulus upon

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 31

the system in its languid state, and thus turns the
scale in favour of life and health. The famous
Benjamin Lay, of this state, who lived to be eighty
years of age, was of a very irascible temper. Old
Elwes was a prodigy of avarice, and eveiy court in
Europe furnishes instances of men who have at-
tained to extreme old age, who have lived constantly
under the dominion of ambition. In the course of
a long inquiry which I instituted some years ago
into the state of the body and mind in old people,
I did not find a single person above eighty, who
had not possessed an active understanding, or active
passions. Those different and opposite faculties of
the mind, when in excess, happily supply the place
of each other. Where they unite their forces, they
extinguish the flame of life, before the oil which
feeds it is consumed.

In another place I shall resume the influence of
the faculties of the mind upon human life, as they
discover themselves in the dift'erent pursuits of men.

I have only to add here, that I see no occasion
to admit, with the followers of Dr. Brown, that
the mind is acti\*e in sleep, in preserving the mo-
tions of life. I hope to establish hereafter the
opinion of Mr. Locke, that the mind is always pas-
sive in sound sleep. It is true it acts in dreams ;

32 INqUIRY INTO THE

but these depend upon a morbid state of the brain,
and therefore do not belong to the present stage of
our subject, for I am now considering animal life
only in the healthy state of the body. I shall say
presently, that dreams are intended to supply the
absence of some natural stimulus, and hence we
find they occur in those persons most commonly,
in whom there is a want of healthy action in the
system, induced by the excess or deficiency of cus-
tomary stimuU.

Life is in a languid state in the morning. It ac-
quires vigour by the gradual and successive appU-
cation of stimuli in the forenoon. It is in its most
perfect state about mid-day, and remains stationary
for some hours. From the diminution of the sen-
sibility and contractility of the system to the action
of impressions, it lessens in the evening, and be-
comes again languid at bed-time. These facts will
admit of an extensive application hereafter in our
lectures upon the practice of physic.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 33

LECTURE II.

Gentlemen,

THE stimuli which have been enumerated,
when they act collectively, and within certain bounds,
produce a healthy waking state. But they do not
always act collectively, nor in the determined and
regular manner that has been described. There is,
in many states of the system, a deficiency of some
stimuli, and, in some of its states, an apparent ab-
sence of them all. To account for the continuance
of animal life under such circumstances, two things
must be premised, before we proceed to take no-
tice of the diminution or absence of the stimuli
which support it.

1. The healthy actions of the body in the wak-
ing state consist in a proper degree of what has
been called excitability and excitement. The for-
mer is the medium on which stimuli act in pro-
ducing the latter. In an exact proportion, and a
due relation of both, diffused uniformly throughout
every part of the body, consists good health. Dis-

vol. I. E

34 INqUIRY INTO THE

ease is the reverse of this. It depends i« part up-
on a disproportion between excitement and excita-
bility, and in a partial distribution of each of them.
In thus distinguishing the different states of excite-
ment and excitability in health and sickness, you
see I dissent from Dr. Brown, who supposes them
to be (though disproportioned to each other) equa-
bly diffused in the morbid, as well as the healthy
state of the body.

2. It is a law of the system, that the absence of
one natural stimulus is generally supplied by the
increased action of others. This is more certainly
the case where a natural stimulus is abstracted sud-
denly ; for the excitability is thereby so instantly
formed and accumulated, as to furnish a highly sen-
sible and moveable surface for the remaining sti-
muli to act upon. Many proofs might be adduced
in support of this proposition. The reduction of
the excitement of the blood-vessels, by means of
cold, prepares the way for a full meal, or a warm
bed, to excite in them the morbid actions which
take place in a pleurisy or a rheumatism. A horse
in a cold stable eats more than in a warm one, and
thus counteracts the debility which would other-
wise be induced upon his system, by the abstrac-
tion of the stimulus of warm air.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 35

These two propositions being admitted, I pro-
ceed next to inquire into the different degrees and
states of animal life. The first departure from
its ordinary and perfect state which strikes us, is
in

1. Sleep. This is either natural or artificial.
Natural sleep is induced by a diminution of the ex-
citement and excitability of the system, by the con-
tinued application of the stimuli which act upon the
body in its waking state. When these stimuli act
in a determined degree, that is, when the same
number of stimuli act with the same force, and for
the same time, upon the system, sleep will be
brought on at the same hour every night. But
when they act with uncommon force, or for an un-
usual time, it is brought on at an earlier hour.
Thus a long walk or ride, by persons accustomed
to a sedentary life, unusual exercise of the under-
standing, the action of strong passions or emo-
tions, and the continual application of unusual
sounds seldom fail of inducing premature sleep.
It is recorded of pope Ganganelli, that he slept
more soundly, and longer than usual, the night
after he was raised to the papal chair. The effects
of unusual sounds in bringing on premature sleep,
is further demonstrated by that constant inclination
to retire to bed at an early hour, which country

36 INqUlRY INTO THE

people discover the first and second days they
spend in a city, exposed from morning till night
to the noise of hammers, files, and looms, or of
drays, carts, waggons, and coaches, rattling over
pavements of stone. Sleep is furthur hastened by
the absence of light, the cessation of sounds and la-
bour, and the recumbent posture of the body on
a soft bed.

Artificial sleep may be induced at any time by
certain stimulating substances, particularly by 6pi-
um. They act by carrying the system beyond the
healthy grade of excitement, to a degree of de-
pression, which Dr. Brown has happily called
the sleeping point. The same point may be in-
duced in the system at any time by the artificial
abstraction of the usual stimuli of life. For exam-
ple, let a person shut himself up at mid-day in a
dai'k room, remote from noise of all kinds, let him
lie down upon his back upon a soft bed in a tempe-
rate state of the atmosphere, and let him cease to
think upon interesting subjects, or let him think
only upon one subject, and he will soon fall asleep.
Dr. Boerhaave relates an instance of a Dutch pliy-
sician, who, having persuaded himself that waking
was a violent state, and sleep the only natural one
of the system, contrived, by abstracting every kind
of stimulus in the manner that has been mentioned,

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 37

to sleep away whole days and nights, until at
length he impaired his understanding, and finally
perished in a public hospital in a state of idiotism.

In thus anticipating a view of the cause of sleep,
I have said nothing of the effects of diseases of the
bniin in inducing it. These belong to another
part of our course. The short explanation I have
given of its cause was necessary in order to ren-
der the histor}' of animal life, in that state of the
system, more intelligible.

At the usual hour of sleep there is an abstraction
of the stimuli of light, sound, and muscular motion.
The stimuli which remain, and act with an increas-
ed force upon the body in sleep, are

1. The heat which is discharged from the body,
and confined by means of bed-clothes. It is most
perceptible when exhaled from a bed- fellow. Heat
obtained in this way has sometimes been employed
to restore declining life to the bodies of old people.
Witness the damsel who lay for this purpose in the
bosom of the king of Israel. The advantage of
this external heat will appear further, when we con-
sider how impracticable or imperfect sleep is, when
we lie under too light covering in cold weather.

38 INqUIRY INTO THE

2. The air which applied to the lungs during
sleep probably acts with more force than in the
waking state. I am disposed to believe that more
air is plilogisticated in sleep than at any other time,
for the smell of a close room in which a person has
slept one night, we know, is much more disagree-
able than that of a room, under equal circumstances,
in which half a dozen people have sat for the same
number of hours in the day time. The action of
decomposed air on the lungs and heart was spoken
of in a former lecture. An increase in its quantity
must necessarily have a powerful influence upon
animal life during the sleeping state.

3. Respiration is performed with a greater ex-
tension and contraction of the muscles of the breast
in sleep than in the waking state ; and this cannot
fail of increasing the impetus of the blood in its
passage through the heart and blood-vessels. The
increase of the fulness and force of the pulse in
sleep, is probably owing in part to the action of
respiration upon it. In another place I hope to
elevate the rank of the blood-vessels in the animal
economy, by showing that they are the fountains
of power in the body. They derive this pre-emi-
nence from the protection and support they afford
to every part of the system. They ai'e the perpe-

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 39

tual centmels of health and life ; for they never
partake in the repose which is enjoyed by the mus-
cles and nerves. During sleep, their sensibility
seems to be converted into contractility, by which
means their muscular fibres are more easily moved
by the blood than in the waking state. The dimi-
nution of sensibility in sleep is proved by many
facts to be mentioned hereafter ; and the change of
sensibility into contractility will appear, when we
come to consider the state of animal life in infanc}'
and old age.

4. Aliment in the stomach acts more powerfully
in sleep than in the waking state. This is evident
from digestion going on more rapidly when we are
awake than when we sleep. The more slow the
digestion, the greater is the stimulus of the aliment
in the stomach. Of this we have many proofs
in daily life. Labourers object to milk as a
breakfast, because it digests too soon ; and often
call for food in a morning, which they can feel all
day in their stomachs. Sausages, fat pork, and
onions are generally preferred by them for this
purpose. A moderate supper is favourable to easy
and sound sleep ; and the want of it, in persons who
are accustomed to that meal, is often followed by
a restless night. The absence of its stimulus is
probably supplied by a full gall-bladder (which al-

40 INqUIRY INTO THE

ways attends an empty stomach) in persons who
are not in the habit of eating suppers.

5. The stimulus of the urine, accumulated in the
bladder during sleep, has a perceptible influence
upon animal life. It is often so considerable as to
interrupt sleep ; and it is one of the causes of our
waking at a regular hour in the morning. It is
moreover a frequent cause of the activity of the un-
derstanding and passions in dreams ; and hence we
dream more in our morning slumbers, when the
bladder is full, than we do in the beginning or mid-
dle of the night.

6. The faeces exert a constant stimulus upon the
bowels in sleep. This is so considerable as to ren-
der it less profound when they have been accumu-
lated for two or three days, or when they have been
deposited in the extremity of the alimentary canal.

7. The partial and irregular exercises of the un-
derstanding and passions in dreams have an occa-
sional influence in promoting life. They occur only
where there is a deficiency of other stimuli. Such
is the force with which the mind acts upon the body
in dreams, that Dr. Brambilla, physician to the
emperor of Germany, informs us, that he has seen
instances of wounds in soldiers being inflamed, and

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 41

putting on a gangrenous appearance in consequence
of the commotions excited in tlieir bodies by irri-
tating dreams.* The stimulating passions act
through the medium of the will ; and the exercises
of this faculty of the mind sometimes extend so far
as to produce actions in the muscles of the limbs,
and occasionally in the whole body, as we see in
persons who walk in their sleep. The stimulus of
lust often awakens us with pleasure or pain, accord-
ing as we are disposed to respect or disobey the
precepts of our Maker. The angry and revengeful
passions often deliver us, in like manner, from the
imaginary guilt of murder. Even the debilitating
passions of grief and fear produce an indirect ope-
ration upon the system that is favourable to life in
sleep, for they excite that distressing disease called
the night-mare, which prompts us to speak, or hal-
loo, and by thus invigorating respiration, overcomes
the languid circulation of the blood in the heart and
brain. Do not complain then, gentlemen, when
you are t)estrode by this midnight hag. She is

* A fever was excited in Cinna the poet, in consequence
of his dreaming that he saw Csesar, the night after he was
assassinated, and was invited to accompany him to a dreary-
place, to which he pointed, in order to sup with him- Con-
vulsions, and other diseases, I believe, are often excited in
the night, by terrifying or distressing dreams.

Plutarch's Life of M. Brutus,

VOL.1. F

42 mqjJIRY INTO THE

kindly sent to prevent your sudden death. Per-
sons who go to bed in good health, and are found
dead the succeeding morning, are said most com-
monly to die of this disease.

I proceed now to inquire into the state of animal
life in its diiferent stages. I pass over for the pre-
sent its history in generation. It will be sufficient
only to remark in this place, that its first motion is
produced by the stimulus of the male seed upon the
female ovum. This opinion is not originally mine.
You will find it in Dr. Haller.* The pungent taste
which Mr. John Hunter discovered in the male
seed renders it peculiarly fit for this purpose. No
sooner is the female ovum thus set in motion, and
the foetus formed, than its capacity of fife is sup-
ported,

1. By the stimulus of the heat which it derives
from its connection with its mother in the womb.

2. By the stimulus of its own circulating blood.

3. By its constant motion in the womb after the
third month of pregnancy. The absence of this

* "Novum foetum a seminis tnasculi stimulo vitam conce-
pisse." — Elanenta Physiologixy vol. viii. p. 177.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 4o

motion for a few days is always a sign of the indis-
position or death of a foetus. Considering how
early a child is accustomed to it, it is strange that
a cradle should ever have been denied to it after it
comes into the world.

II. In infants there is an absence of many of the
stimuli which support life. Their excretions are
in a great measure deficient in acrimony, and their
mental faculties are too weak to exert much influ-
ence upon their bodies. But the absence of stimu-
lus from those causes is amply supplied.

1. By the very great excitability of their sys-
tems to those of light, sound, heat, and air. So
powerfully do light and sound act upon them, that
the Author of nature has kindly defended their eyes
and ears from an excess of their impressions by
imperfect vision and hearing, for several wTcks af-
ter birth. The capacity of infants !« ) be acted up-
on by moderate degrees of heat is evident from their
suffering less from cold than grown people. This
is so much the case, that we read, in Mr. Umfre-
ville's account of Hudson's Bay, of a child that
was found alive upon the back of its mother after
she was frozen to death. I before hinted at the
action of the air upon the bodies of new-born in-
fants in producing the red colour of their skins. It

44 INqUIRY INTO THE

is highly probable (from a fact formerly mentioned)
that the first impression of the atmosphere which
produces this redness is accompanied with pain,
and this we know is a stimulus of a very active na-
ture. By a kind law of sensation, impressions,
that were originally painful, become pleasurable by
repetition or duration. This is remarkably evident
in the impression now under consideration, and
hence we find infants at a certain age discover signs
of an increase of life by their delightful gestures,
when they are carried into the open air. Recollect
further, gentlemen, what was said formerly of ex-
citability predominating over sensibility in infants.
We see it daily, not only in their patience of cold,
but in the short time in which they cease to com-
plain of the injuries they meet widi from fails, cuts,
and even severe surgical operations.

2. Animal life is supported in infants by their
sucking, or feeding, nearly every hour in the day
and night Vv^hen they are awake. I explained for-
merly the manner in which food stimulated the sys-
tem. The action of sucking supplies, by the
muscles employed" in it, the stimulus of mastication.

3. Laughing and crying, which are universal in
infancy, have a considerable influence in promoting
animal life, by their action upon respiration, and

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 45

the circulation of the blood. Laughing exists un-
der all circumstances, independently of education
or imitation. The child of the negi'o slave, born
only to inherit the toils and misery of its parents,
receives its master with a smile every time he en-
ters his kitchen or a negro-quarter. But laughing
exists in infancy under circumstances still more
unfavourable to it ; an instance of which is related
by Mr. Bruce. After a journey of several hundred
miles across the sands of Nubia, he came to a
spring of water shaded by a few scrubby trees.
Here he intended to have rested during the night,
but he had not slept long before he was awakened
by a noise which he perceived was made by a soli-
tary Arab, equally fatigued and half famished with
himself, who was preparing to murder and plunder
him. Mr. Bruce rushed upon him, and made him
his prisoner. The next morning he was joined by
a half-starved female companion, with an infant of
six months old in her arms. In passing by this
child, Mr. Bruce says, it laughed and crowed in
his face, and attempted to leap upon him. From
this fact it would seem as if laughing w^as not only
characteristic of our species, but that it w^as early
and intimately connected with human life. The
child of these Arabs had probably never seen a
smile upon the faces of its ferocious parents and

46 INqUIRY INTO THK

perhaps had never (before the sight of Mr. Bruce)
beheld any other human creature.

Ciying has a considerable influence upon health
and life in children. I have seen so many instances
of its salutary effects, that I have satisfied myself
it is as possible for a child to " cry and be fat," as
it is to " laugh and be fat."

4. As children advance in life, the constancy of
their appetites for food, and their disposition to
laugh and cr}^, lessen, but the diminution of these
stimuli is supplied by exercise. The limbs* and
tongues of children are always in motion. They
continue likewise to eat oitener than adults. A
crust of bread is commonly the last thing they ask
for at night, and the first thing they call for in the
morning. It is nov/ they begin to feel the energy
of their mental faculties. This stimulus is assisted
in its force by the disposition to prattle, which is
so vmiversal among children. This habit of con-
\erting their ideas into words as fast as they rise,
follo^vs them to their beds, where we often hear

* Niebuhr, in his Travels, says the children in Arabia arc
taught to keep themselves constantly in motion by a kind of
vibratory exercise of their bodies. This motion counteracts
the diminution of life produced by the heat of the climate of
Arabia,

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 47

them talk themselves to sleep in a whisper, or to
use less correct, but more striking terms, by think-
ing aloud.

5. Dreams act at an early period upon the bodies
of children. Their smiles, starlings, and occasional
screams in their sleep appear to arise from them.
After the third or fourth year of their lives, they
sometimes confound them with things that are real.
From observing the effects of this mistake upon
the memory, a sensible woman whom I once knew,
forbad her children to tell their dreams, lest they
should contract habits of lying, by confounding
imaginary with real events.

♦ 6. New objects, whether natural or aitificial,
are never seen by children without emotions oi"
pleasure which act upon their capacity of life.
The effects of novelty upon the tender bodies of
children may easily be conceived, by its friendly
influence upon the health of invalids who visit
foreign countries, and who pass months or years
in a constant succession of new and agreeable im-
pressions.

III. From the combination of all the stimuli that
have been enumerated, human life is generally in
excess from fifteen to thirty-five. It is during this

48 iNqyiiiY into the

period the passions blow a perpetual storm. The
most predominating of them is the love of pleasure.
No sooner does the system become insensible to-
this stimulus, than ambition succeeds it in,

IV. The middle stage of life. Here we behold
man in the most perfect physical state. The sti-
muli which now act upon him are so far regulated
by prudence, that they are seldom excessive in their
force. The habits of order the system acquires in
this period, continue to produce good health for
many years afterwards ; and hence bills of mor-
tality prove that fewer persons die between forty
and fifty-seven, than in any other seventeen years
of human life.

V. In old age, the senses of seeing, hearing, and
touch are impaired. The venereal appetite is
weakened, or entirely extinguished. The pulse
becomes slow, and subject to frequent intermis-
sions, from a decay in the force of the blood-ves-
sels. Exercise becomes impracticable, or irksome,
^nd the operations of the understanding are per-
formed with languor and difficulty. In this shat-
tered and declining state of the system, the absence
and diminution of all the stimuli which have been
mentioned are supplied,

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 49

1. By an increase in tlie quantity, and by the
peculiar quality of the food, which is taken by old
people. They generally eat twice as much as per-
sons in middle life, and they bear with pain the
usual intervals between meals. They moreover
prefer that kind of food which is savoury and sti-
mulating. The stomach of the celebrated Parr,
who died in the one hundred and fiftieth year of
his age, was found full of strong, nourishing ali-
ment.

2. By the stimulus of the fasces, which are fre-
quently retained for five or six days in the bowels
o£ old people.

3. By the stimulus of fluids rendered pretema-
turally acrid by age. The urine, sweat, and even
the tears of old people, possess a peculiar acrimo-
ny. Their blood likewise loses part of the mild-
ness which is natural to that fluid ; and hence the
difliculty with w'hich sores heal in old people ; and
hence too the reason why cancers are more com-
mon in the decline, than in any other period of hu-
man life.

4. By the uncommon activity of certain passions.
These are either good or evil. To the former be-
long an increased vigour in the operations of those

VOL. I. G

50 INqUIRY INTO THE

passions which have for their objects the Divine
Being, or the vv^hole family of mankind, or their |
own offspring, particularly their grand- children.
To the latter passions belong malice, a hatred of the
manners and fashions of the rising generation, and,
above all, avarice. This passion knovrs no holi-
days. Its stimulus is constant, though varied daily
by the numerous means vv^hich it has discovered of
increasing, securing, and perpetuating property. It
has been observed that weak mental impressions
produce much greater effects in old people than in
persons in middle life. A trifling indisposition in
a grand-child, an inadvertent act of unkindness from
a friend, or the fear of losing a few shillings, have,
in many instances, produced in them a degree of
wakefulness that has continued for two or three
nights. It is to this highly excitable state of the
system that Solomon probably alludes, when he
describes the grasshopper as burdensome to old
people.

5. By the passion for talking, which is so com-
mon, as to be one of the characteristics of old age.
I mentioned formerly the influence of this stimulus
upon animal life. Perhaps it is more necessary in
the female constitution than in the male ; for it has
long ago been remarked, that women who are very
taciturn are generally unhealthy.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 51

6. By their wearing warmer clothes, and prefer-
ring warmer rooms, than in the former periods of
their lives. This practice is so uniform, that it
would not be difficult, in many cases, to tell a man's
age b}' his dress, or by finding out at what degree
of heat he found himself comfortable in a close
room.

7. By dreams. These are universal among old
people. They arise from their short and imperfect
sleep.

8. It has been often said, that " We are once
men, and twice children." In speaking of the state
of animal life in infancy, I remarked that the con-
tractility of the animal fibres predominated over
their sensibility in that stage of life. The same
thing takes place in old people, and it is in conse-
quence of the return of this infantile state of the
system, that all the stimuli which have been men-
tioned act upon them with much more force than in
middle life. This sameness, in the predominance
of excitability over sensibility in children and old
people, will account for the similarity of their habits
with respect to eating, sleep, exercise, and the use
of fermented and distilled liquors. It is from the
increase of excitability in old people, that so small
a quantity of strong drink intoxicates them; and it

5$, INQUIRY INTO THE

is from an ignorance of this change in their consti-
tutions, that many of them become drunkards, after
passing the early and middle stages of life with
sober characters.

Life is continued in a less imperfect state in old
age in women than in men. The former sew,
and knit, and spin, after they lose the use of their
ears and eyes; whereas the latter, after losing the
use of those senses, frequently pass the evening of
their lives in a torpid state in a chimney corner.
It is from the influence of moderate and gentle sti-
mulating employments upon the female constitu-
tion, that more wom.en live to be old than men,
and that they rarely survive their usefulness in do-
mestic life.

Hitherto the principles I am endeavouring to
establish have been applied to explain the cause of
life in its more common forms. Let us next in-
quire, how far they will enable us to explain its
continuance in certain morbid states of the body, in
which there is a diminution of some, and an appa-
rent abstraction of all the stimuli, which have been
supposed to produce animal life.

I. We observe some people to be blind, or deaf
and dumb, from their birth. The same defects

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 5S

of sight, hearing, and speech, are sometimes
brought on by diseases. Here animal life is de-
prived of all those numerous stimuli, which arise
from light, colours, sounds, and speech. But the
absence of these stimuli is supplied,

1. By increased sensibility and excitability in
their remaining senses. The ears, the nose, and
the fingers, afford a surface for impressions in
blind people, which frequently overbalances the
loss of their eye-sight. There are two blind young
men, brothers, in this city, of the name of Button,
who can tell when they approach a post in walking
across a street, by a peculiar sound which the
ground under their feet emits in the neighbourhood
of the post. Their sense of hearing is still more
exquisite to sounds of another kind. They can
tell the names of a number of tame pigeons, with
which they amuse themselves in a little garden, by
only hearing them fly over their heads. The cele-
brated blind philosopher. Dr. Moyse, can distinguish
a black dress on his friends, by its smell ; and we
read of many instances of blind persons who have
been able to perceive colours by rubbing their fin-
gers upon them. One of these persons, mentioned
by Mr, Boyle, has left upon record an account of
the specific quality of each colour as it affected his
sense of touch. He says black imparted the most,

54 INQUIRY INTO THE

and blue the least, perceptible sense of asperity to
his lingers.

2. By an increase of vigour in the exercises of
the mental faculties. The poems of Homer, Mil-
ton, and Blacklock, and the attainments of Sander-
son in mathematical knowledge, all discover how
much the energy of the mind is increased by the
absence of impressions upon the organs of vision.

II. We sometimes behold life in idiots, in whom
there is not only an absence of the stimuli of the
understancHng and passions, but frequently, from
the weakness of their bodies, a deficiency of the
loco-motive powers. Here an inordinate appetite
for food, or venereal pleasures, or a constant habit
of laughing, or talking, or playing with their hands
and feet, supply the place of the stimulating opera-
tions of the mind, and of general bodily exercise.
Of the inordinate force of the venereal appetite in
idiots we have many proofs. The Cretins are much
addicted to venery ; and Dr. Michaelis tells us that
the idiot whom he saw at the Passaic falls in New
Jersey, who had passed six and twenty years in a
cradle, acknowledged that he had venereal desires,
and wished to be married, for, the doctor adds, he
had a sense of religion upon his fragment of mind,

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE.

s'S

and of course did not wish to gratify that appetite
m an unlawful manner.

III. How is animal life supported in persons who
pass many days, and even weeks, without food, and
in some instances without drinks ? Long fasting
is usually the effect of disease, of necessity, or of
a principle of religion. When it arises from the
first cause, the actions of life are kept up by the
stimulus of disease.* The absence of food, when
accidental, or submitted to as a means of producing
moral happiness, is supplied,

1. By the stimulus of a full gall bladder. This
state of the receptacle of bile has generally been
found to accompany an empty stomach. The bile
is sometimes absorbed, and imparts a yellew colour
to the skin of persons who suffer or die of famine.

* The stimulus of a disease sometimes supplies the place
of food in prolonging life. Mr. C. S . , a gentleman well
known in Virginia, who was afflicted with a palsy, which
had resisted the skill of several physicians, determined to
destroy himself, by abstaining from food and drinks. He
lived sixty days without eating any thing, and the greatest
part of that time without tasting even a drop of water. His
disease probably protracted his life thus long beyond the
usual time in which death is induced by fasting. See a
particular account of this case, in the first number of the
second volume of Dr. Coxe's Medical Museum.

56 INqjJIRY INTO THE

2. By increased acrimony in all the secretions
and excretions of the body. The saliva becomes
so acrid by long fasting, as to excoriate the gums,
and the breath acquires not only a foe tor, but a
pungency so active, as to draw tears from the eyes
of persons who are exposed to it.

3. By increased sensibility and excitability in
the sense of touch. The blind man mentioned by
Mr. Boyle, who could distinguish colours by his
fingers, possessed this talent only after fasting.
Even a draught of any kind of liquor deprived him
of it. I have taken notice, in my account of the
yellow fever in Philadelphia, in the year 1793, of
the effects of a diet, bordering upon fasting for six
weeks, in producing a quickness and correctness
in my perceptions of the state of the pulse, which
I had never experienced before.

4. By an increase of activity in the understand-
ing and passions. Gamesters often improve the
exercises of their minds, when they are about to
play for a large sum of money, by living for a day
or two upon roasted apples and cold water. Where
the passions are excited into preternatural action,
the absence of the stimulus of food is scarcely felt.
I shall hereafter mention the influence of the desire

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 57

of life upon its preservation, under all circum-
stances. It acts with peculiar force when fasting
is accidental. But when it is submitted to as a
rehgious duty, it is accompanied by sentiments and
feelings which more than balance the abstraction
of aliment. The body of Moses was sustained,
probably without a miracle, during an abstinence
of forty days and forty nights, by the pleasure he
derived from conversing with his Maker " face to
face, as a man speaking with his friend."*

I remarked formerly, that the veins discover no
deficiency of blood in persons who die of famine.
Death from this cause seems to be less the effect
of the want of food, than of the combined and ex-
cessive operation of the stimuli, which supply its
place in the system.

IV. We come now to a difficult inquiry, and
that is, how is life supported during the total ab-
straction of external and internal stimuli which takes
place in asphyxia, or in apparent death, from all its
numerous causes ?

I took notice, in a former lecture, that ordinary
life consisted in the excitement and excitability of

* Exodus xxxiii. 11. xxxiv. 28.
VOL. I. H

58 iNqyiRY into the

the different parts of the body, and that they were
occasionally changed into each other. In apparent
death from violent emotions of the mind, from the
sudden impression of miasmata, or from drowning,
there is a loss of excitement ; but the excitability
of the system remains for minutes, and, in some
instances, for hours afterwards unimpaired, pro-
vided the accident which produced the loss of ex-
citement has not been attended with such exertions
as are calculated to waste it. If, for example, a
person should fall suddenlyinto the water, without
bruising his body, and sink before his fears or ex-
ertions had time to dissipate his excitability ; his
recovery from apparent death might be effected by
the gentle action of heat or frictions upon his body,
so as to convert his accumulated excitability gra-
dually into excitement. The same condition of
the system takes place when apparent death occurs
from freezing, and a recovery is accomplished by
the same gentle application of stimuli, provided the
organization of the body be not injured, or its ex-
citability wasted, by violent exertions previously
to its freezing. This excitability is the vehicle of
motion, and motion, when continued long enough,
produces sensation, which is soon followed by
thought; and in these, I said formerly, consists
perfect life in the human body.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. JS

For this explanation of the manner in which Ufe
is suspended and revived, in persons apparently
dead from cold, I am indebted to Mr. John Hun-
ter, who supposes, if it were possible for the body-
to be suddenly frozen, by an instantaneous abstrac-
tion of its heat, life might be continued for many
years in a suspended state, and revived at pleasure,
provided the body were preserved constantly in a
temperature barely sufficient to prevent re -anima-
tion, and never so great as to endanger the de-
struction of any organic part. The resuscitatioft
of insects, that have been in a torpid state for
months, and perhaps years, in substances that
have preserved their organization, should at least
defend this bold proposition from being treated as
chimerical. The effusions even of the imagination
of such men as Mr. Hunter, are entitled to respect.
They often become the germs of future discoveries.

In that state of suspended animation which oc-
curs in acute diseases, and which has sometimes
been denominated a trance^ the system is nearly in
tjie same excitable state that it is in apparent death
from drowning and freezing. Resuscitation, in
these cases, is not the effect, as in those which have
been mentioned, of artificial applications made to
the body for tl^it purpose. It appears to be spon-
taneous ; but it is produced by impressions made

60 INQUIRY INTO THE

upon the ears, and by the operations of the mmd
in dreams. Of the actions of these stimuU upon
the body in its apparently lifeless state, I have sa-
tisfied myself by many facts. I once attended a
citizen of Philadelphia, who died of a pulmonaiy
disease, in the 80th year of his age. A few days
before his death, he begged that he might not be in-
terred until one week after the usual signs of life
had left his body, and gave as a reason for this re-
quest, that he had, when a young man, died to all
appearance of the yellow fever, in one of the West
India islands. In this situation he distinctly heard
the persons who attended him, fix upon the time
and place of burying him. The horror of being
put under ground alive, produced such distressing
emotions in his mind, as to diffuse motion through-
out his body, and finally excited in him all the usu-
al functions of life. In Dr. Creighton's essay upon
mental derangement, there is a history of a case
nearly of a similar nature. " A young lady (says

the doctor) an attendant on the princess of ,

, after having been confined to her bed for a great
length of time, with a violent nervous disorder, was
at last, to all appearance, deprived of life. Her
lips were quite pale, her face resembled the coun-
tenance of a dead person, and her body grew cold.
She was removed from the room in which she diedy
was laid in a coffin, and the day for her funeral was

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 61

fixed on. The day arrived, and according to the
custom of the country, funeral songs and hymns
were sung before the door. Just as the people were
about to nail on the lid of the coffin, a kind of per-
spiration was observed on the surface of her body.
She recovered. The following is the account she
gave of her sensations : she said, " It seemed to
her as if in a dream, that she was really dead ; yet
she was perfectly conscious of all that happened
around her. She distinctly heard her friends speak-
ing and lamenting her death at the side of her cof-
fin. She felt them pull on the dead clothes, and
lay her in it. This feeling produced a mental
anxiety which she could not describe. She tried
to cry out, but her mind was without power,
and could not act on her body. She had the
contradictory feeling as if she were in her own
body, and not in it, at the same time. It was
equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm
or open her eyes, as to cry, although she continu-
ally endeavoured to do so. The internal anguish
of her mind was at its utmost height when the fu-
neral hymns began to be sung, and when the lid of
the coffin was about to be nailed on. The thought
that she was to be buried alive was the first which
gave activity to her mind, and enabled it to ope-
rate on her corporeal frame."

62 INqUIliy INTO THE

Where the ears lose their capacity of being act-
ed upon by stimuli, the mind, by its operations in
dreams, becomes a source of impressions which
again sets the wheels of life in motion. There is
an account published by Dr. Arnold, in his obser-
vations upon insanity,* of a certain John Engel-
breght, a German, who was believed to be dead,
and who was evidently resuscitated by the exer-
cises of his mind upon subjects which were of a
delightful or stimulating nature. This history shall
be taken from Mr. Engelbreght's words. " It
was on Thursday noon (says he) about twelve
o'clock, when I perceived that death was making
his approaches upon me from the lower parts up-
wards, insomuch that my whole body became stiff.
I had no feeling left in my hands and feet, neither
in any other part of my whole body, nor was I at last
able to speak or see, for my niouth now becoming
very stiiF, I was no longer able to open it, nor did
I feel it any longer. My eyes also broke in my
head in such a manner that I distinctly felt it. For
all that, I understood what they said, when they
were praying by me, and I distinctly heard them
say, feel his legs, how stiff and cold they have be-
come. This I heard distinctly, but I had no per-
ception of their touch. I heard the watchman cry

* Vol. ii. p. 298.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 63

11 o'clock, but at 12 o'clock my hearing left me."
After relating his passage from the body to heaven
with the velocity of an arrow shot from a cross
bow, he proceeds, and says, that as he was twelve
hours in dying, so he w as twelve hours in returning
to life. " As I died (says he) from beneath up-
wards, so I revived again the contrary way, from
above to beneath, or from top to toe. Being con-
veyed back from the heavenly glory, I began to hear
something of what they were praying for me, in the
same room with me. Thus was my hearing the
first sense I recovered. After this I began to have
a perception of my eyes, so that, by little and little^
my whole body became strong and sprightly, and
no sooner did I get a feeling of my legs and feet,
than I arose and stood firm upon them with a firm-
ness I had never enjoyed before. The heavenly
joy I had experienced, invigorated me to such a
degree, that people were astonished at my rapid,
and almost instantaneous recovery."

The explanation I have given of the cause of re-
suscitation in this man will serve to refute a belief
in a supposed migration of the soul from the body,
in cases of apparent death. The imagination, it is
true, usually conducts the whole mind to the abodes
of happy or miserable spirits, but it acts here in the
same way that it does when it transports it, in com-

64 INqUIRY INTO THE

mon dreams, to numerous and distant parts of the
world.

There is nothing supernatural in Mr. Engel-
breght being invigorated by his supposed flight to
heaven. Pleasant dreams alM^ays stimulate and
strengthen the body, while dreams which are ac-
companied with distress or labour debilitate and
fatigue it.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE.

LECTURE III.

Gentlemen,

LET us next take a view of the state of
animal life in the different inhabitants of our globe,
as varied by the circumstances of civilization, diet,
situation, and climate.

I. In the Indians of the northern latitudes of
America there is often a defect of the stimulus of
aliment, and of the understanding and passions.
Their vacant countenances, and their long dis-
gusting taciturnity, are the effects of the want of
action in their brains from a deficiency of ideas ;
and their tranquillity under all the common cir-
cumstances of irritation, pleasure, or grief, are the
result of an absence of passion ; for they hold it to
be disgraceful to show any outward signs of anger,
joy, or even of domestic affection. This account
of the Indian character, I know, is contrary to that
which is given of it by Rousseau, and several other
Avriters, who have attempted to prove that man may
become perfect and happy without the aids of civil-
ization and religion. This opinion is contradicted

VOL. I. I

66 iNqUlRY INTO THE

by the experience of all ages, and is rendered ridi-
culous by the facts which are well ascertained in
the history of the customs and habits of our Ame-
rican savages. In a cold climate they are the most
miserable beings upon the face of the earth. The
greatest part of their time is spent in sleep, or un-
der the alternate influence of hunger and gluttony.
They moreover indulge in vices which are alike
contrary to moral and physical happiness. It is in
consequence of these habits that they discover so
early the marks of old age, and that so few of them
are long-lived. The absence and diminution of
many of the stimuli of life in these people is sup-
plied in part by the violent exertions with which
they hunt and carry on war, and by the extravagant
manner with which they afterwards celebrate their
exploits, in their savage dances and songs.

II. In the inhabitants of the torrid regions of
Africa there is a deficiency of labour ; for the eartli
produces spontaneously nearly all the sustenance
they require. Their understandings and passions
are moreover in a torpid state. But the absence
of bodily and mental stimuli in these people is am-
ply supplied by the constant heat of the sun, by the
profuse use of spices in their diet, and by the pas-
sion for musical sounds which so universally cha-
racterises the African nations.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 67

III. In Greenland the body is exposed during
a long winter to such a degree of cold as to reduce
the pulse to 40 or 50 strokes in a minute. But
the effects of this cold in lessening the quantity of
life are obviated in part by the heat of close stove
rooms, by warm clothing, and by the peculiar na-
ture of the aliment of the Greenlanders, which con-
sists chiefly of animal food, of dried fish, and of
whale oil. They prefer the last of those articles in
so rancid a stote, that it imparts a foetor to their
perspiration, which, Mr. Crantz says, renders even
their churches offensive to strangers. I need hardly
add, that a diet possessed of such diffusible quali-
ties cannot fail of being highly stimulating. It is
remarkable that the food of all the northern nations
of Europe is composed of stimulating animal or
vegetable matters, and that the use of spirituous li-
quors is universal among them.

IV. Let us next turn our eyes to the miserable
inhabitants of those eastern countries which com-
pose the Turkish empire. Here we behold life in
its most feeble state, not only from the absence of
physical, but of other stimuli which operate upon
the inhabitants of other parts of the world. Among
the poor people of Turkey there is a general defi-
ciency of aliment. Mr. Volney in his Travels tells
us, " That the diet of the Bedouins seldom exceeds

68 ii^qyiRY into the

six ounces a day, and that it consists of six or seven
dates soaked in butter-milk, arid afterwards mixed
with a little sweet milk, or curds." There is like-
wise a general deficiency among them of stimulus
from the operations of the mental faculties ; for
such is the despotism of the government in Tur-
key, that it weakei^s not only the understanding,
but it annihilates all that immense source of stimuli
which arises from the exercise of the domestic and
public aifections. A Turk lives wholly to himself.
In point of time he occupies only the moment in
which he exists ; for his futurity, as to life and
property, belongs altogether to his master. Fear
is the reigning principle of his actions, and hope
and joy seldom add a single pulsation to his heart.
Tyranny even imposes a restraint upon the stimu-
lus which arises from conversation, for " They
speak (says Mr. Volney) with a slow feeble voice,
as if the lungs wanted strength to propel air enough
through the glottis to form distinct articulate
sounds." The same traveller adds, that " They
are slow in all their motions, that their bodies are
small, that they have small evacuations, and that
their blood is so destitute of serocity, that nothing
but the greatest heat can preserve its fluidity."
The deficiency of aliment, and the absence of men-
tal stimuli in these people is supplied.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 69

1. By the heat of their climate.

2. By their passion for musical sounds and fine
clothes. And

3. By their general use of coffee, garlic,* and
opium.

The more debilitated the body is, the more
forcibly these stimuli act upon it. Hence, accord-
ing to Mr. Volney, the Bedouins, whose slender
diet has been mentioned, enjoy good health ; for
this consists not in strength, but in an exact propor-
tion being kept up between the excitability of the
body, and the number and force of the stimuli
which act upon it

V. Many of the observations which have been
made upon the inhabitants of Africa, and of the
Turkish dominions, apply to the inhabitants of
China and the East Indies. They want, in many
instances, the stimulus of* animal food. Their
minds are, moreover, in a state too languid to act
with much force upon their bodies. The absence
and deficiency of these stimuli are supplied by,

* Niebuhr's Travels,

70 INqUIIlY INTO THE

1. The heat of the climate in the southern parts
of those countries.

2. By a vegetable diet abounding in nourish-
ment, particularly rice and beans.

3. By the use of tea in China, and by a stimu-
lating coffee made of the dried and toasted seeds of
the datura stramonium, in the neighbourhood of
the Indian coast. Some of these nations likewise
chew stimulating substances, as too many of our
citizens do tobacco.

Among the poor and depressed subjects of the
governments of the middle and southern parts of
Europe, the deficiency of the stimulus of whole-
some food, of clothing, of fuel, and of liberty,
is supplied, in some countries, by the invigorating
influence of the christian religion upon animal life,
and in others by the general use of tea, coffee,
garlic, onions, opium, tobacco, malt liquors, and
"ardent spirits. The lise of each of these stimuli
seems to be regulated by the circumstances of cli-
mate. In cold countries, where the earth yields its
increase with reluctance, and where vegetable ali-
ment is scarce, the want of the stimulus of disten-
tion which that species of food is principally calcu-
lated to produce is sought for in that of ardent

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 71

Spirits. To the southward of 40°, a substitute for
the distention from mild vegetable food is sought
for in onions, garlic, and tobacco. But further, a
uniform climate calls for more of these artificial sti-
muli than a climate that is exposed to the alternate
action of heat and cold, winds and calms, and of wet
and dry weather. Savages and ignorant people
lil^e^vise require more of them than persons of
civilized manners, and cultivated understandings.
It would seem from these facts that man cannot ex-
ist without sensation of some kind, and that when
it is not derived from natui'al means, it will always
be sought for in such as are artificial.

In no part of the human species, is animal life in
a more perfect state than in the inhabitants of
Great Britain,* and the United States of America.
With all the natural stimuli that have been men-
tioned, they are constantly under the invigorat-
ing influence of liberty. There is an indissoluble
union between moral, political, and physical happi-
ness ; and if it be true, that elective and represen-
tative governments are most favourable to indivi-
dual, as well as national prosperity, it follows of
course, that they are most favourable to animal
life. But this opinion does not rest upon an indue -

• Hallei's Elementa Physiologic, vol. viii. p. 3. p. 107.

72 iNqUIRY lNTO'«THE

tion derived from the relation, which truths up-
on all subjects bear to each other. Many facts
prove animal life to exist in a larger quantity and
for a longer time, in the enlightened and happy
state of Connecticut, in which republican liberty
has existed above one hundred and fifty years, than
in any other country upon the surface of the globe.

It remains now to mention certain mental stimuli
which act nearly alike in the production of animal
life, upon the individuals of all the nations in the
world. They are,

1. The desire of life. This principle, so deeply
and universally implanted in human nature, acts
very powerfully in supporting our existence. It
has been observed to prolong life. Sickly tra-
vellers by sea and land, often live under circum-
stances of the greatest weakness, till they reach
their native country, and then expire in the bo-
som of their friends. This desire of life often turns
the scale in favour of a recovery in acute diseases.
Its influence will appear, from the difference in the
periods in which death was induced in two per-
sons, who were actuated by opposite passions with
respect to life. Atticus, we are told, died of volun-
tary abstinence from food in five days. In sir Wil-
liam Hamilton's account of the earthquake at Cala-

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 73

bria, we read of a girl who lived eleven days with-
out food before she expired. In the former case,
life was shortened by an aversion from it ; in the
latter, it was protracted by the desire of it. The
late Mr. Brissot, in his visit to this city, informed
me, that the application of animal magnetism (in
which he was a believer) had in no instance cured
a disease in a West India slave. Perhaps it was
rendered inert, by its not being accompanied by a
strong desire of life ; for this principle exists in a
more feeble state in slaves than in freemen. It is
possible likewise the wills and imaginations of these
degraded people may have become so paralytic, by
slavery, as to be incapable of being excited by the
impression of this fanciful remedy.

2. The love of money sets the whole animal
machine in motion. Hearts, which are insensible
to the stimuli of religion, patriotism, love, and even
of the domestic affections, are excited into action
by this passion. The city of Philadelphia, between
the 10th and 15th of August, 1791, will long be
remembered by contemplative men, for having fur-
nished the most extraordinary proofs of the stimu-
lus of the love of money upon the human body. A
new scene of speculation was produced at that
time by the scrip of the bank of the United States.

VOL. I. K

74 INqUIRY INTO THE

It excited febrile diseases in three persons who be-
came my patients. In one of them, the acquisition
of twelve thousand dollars in a few minutes, by a
lucky sale, brought on madness, which terminated
in death in a few days. * The whole city felt the
impulse of this paroxysm of avarice. The slow
and ordinary means of earning money were desert-
ed, and men of every profession and trade were
seen in all our streets hastening to the coffee-house,
where the agitation of countenance, and the desul-
tory manners, of all the persons who were interest-
ed in this species of gaming, exhibited a truer pic-
ture of a bedlam, than of a place appropriated to
the transaction of mercantile business. But fur-
ther, the love of money discovers its stimulus up-
on the body in a peculiar manner in the games of
cai'ds and dice. I have heard of a gentleman in
Virginia who passed two whole days and nights in
succession at a card table ; and it is related in the
life of a noted gamester in Ireland, that when he
was so ill as to be unable to rise from his chair, he
would suddenly revive when brought to the hazard
table, by hearing the rattling of the dice.

* Dr. Mead relates, upon the authority of Dr. Hales, that
more of the successful speculators in the South-Sea scheme
of 1720 became insane, than of those who had been ruined
by it.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 75

2. Public amusements of all kinds, such as a
horse race, a cockpit, a chase, the theatre, the cir-
cus, masquerades, public dinners, and tea parties,
all exert an artificial stimulus upon the system, and
thus supply the defect of the rational exercises of
the mind.

4. The love of dress is not confined in its sti-
mulating operation to persons in health. It acts
perceptibly in some cases upon invalids. I have
heard of a gentleman in South Carolina, who al-
ways relieved himself of a fit of low spirits by chang-
ing his di'ess ; and I believe there are few people,
who do not feel themselves enlivened by putting
on a new suit of clothes.

5. Novelty is an immense source of agreeable
stimuli. Companions, studies, pleasures, modes
of business, prospects, and situations, with respect
to town and country, or to different countries, that
are new, all exert an invigorating influence upon
health and life.

6. The love of fame acts in various ways ; but
its stimulus is most sensible and durable in military
life. It counteractS;in many instances the debilitat-
ing effects of hunger, cold, and labour. It has some-
times done more, by removing the weakness which

76 INqtriRY INTO THE

is connected with many diseases. In several in-
stances, it has assisted the hardships of a camp life
in curing pulmonary consumption.

7. The love of country is a deep seated principle
of action in the human breast. Its stimulus is some-
times so excessive, as to induce disease in persons
who recently migrate, and settle in foreign coun-
tries. It appears in various forms ; but exists most
frequently in the solicitude, labours, attachments,
and hatred of party spirit. All these act forcibly
in supporting animal life. It is because newspa-
pers are supposed to contain the measure of the
happiness or misery of our country, that they are
so interesting to all classes of people. Those vehi-
cles of intelligence, and of public pleasure or pain,
are frequently desired with the impatience of a
meal, and they often produce the same stimulating
effects upon the body.*

8. The different religions of the world, by the
activity they excite in the mind, have a sensible in-
fluence upon human life. Atheism is the worst of
sedatives to the understanding and passions. It is
the abstraction of thought from the most sublime,

* They have been very happily called by Mr. Green in
his poem entitled Spleen, " the manna of the day."

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 77

and of love from the most perfect, of all possible
objects. Man is as naturally a religious, as he is
a social and domestic, animal ; and the same vio-
lence is done to his mental faculties, by robbing
him of a belief in a God, that is done by dooming
him to live in a cell, deprived of the objects and
pleasures of social and domestic life. The neces-
sary and immutable connection between the texture
of the human mind, and the worship of an object
of some kind, has lately been demonstrated by the
atlieists of Europe, who, after rejecting the true
God, have instituted the worship of nature, of for-
tune, and of human reason ; and, in some instances,
with ceremonies of the most expensive and splen-
did kind. Religions are friendly to animal hfe, in
proportion as they elevate the understanding, and
act upon the passions of hope and love. It will
readily occur to you, that Christianity, Avhen believ-
ed and obeyed, according to its original consis-
tency with itself, and with the divine attributes, is
more calculated to produce those effects than any
other religion in the world. Such is the salutary
operation of its doctrines and precepts upon health
and life, that if its divine authority rested upon no
other argument, this alone would be sufficient to
recommend it to our belief. How long mankind
may continue to prefer substituted pursuits and
pleasures to this invigorating stimulus is uncer-

78 INQUIRY INTO THE

tain; but the time, we are assured, will come,
when the understanding shall be elevated from its
present inferior objects, and the luxated passions
be reduced to their original order. This change
in the mind of man, I believe, will be effected only
by the influence of the christian religion, after all
the efforts ofhuman reason to produce it, by means
of civilization, philosophy, liberty, and govern-
ment, have been exhausted to no purpose.

Thus far, gentlemen, we have considered animal
life as it respects the human species ; but the prin-
ciples I am endeavouring to establish require that
we should take a view of it in animals of every
species, in all of which we shall find it depends up-
on the same causes as in the human body.

And here I shall begin by remarking, that if
we should discover the stimuli which support life
in certain animals to be fewer in number, or weaker
in force, than those which support it in our species,
we must resolve it into that attribute of the Deity,
which seems to have delighted in variety in all his
works.

The following observations apply more or less to
all the animals upon our globe.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 79

1. They all possess either hearts, lungs, brains,
nerves, or muscular fibres. It is as yet a contro-
versy among naturalists, whether animal life can ex-
ist without a brain ; but no one has denied muscu-
lar fibres, and of course contractility, or excitabi-
lity, to belong to animal life, in all its shapes.

2. They all require more or less air for their
existence. Even the snail inhales it for seven
months under ground through a pellicle, which it
weaves out of slime, as a covering for its body.
If this pellicle at any time become too thick to
admit the air, the snail opens a passage in it for
that purpose. Now air we know acts powerfully
in supporting animal life.

3. Many of them possess heat equal to that of
the human body. Birds possess several degrees
beyond it. Now heat, it was said formerly, acts
with great force in the production of animal life.

4. They all feed upon substances more or less
stimulating to their bodies. Even water itself, che-
mistry has taught us, aifords an aliment, not only
stimulating, but nourishing to many animals.

5. Many of them possess senses more acute and
excitable, than the same organs in the human

80 INQUIRY INTO THK

species. These expose surfaces for the action of
external impressions, that supply the absence or de-
ficiency of mental faculties.

6. Such of them as are devoid of sensibility pos-
sess an uncommon portion of contractility, or sim-
ple excitability. This is most evident in the poly-
pus. When cut to pieces, it appears to feel little
or no pain.

7. They all possess loco-motive powers in a
greater or less degree, and of course are acted up-
on by the stimulus of muscular motion.

8. Most of them appear to feel a stimulus, from
the gratification of their appetites for food, and for
venereal pleasures, far more powerful than that
which is felt by our species from the same causes.
I shall hereafter mention some facts from Spalan-
zani upon the subject of generation, that will prove
the stimulus, from venery, to be strongest in those
animals, in which other stimuli act with the least
force. Thus the male frog, during its long connec-
tion with its female, suffers its fimbs to be ampu-
tated, without discovering the least mark of pain,
and without relaxing its hold of the object of its
embraces.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 81

9. In many animals we behold evident marks of
understanding and passion. The elephant, the fox,
and the ant, exhibit strong proofs of thought ; and
where is the school boy that cannot bear testimony
to the anger of the bee and the wasp ?

10. But what shall we say of those animals,
which pass long winters in a state in which there
is an apparent absence of the stimuli of heat, exer-
cise, and the motion of the blood. Life in these
animals is probably supported,

1. By such an accumulation of excitability, as
to yield to impressions, which to us are impercep-
tible.

2. By the stimulus of aliment in a state of di-
gestion in the stomach, or by the stimulus of ali-
ment restrained from digestion by means of cold ;
for Mr. John Hunter has proved, by an experiment
on a frog, that cold below a certain degree, checks
that animal process,

3. By the constant action of air upon their bo-
dies.

It is possible life may exist in these animals, du-
ring their hybernation, in the total absence of ira-

VOL. I. L

82 iNq^iriiiY into the

pression and motion of every kind. This may be
the case, where the torpor from cold has been sud-
denly brought upon their bodies. Excitability here
is in an accumulated, but quiescent, state.

11. It remains only under this head to inquire,
in what manner is, life supported in those animals
which live in a cold element, and whose blood is
sometimes but a little above the freezing point?
It will be a sufficient answer to this question to re-
mark, that heat and cold are relative terms, and that
different animals, according to their organization,
require very different degrees of heat for their ex-
istence. Thirty-two degrees of it are probably as
stimulating to some of these cold blooded animals,
(as they are called,) as 70° or 80*^ are to the hu-
man body.

It might afford additional support to the doctrine
of animal life which I have delivered, to point out
the manner in which life and growth are produced
in vegetables of all kinds. But this subject belongs
to the professor of botany and natural history,*
who is amply qualified to do it justice. I shall
only remark, that vegetable life is as much the off-
spring of stimuli as animal, and that skill in agri-

* Dr. Barton.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. ^3

culture consists chiefly in the proper application of
them. The seed of a plant, like an animal body,
has no principle of life within itself. If preserved
for many years in a drawer, or in earth, below the
stimulating influence of heat, air, and water, it dis-
covers no sign of vegetation. It grows, like an
animal, only in consequence of stimuli acting upon
its capacity of life.

From a review of what has been said of animal
life, in all its numerous forms and modifications, we
see that it is as much an effect of impressions upon a
peculiar species of matter, as sound is of the stroke
of a hammer upon a bell, or music of the motion
of the bow upon the strings of a violin. I exclude
therefore the intelligent principle ofWhytt, the
medical mind of Stahl, the healing powers of Cul-
len, and the vital principal of John Hunter, as much
from the body, as I do an intelligent principle from
air, fire, and water.

Upon the opinions of these different authors, I
beg leave to add further, that they are all modifica-
tions of two errors held by Pythagoras and Epicu-
rus. The former believed and taught what is
called the transmigration of souls, that is, that the
principle of life, rational and animal, was a kind of

84 INqUIRY INTO THE

elementary body ; that it never died; and that itpass-=
ed from animals that perished, into other animal
matter, and thereby imparted to it a soul, or what
is called life. This opinion accords with the vital
principle of Mr. Hunter and Dr. Girtanner, while
the anima medica of Stahl accords with the doc-
trine taught by Epicurus, of the globe being ani-
mated by a principle called anima mundi. Both
opinions substitute an intelligent and self-moving
principle to the agency of a Supreme Being, in
every part of his works. There is a third error
connected with this subject, which it may not be
improper to mention upon this occasion, and that is,
that man consists of spirit, soul, and body... .that
his spirit resides in his brain, and is concerned only
in intellectual and spiritual exercises.. ..that his soul
is diffused through every part of his body, and
constitutes what is called his "soulish," or animal,
life. This pagan opinion seems to have tinctured
some of the writings of St. Paul, who, though in-
spired by the Spirit of truth upon theological sub-
jects, was left to follow the opinions of the world
in matters of human learning. The doctrine 1 have
'delivered, obliges us to consider man as consisting
and of two parts only ; these are, soul, or mind,
and body. This view of the nature of man is sim-
ple, and accords alike with reason and revelation.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 85

The speaking figures, which are conducted
tliiough our country as spectacles to amuse the
vulgar, afForda striking illustration of the error of
animal life d^ending upon a self-moving principle
in the body. The voice is supposed to come from
xvithin the figure ; whereas, it is certain it is con-
veyed there by the reflection of words pronounced
by a person external to it.

I have often been struck with the similarity of
the controversies upon the origin of moral obliga-
tion, of power, and of animal life, and with the simi-
larity of their issue in a simple elementary truth,
obvious to the most humble capacities. They
were all believed to depend upon causes within
themselves ; but they are now rescued from an
internal and placed upon an external basis.
The origin of moral obligation, which was for-
merly ascribed to utility, to sympathy, and to
the fitness of things, is now derived wholly from
the will of God. The origin of power, which
was derived for ages from divine or hereditary
right, now rests exclusively upon the wull of the
people, while the origin of animal life, which has
been, time immemorial, derived from a self-mov-
ing power, under the different names that have been
mentioned, now reposes, probably for ever, upon

86 INqUIRY INTO THE

external and internal impressions. By means of
this doctrine, revelation and reason embrace each
other, and Moses and the prophets shake hands
with Dr. Brown, and all those physicians, who
maintain the great and sublime truth which he
has promulgated. Think of it, gentlemen, in your
closets, and in your beds, and talk of it in your
walks, and by your fire-sides. It is the active and
wide-spreading seminal principle of all truth in
medicine.

It is no uncommon thing for the simplicity of
causes to be lost in the magnitude of their effects.
By contemplating the wonderful functions of life,
we have strangely overlooked the numerous and
obscure circumstances which produce it. Thus
the humble but true origin of power in the people,
is often forgotten in the splendour and pride of go-
vernments. It is not necessary to be acquainted
with the precise nature of that form of matter,
which is capable of producing life from impressions
made upon it. It is sufficient for our purpose to
know the fact. It is immaterial, moreover, whe-
ther this matter derives its power of being acted
upon wholly from the brain, or whether it be in
part inherent in animal fibres. The inferences are
the same in favour of life being the effect of stimuli,

CAUSE Ok ANIMAL LIFE. 87

and of its being as truly mechanical, as the move-
ments of a clock from the pressure of its weights,
or the passa|g of a ship in the water from the im-
pulse of winos and tide.

The infinity of effects, from similar causes, has
often been taken notice of in the works of the
Creator. It would seem as if they had all been
made after one pattern. The late discovery of the
cause of combustion has thrown great light upon
our subject. Wood and coal are no longer believ-
ed to contain a principle of fire. The heat and
flame they emit are derived from an agent altoge-
their external to them. They are produced by a
matter, which is absorbed from the air by means
of its decomposition. This matter acts upon the
predisposition of the fuel to receive it, in the same
way that stimuli act upon the human body. The
two agents differ only in their effects. The foniier
produces the destruction of the bodies upon which
it acts, while the latter excites the more gentle and
durable motions of life. Common language in ex-
pressing these effects is correct, as far as it- relates
to their cause. We speak of a coal of fire being
aiivey and of the jiame of life.

The causes of life which I have delivered will
receive considerable support, by contrasting! them

88 INQUIRY INTO THE

with the causes of death. This catastrophe of the
body consists in such a change, induced on it by
disease or old age, as to prevent its ^hibiting the
phenonjena of hfe. It is brought on!r

1. By the abstraction of all the stimuli which
support life. Death from this cause is produced
by the same mechanical means, that the emission of
sound from a violin is prevented by the abstraction
of the bow from its strings.

2. By the excessive force of stimuli of all kinds.
No more occurs here, than happens from too much
pressure upon the strings of a violin, preventing its
emitting musical tones.

3. By too much relaxation, or too weak a tex-
ture of the matter which composes the human body.
No more occurs here, than is observed in the ex-
tinction of sound by the total relaxation or slender
combination of the strings of a violin.

4. By an error in the place of certain fluid or so-
lid parts of the body. No more occurs here, tlian
would. happen from fixing the strings of a violin
upon its body, instead of elevating them upon it?>
bridge.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 89

5. By the action of poisonous exhalations, or of
certain fluids vitiated in the body, upon parts which
emit most fcn-cibly the motions of life. No more
happens here, than occurs from enveloping the
strings of a violin in a piece of wax.

6. By the solution of continuity, by means of
wounds in solid parts of the body. No more oc-
curs in death from this cause, than takes place
when the emission of sound from a violin is pre-
vented by a rupture of its strings.

7. Death is produced by a preternatural rigidity,
and in some instances by an ossification of the solid
parts of the body in old age, in consequence of
which they are incapable of receiving and emitting
the motions of life. No more occurs here, than
would happen if a stick or pipe-stem were placed,
in the room of catgut, upon the bridges of the
violin. But death may take place in old age, ^vith-
out a change in the texture of animal matter, from
the stimuli of life losing their effect by repetition,
just as opium, from the same cause, ceases to pro-
duce its usual effects upon the body.

Should it be asked, what is that peculiar organi-
zation of matter, which enables it to emit life, when
acted upon by stimuli, I answer, I do not know.

VOL. I. M

90 INQUIRY INTO THE

It is true, the votaries of chemistry have lately at-
tempted to imitate it; but no arrangements of
matter by their hands have ever produced a single
living fibre, nor have any of their compounds pro-
duced a substance endowed with the properties of
dead animal matter. Lavoissier laboured in vain
to produce that simple animal substance we call
bile. That the human body is composed of certain
matters which belong to the objects of chemistry,
there can be no doubt ; but their proportions, and
manner of aggregation, are unknown to us; nor
are the products, when obtained by fire, the same
in form, number, or proportion, which existed in
the body in its living state. But admitting this
medico- chemical theory of animal life to be de-
monstrated, it does not in the least degree militate
against the doctrine which I have taught. Let us
suppose a chemist to have discovered all the mat-
ters Avhich compose an animal body, and to have
arranged them in their exact order and propor-
tions, they cannot in this situation assume the
properties of life, without the impression of some
agent upon them. A stimulus of some kind must
give them activity. Even the matter of phosphorus
torpid, when confined in a phial. It requires the
stimulus of air to impart to it its blazing life. It
is remarkable, that some of the ancient philosophers
had more correct ideas of the origin of animal life

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 91

than some of our modem chemists. This is ele-
gantly illustrated in the fable of Prometheus. He
was unable, by any chemical combination, to ani-
mate his image of clay, until he stole fire, or an ex-
ternal stimulus from heaven, for that purpose. As
well might we suppose thinking to be a chemical
process, as motion and sensation. They are all
alike the effects of impression. We think by force,
as well as live by force. If any man doubt the
truth of this assertion, let him suspend, for a
moment, the operations of his mind, or, in other
words, let him cease to think. As well might he
attempt to stop the pulsation of his heart, by the
action of his will, or to arrest the planets in their
course, by holding up his finger. Here then let
us limit our inquiries, and remain satisfied with
facts which are obvious, and capable of applica-
tion to all the useful purposes of medicine.

The great Creator has kindly established a Avit-
ness of his unsearchab'e wisdom in every part of
his works, in order to prevent our forgetting him,
in the successful exercises of our reason. Maho-
met once said, " that he should believe himself to
be a God, if he could bring down rain from the
clouds, or give life to an animal." It belongs ex-
clusively to the true God to endow matter with
those singular properties, which enable it, under

92 iNqyiRY into the

certain circumstances, to exhibit the appearances
of Ufe.

I cannot conclude this subject, without taking
notice of its extensive application to medicine, me-
taphysics, theology, and morals.

The doctrine of animal life which has been
taught exhibits, in the

First place, a new view of the nervous system,
by discovering its origin in the extremities of the
nerves on which impressions are made, and its
termination in the brain. This idea is extended in
an ingenious manner by Mr. Valli, in his treatise
upon animal electricity.

2. It discovers to us the true means of promot-
ing health and longevity, by proportioning the num-
ber and force of stimuli to the age, climate, situa-
tion, habits, and temperament of the human body.

3. It leads us to a knowledge of the causes of all
diseases. These consist in excessive or preter-
natural excitement in certain parts, of the hu-
man body, accompanied generally with irregular
motions, and induced by natural or artificial stimuli.
The latter have been called, very properly, by Mr.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 93

Hunter, irritants. The occasional absence of mo-
tion in acute diseases is the effect only of the ex-
cess of impetus in their remote causes.

4. It discovers to us that the cure of all diseases
depends simply upon the abstraction of stimuli from
the whole, or from a part, of the body, when the
motions excited by them are in excess ; and in the
increase of their number and force, when motions
are of a moderate nature. For the former pur-
pose, we employ a class of medicines known by
the name of sedatives. For the latter, we make
use of stimulants. Under these two extensive
heads are included all the numerous articles of the
materia medica.

5. It enables us to reject the doctrine of innate
ideas, and to ascribe all our knowledge of sensible
objects to impressions acting upon an innate capa-
city to receive ideas. Were it possible for a child
to grow up to manhood without the use of any of
its senses, it would not possess a single idea of a
material object; and as all human knowledge is
c6mpounded of simple ideas, this person would be
as destitute of knowledge of every kind, as the
grossest portion of vegetable or fossil matter.

SA' INQUIRY INTO THE

6. The account which has been given of animal
life furnishes a striking iUusti-ation of the origin of
human actions, by the impression of motives upon
the will. As well might we admit an inherent
principle of life in animal matter, as a self-deter-
mining power in this faculty of the mind. Mo-
tives are necessary, not only to constitute its Jree-
dom, but its essence ; for, without them, there could
be no more a will, than there could be vision with-
out light, or hearing without sound. It is true,
they are often so obscure as not to be perceived,
and they sometimes become insensible from habit ;
but the same things have been remarked in the
operation of stimuli, and yet we do not upon this
account deny their agency introducing animal life.
In thus deciding: in favour of the necessitv of mo-
tives to produce actions, I cannot help bearing a
testimony against the gloomy misapplication of this
doctrine by some modern writers. When proper-
ly understood, it is calculated to produce the most
comfortable views of the divine government, and
the most beneficial effects upon morals and human
happiness.

7. There are errors of an impious nature, which
sometimes obtain a currency, from being disguised
by innocent names. The doctrine of animal life
that has been delivered is directly opposed to an

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 95

error of this kind, which has had the most bane-
ful influence upon morals and religion. To sup-
pose a principle to reside necessarily and constant-
ly in the human body, which acted independently
of external circumstances, is to ascribe to it an at-
tribute, which I shall not connect, even in language,
with the creature man. Self-existence belongs
only to God.

The best criterion of the truth of a philosophical
opinion is, its tendency to produce exalted ideas of
the Divine Being, and humble views of ourselves.
The doctrine of animal life which has been deli-
vered is calculated to produce these effects in an
eminent degree ; for

8. It does homage to the Supreme Being, as the
governor of the universe, and establishes the cer-
tainty of his universal and particulai' providence.
Admit a principle of life in the human body, and
we open a door for the restoration of the old
Epicurean or atheistical philosophy which has
been mentioned. The doctrine I have taught
cuts the sinews of that error ; for by rendering the
continuance of animal life, no less than its com-
mencement, the effect of the constant operation of di-
vine power and goodness, it leads us to believe that
the whole creation is supported in the same manner.

96 INQUIRY INTO THE

It leads us further to distinguish between the works
of the Creator of the universe, and the works of a
common architect. It has been supposed by some
men, that the author of our world formed all its
wonderful machinery as a man makes a clock, and,
haying wound it up, threw it out of his hands,
and afterwards retired to rest, or employed him-
self in other acts of creating power,, or if this
were not the case, that he committed the care
of his works to certain deputies, called nature in
the inanimate, and vital principle in the animated
parts of the globe. This idea is contrary to the
whole tenor of revelation. The Being that created
our world never takes his hand, nor his eye, for a
single moment, from any part of it. He constantly

" Warms in the sun, refreshes in each breeze,
" Glows in the stars, blossoms in the trees,
" Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
" Spreads undivided, operates unspent."

His providence is one continued act of creating
power. The sun rises (to use the words of a late
elegant writer*) only because he says every morning,
" let there be light." The moon and the stars sup-
ply the absence of the sun, only because he says
every evening, " let there be lights in the firmament

* Mr. Favrcett.

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 97

of heaven, to divide the day from the night.'' The
seasons of spring and autumn return, only because
he says, " let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit accor-
ding to its kind ;" and even man exists, only because
he breathes into his nostrils the breath, or air, of
life, not only at his birth, but every moment of
his existence.

9. The view that has been given of the depen-
dent state of man for the blessing of life leads us
to contemplate, with very opposite and inexpressi-
ble feelings, the sublime idea which is given of the
Deity in the scriptures, as possessing life " within
himself." This divine prerogative has never been
imparted but to one Being, and that is the Son of
God. This appears from the following declara-
tion. " For as the Father hath life in himself, so
hath he given to the Son to have life -within him-
seip""^ To this plenitude of independent life we
are to ascribe his being called, the " life of the
world," " the prince of life," and " life" itself, in
the New Testament. These divine epithets, which
are very properly founded upon the manner of our
Saviour's existence, exalt him infinitely above sim.

* John V. verse :^6,
VOL. I. N

98 rliJC^UIRy INTO THE

pie humanity, and establish his divine nature upon
the basis of reason, as well as revelation.

10. We have heard that some of the stimuli,
which produce animal life, are derived from the
moral and physical evils of our world. From be-
holding these instruments of death thus converted
by divine skill into the means of life, we are led to
believe goodness to be the supreme attribute of the
Deity, and that it will appear finally to predominate
in all his works.

11. The doctrine which has been delivered is
calculated to humble the pride of man, by teach-
ing him his constant dependence upon his Maker
for his existence, and that he has no pre-eminence,
in his tenure of it, over the meanest insect that flut-
ters in the air, or the humblest plant that grows
upon the earth. What an inspired writer says of
the innumerable Animals which inhabit the ocean,
may with equal propriety be said of the whole hu-
man race. " Thou sendest forth thy spirit, and
they are created. Thou takest away their breath,
— they die, and return to their dust." Let us not
complain of this tenure of our lives. By taking
their capital out of our hands, and dealing it out to
us according to our necessities, our benevolent
Creator prevents our squandering it away without

CAUSE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 99

judgment or prudence, and thus becoming bank-
rupts in life as soon as we began to exist.

12. Melancholy indeed would have been the is-
sue of all our inquiries, did we take a final leave of
the human body in its state of decomposition in the
grave. Revelation furnishes us with an elevating
and comfortable assurance that this will not be the
case. The precise manner of its re-organization,
and the new means of its future existence, are un-
known to us. It is sufficient to believe the event
will take place, and that, after it, the soul and body
of man will be exalted, in one respect, to an equality
with their Creator. They will be immortal.

Here, gentlemen, we close the history of animal
life. I feel as if I had waded across a rapid and
dangerous stream. Whether I have gained the op-
posite; shore with my head clean, or covered with
mud and weeds, I leave wholly to your determi-
nation.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

AMONG THE

INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA:

AND

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

THEIR DISEASES AND REMEDIES WITH THOSE
OF CIVILIZED NATIONS.

READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, HELD AT
PHILADELPHIA, ON THE FOURTH OF FEBRUARY, 1774.

AN INQUIRY, &c.

Gentlemen,*

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 suffi:'ages 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. 1 beg, therefore, that
you would forget, for a while, the abilities ne-
cessary to execute this task with propriety, and
listen widi candour to the efforts of a member,
whose attachment to the society was the only qua-

* This Inquiry was the subject of an Anniversary Ora-
tion. The style of an oration is therefore preserved in many
parts of it.

104 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

lification that entitled him to the honour of your
choice.

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 dis-
eases and remedies with those of civilized na-
tions." You will readily anticipate the diffi-
culty of doing justice to this subject. How shall
we distinguish between the original diseases of the
Indians and those contracted from their inter-
course 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 cre-
dulity of the Europeans, and the superstition of the
Indians, have involved both their diseases and re-
medies? 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 in-
habit that part of North- America which extends
from the SOth to the 60th degree of latitude.
When we exclude the Esquimaux, who inhabit

AMONG THE INDIANS. 105

the shores of Hudson's bay, wc shall find a general
resemblance in the colour, manners, and state of
society, among all the tribes of Indians, who inha-
bit the extensive tract of country above-mentioned.

Civilians have divided nations into savage, bar-
barous, 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 cus-
toms 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 gr^in 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 exigen-
cies of their mode of life. Those who look for

VOL. I. o

106 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 ne-
cessary to inquire into those customs among them,
which we know influence diseases. For this pur-
pose 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.*

* 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 acknow-
ledges himself indebted in a particular manner to Mr. Ed-
ward Hand, surgeon in the 18th regiment, afterwards
brigadier-general in the army of the United States, who,

AMONG THE INDIANS. 107

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 consti-
tution. 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 pre-
serve 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 nou-
rishment. The appetite we sometimes observe in
children for flesh is altogether artificial. The pe-
culiar irritability of the system in infancy forbids
stimulating aliment of all kinds. Nature never
calls for animal food, till she has provided the child

during several years' residence at Fort Pitt, directed liis in-
quiries into their customs, diseases, and remedies, with a
success that does equal honour to his ingenuity and diligence.

108 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 increas-
ed, by her refusing the embraces of her husband du-
ring 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

AMONG THE INDIANS. 109

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 chase, or in war, they often commit those ex-
cesses 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 hun-
ger. This is occasioned, not more by the quan-
tity they eat, than by the pains they take in masti-
cating 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
do( med by their husbands to such domestic labour
as gives a firmness to their bodies, bordering upon

110 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 in-
tervals. 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 like-
wise 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 bear-
ing children too early.* 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 preg-
nancy, 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 accompa-
nied 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

* Natural History of Guiana.

AMONG Tllli INDIANS. Ill

tliose accidents, wliich proceed from the careless-
ness or ill management qf midwiv^s ; or those
weaknesses, which arise from a month's confine-
ment in a warm room. It is remarkable that there
is hardly a period in the interval between the erup-
tion 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 in-
terval ; and hence we often find it connected with
the best state of health in the women of civilized
nations.

The customs peculiar to the Indian men con-
sist chiefly in those employments which are neces-
sary 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 en-
sure 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 sel-
dom 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 eftbcts of the premature dalliance of
love, they may insure more certain fruitfulness to

112 NATURAL HISTORY OP MEDICINE

their wives, and entail more certain health upon
their cliildren. Tacitus describes the same cus-
tom among the Germans, and attiibutes to it the
same good effects. " Sera juvenum venus, eoque
" inexhausta pubertas ; nee virgines festinantur ;
" eadem juventa, similis proceritas, pares vali-
" dique miscentur ; ac robora parentum liberi
" referunt."*

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 man-
hood or war, who has not acquitted himself Avell 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 sub-
ject to the occasional causes of diseases.

IV. We come now to speak of those customs
which are common to both sexes : these are

• Caesar, in his history of the Gallic war, gives the same
account of the ancient Germans. His words are, '' Qui
" diutissimi impubei"es permanserunt, maximam inter suos
" ferunt laudem : hoc ali staturam, ali vires, nervasque con-
" firmari putant." Lib. vi. xxi.

•V
AMONG THE INDIANS. 113

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 ex-
cessive 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 forti-
fies the body, and renders it less subject to those
diseases, which arise from the extremes and vicissi-
tudes of heat and cold. We shall speak hereafter
of the Indian manner of usina: 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 dis-
order the body. The turbulent effects of anger
are concealed in deep and lasting resentments.

VOL. I. p

114 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 weak-
ness of love (says Dr. Adam Smith) which is so
much indulged in ages of humanity and politeness,
is regarded among savages as the most unpardon-
able 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."* Thus are they exempted from
those violent or lasting diseases, which accompany
the several stages of such passions in both sexes
among civilized nations.

It is remarkable that there are no deformed In-
dians. Some have suspected, from this circum-
stance, that they put their deformed children to
death ; but nature here acts the part of an unnatu-
ral mother. The severity of the Indian manners
destroys them.f

* Theory of Moral Sentiments.

t Since the intercourse of the white people with the In-
dians, we find some of them desormed in tneir hmbs. This
deformity, upon inquiry, appears to be produced by those

AMONG THE INDIANS. , 115

From a review of the customs of the Indians,
we need not be surprised at the stateUness, regula-
rity 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 ex-
amined 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
inquiye into their diseases.

A celebrated professor of anatomy has asserted,
thaf we could not tell, by reasoning a 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 na-

accidents, quarrels, £cc. which have been introduced amoncj
them by spirituous liquors.

116 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

turai 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.

W^e 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 cabiim
exposes them ; their long marches ; their exces-
sive 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 or-
der 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 re-
mote, but certain, causes of diseases.

From what we know of the action of these pow-
ers upon the human body, it will hardly be neces-
sai'y to appeal to facts, to determine that fevers

AMONG THE INDIANS. 117

constitute 'the only diseases among the Indians.
These fevers are occasioned by the insensible quali-
ties of the air. Those which are produced by cold
and heat are of the inflammatory kind, such as pleu-
risies, peripneu monies, 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 In-
dian disease) comes under the class of fevers. It
appears to be the febris introversa of Dr. Sydenham.

I^The Indians are subject to animal and vege-
table POISONS. The effects of these upon the
body are, in some degree, analogous to the exhala-
tions we have mentioned. When they do not
bring on sudden death, they produce, according to
their force, either a common inflammatory, or a
maligriant, fever. ^

The SMALL POX and the venereal disease
were communicated to the Indians of Nj^rth Ame-
rica by the Europeans. • Nor can I fi^ that they
were ever subject £o the scurvy. Whether this
was obviated by their method of preserving their
flesh, or by their mixing it at all times with vege-
tables, I shall not undertake to determine. Their

118 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

peculiar customs and manners seem to have ex-
empted them from this, as well as from the com-
mon 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 fre-
quently 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 tt^e
extremities ; as we know them to be among the
Indians. They appear only in visceral obstruc-
tions, 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

AMONG THE INDIANS-. 119

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 mad-
ness ; 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.*
Hence they have no place in the nosological sys-
tems 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 suifer
from this quarter.

The Indians appear moreover to be strangers to
diseases and pains in the teeth.

* 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."

120 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

The employments of the Indians subject them
to many accidents ; hence we sometimes read of
wouMDS, 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 fe-
vers, OLD age, CASUALTIES, and war, are the
only natural outlets of human life. War is no-
thing but a disease ; it is founded in the imper-
fection of political bodies, just as fevers are found-
ed on the weakness of the animal body. Provi-
dence in these diseases seems to act like a mild le-
gislature, 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 dis-
eases among the Indians ; they are likewise, in the
hands of nature, the principal instruments to re-
move the, evils which threaten her dissolution ; but
the event of these efforts of nature, no doubt,
soon convinced the Indians of the danger of trust-

AMONG THE INDIANS. 121

ing her in all cases; and hence, in the earliest ac-
counts we have of their manners, we read of per-
sons who were intrusted with the office of phy-
sicians.

It will be difficult to find out the exact order in
which the Indian remedies were suggested by na-
ture, 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 pa-
tients all kinds of stimulating aliment. The com-
pliance 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 ter-
minated 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 fol-

VOL. I. (^

122 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

lows : 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 pa-
tient in a cloud of vapour and sweat ; in this situ-
ation he rushes out, and plunges himself into a ri-
ver, 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 reco-
vered 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 ne-
cessity 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, bleedimg, caustics, and as-
tringent medicines. They confine bleeding

AMONG THE INDIANS. ' ' 123

entirely to the part affected. To know that open-
ing 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 ad-
vanced 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 some-
thing like a potential caustic, in obstinate
pains. It consists of a piece of rotten wood, called
punkt which they place upon the part affected, and
afterwards set it on fire : the fire gradually con-
sumes the wood, and its ashes burn a hole in the
flesh.

"The undue efforts of nature, in those fevers
which are connected with a diarrhcEa, or dysen-
tery, 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 In-
dians r6ly upon astringent, or any other vegeta-
bles, 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

124 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

ourselves, must be sought for in the greater fee-
bleness of our constitutions, and in that change
which our country has undergone, from meadows,
mill-dams, and the cutting down of woods ; where-
by morbid exhalations have been multiplied, and
their passage rendered more free, through every
part of the 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 lan-
guages are to their ideas, to the whole of their
diseases.

We said, formerly, that the Indians were sub- ,
ject to ACCIDENTS, such as wounds, fractures, and
the like. In these cases, nature performs the of-
fice of a surgeon. We may judge of her qualifi-
cations for this office, by observing the marks of
wounds and fractures which are sometimes dis-
covered on wild animals. But further, what is the
practice of our modern surgeons in these cases ?
Is it not to lay aside plaisters and ointments, and
trust the whole to nature ? Those ulcers, \vhich re-
quire the assistance of mercury, bark, and a par-
ticular regimen, are unknown to the Indians.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 125

The HEMORRHAGES which sometimes follow
their wounds are restrained, by plunging them-
selves into cold water, and thereby producing a
constriction upon the bleeding vessels.

Their practice of attempting to recover drown-
ed PEOPLE is irrational and unsuccessful. It con-
sists in suspending the patient by the heels, in or-
der that the water may flow from his mouth.
This practice is founded on a belief, that the pa-
tient dies from swallowing an excessive quantity
of water. But modem 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
sho^vn 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,* 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

* Indian shoes.

126 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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.*

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 In-
dians always assist their medicines in this disease,
by a regimen which promotes perspiration. Should
we allow that mercury acts as a specific in destroy-
ing this disease, it does not follow that it is proof
against the efficacy of medicines, which act more
mechanically upon the body.f

* 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.

t I cannot help suspecting the anti-venereal qualities of
the lobelia, cfeanolhus 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

AMONG THE INDIANS. 127

There cannot be a stronger mark of the imper-
fect state of knowledge in medicine among the In-
dians, 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 anti-
dotes 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 remark-
able cures lipon stiff joints, by an infusion of

use of the decoctions of the pine-trees for the cure of the
venereal disease. He added, moreovei*, that he had often
known this disease prove fatal to them.

128 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 aifected. 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 diffi-
cult labour being suddenly delivered, in conse-
quence 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 In-
dian remedies for the dropsy, epilepsy, colic,
GRAVEL, and GOUT. If, with all the advantages
which modern physicians derive from their know-
ledge in anatomy, chemistry, botany, and phi-
losophy ; if, with the benefit of discoveries
communicated from abroad, as well as handed
down from our ancestors, by more certain me-

AMONG THE INDIANS. 129

thods than tradition, we are still ignorant of cer-
tain remedies for these diseases ; what can we ex-
pect 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 re-
lieve them? There cannot be a stronger proof
of their ignorance of proper remedies for new or
difficult diseases, than their having recourse to en-
chantment. 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 igno-
rant of their composition. The influence of se-
crecy 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 apo-
thecary at Rochelle ; but it lost its virtues, as soon
as it was found to be composed of the acid of tar-
tar 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 con-
cerning the remedies of the Indians, drawn from

VOL. I. R

130 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 hear-
ing. An Indian, we are told, will discover, not
only a particular tribe of Indians by their foot-
steps, but the distance of time in which they were
made. In those branches of knowledge which
relate to hunting and war, the Indians have ac-
quired a degree of perfection, that has not been
equalled by civilized nations. But we must re-
member, that medicine among them does not pos-
sess the like advantages with the arts of war and
huntmg, of being the chief object of their atten-
tion. The physician and the warrior are united
in one character ; to render him as able in the for-
mer as he is in the latter profession would require
an entire abstraction from every other employ-
ment, and a familiarity with external objects,
which are incompatible with the wandering life of
savages.

Thus have we finished our inquiry into the dis-
eases and remedies of the Indians in North Ame-
rica. 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.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 131

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
die Indians.

I. It will be sufficient to name the degi'ces 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 de-
rive 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 philoso-
phy calls upon us to mention the effects of inte-
rested marriages, and of disappointments in love,
increased by that concealment, which the tyranny

132 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

of custom has imposed upon the sex.* Each of
these exaggerates the natural, and increases the
number of artificial, diseases among women.

III. The diseases introduced by civilization ex-
tend themselves through every class and profession
among men. How fatal are the effects of idleness
and intemperance among the rich, and of hard la-
bour 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,

* " Married women are more healthy and long-lived
" than single women. The registers, examined by Mr. Mu-
" ret, 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." Supple-
ment to Price's Observations on Reversionary Payments.,
p. 357.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 133

calls in a train of diseases peculiar to civilized na-
tions. Wliat havoc have the corruption and
monopoly of provisions, a damp soil, and an un-
wholesome sky, made, in a few days, in an army !
The achievements of British valour, at the Ha-
vannah, in the last war, were obtained at the ex-
pence of 9,000 men, 7,000 of whom perished
with the West India fever.* Even our modem
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, that only ten of a
hundred Europeans live above seven years after
they arrive in the island of Jamaica.

* The modern writers upon the diseases of armies won-
der that the Greek and Roman physicians have left us
nothing upon that subject. But may not most of i;he dis-
eases of armies be produced by the different mariner in
which •wars are carried on by the modern nations ?>, The
<]iscoveries 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 \+ea-
pons, and the variety in the military exercises, of 'the GVe-
cian and Roman armies gave a vigour to the constituticp,
which can never be acquired by the use of muskets ar^l
artillery.

134 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

IV. It would take up too much of our time to
point out all the customs, both physical 2i\A morale
which influence diseases among both sexes. The
former have engendered the seeds of diseases in
the human body itself: hence the origin of ca-
tarrhs, jail and military fevers, with a long train
of other diseases, which compose so great a
part of our books of medicine. The latter like-
wise 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 refine-
ments of polished life. To prove this, we need
only survey a scene too familar to affect us : it is
a bedlam; \vhich injustice, inhumanity, avarice,
pride, vanity, and ambition, have filled with inha-
bitants.

Tius have I briefly pointed out the customs,
which influence the diseases of civilized nations.
It 'cmains now that we take notice of their dis-
eaies. Without naming the many new fevers,
flixes, hemorrhages, swellings from water, wind,
f^sh, fat, pus, and blood ; foulness on the skin,
1-om cancers, leprosy, yawes, poxes, and itch ;
md, lastly, the gout, the hysteria, and the hj^DO-
condriasisj in all their variety of known and un-

AMONG THE INDIANS. 135

known shapes ; I shall sum up all that is necessa-
ry upon this subject, by adding, that the number
of diseases which belong to civilized nations, ac-
cording to Doctor CuUen'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 abi-
lities of NATURE in curing their diseases. We
found her active and successful in curing the dis-
eases of the Indians. Are her strength, wisdom,
or benignity, equal to the increase of those dangers, .
which threaten her dissolution among civilized na-
tions ? 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 ex-
cludes every thing like intelligence from her ope-
rations : 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, elec-
tricity, 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

136 NATUllAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

suppose this ship to be attacked by fire, or a wa-
ter-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 resem-
bles a company of Indians, armed with bows and
arrows, against the complicated and deadly ma-
chinery of fire-anns. To place this subject in a
proper light, I shall deliver a history of the opera-
tions of nature in a few of the diseases of civilized
nations.

I. There are cases, in which nature is still suc-
cessful 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 prodidces a faintness, wliich
occasions a coagulum in the open vessels ; so that
the further passage of blood through them is ob-
sti'ucted.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 137

In wounds of the flesh and bones she discharges
foreign matter, by exciting an inflammation, and
supphes 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 dis-
ease, 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 epi-
lepsy, the mania, the venereal disease, the apo'
plexy, and the tetanus.*

V. There are cases, in which nature does mis-
chief. She wastes herself with an unnecessar^'^
fever in a dropsy and consumption. She throws
a plethora upon the brain and lungs in the apo-
plexy and peripneumonia notha. She ends a
pleurisy and peripneumony in a vomica, or env
pyema. She creates an unnatural appetite for
food in the hypochondriac disease. And, lastly,

* Hoffman de hypothesium medicarum damno, sect, xv.
VOL. I. s

138 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

she drives the melancholy patient to solitude-
where, by brooding over the subject of his insani-
ty, he increases his disease.

We are accustomed to hear of the salutary kind-
ness 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, scirrhus, and stone in the
bladder.

VII. There are cases, where the pain is not
proportioned to the danger, as in the tetanus, con-
sumption, 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-ache.

This is a short account of the operations of na-
ture in the diseases of civilized nations. A lu-
natic might as well plead against the sequestration
of his estate, because he once enjoyed the full ex-
ercise of his reason, or because he still had lucid
intervals, as nature be exempted from the charges
we have brought against her.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 139

But this subject will receive strength from con-
sidering the REMEDIES of civiUzccl nations. All
the products of the vegetable, fossil, and animal
kingdoms, tortured, by heat and mixture, into an
almost infinite variety of forms ; bleeding, cup-
ping, artificial drains by setons, issues, and blisters ;
exercise, active and passive ; voyages and journies ;
baths, warm and cold ; waters, saline, aerial, and
mineral ; food, by weight and measure ; the royal
touch ; enchantment ; miracles ; in a word, the
combined discoveries of natural history and philo-
sophy 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 con-
trived 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 dis^
eases.

140 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

In our account of the diseases of the Indians wc
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 na-
tions we behold him multiplying his weapons, in
proportion to the numl^er 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 Doc-
tor 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 un-
dergone 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

AMONG THE INDIANS. 141

year. The pleurisy and peripneumony, those in-
flammatory fevers of strong constitutions, are now
lost in catarrhs, or colds, which, instead of chal-
lenging the powers of nature or art to a foir com-
bat, 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 foretell 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 na-
tural 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 prog-
nosis 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 pre-
dicting the events of diseases. While diseases are
simple, the marks which distinguish them, or cha-
racterize their several stages, are generally uni-
form, and obvious to the most indifferent observer.
These marks afford so much certainty, that the In-

lb

142 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

dians 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 degi'ees 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 at-
tended with no danger ; and we sometimes observe
an unusual degree of this appetite to precede the
agonies of death. I honour the name of Hip-
pocrates : but forgive me, ye votaries of anti-
quity, if I attempt to pluck a few gray 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 liis prog-
nostics corresponded with modern experience, or
observation. The pulse,* urine, and sweats, from

* Doctor CuUen used to inform his pupils, that, after forty-
years' experience, he could find no relation between his own

AMONG THE INDIANS. 143

which the principal signs of life and death have
been taken, are so variable, in most of the acute
diesases of civilized nations, that the wisest phy-
sicians have in some measure excluded the prog-
nosis from being a part of their [Drofession.

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 phaenomena of diseases.
The success of nature in curing the simple diseases
of Saxony laid the foundation for the anima me-
dic a of Doctor Stahl. The endemics of Hol-
land* led Doctor Boerhaave to seek for the

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 inha-
bitants of Britain may account for the diversity of theii ob-
servations. Doctor Heberden's remarks upon the pulse, in
the second volume of the Medical Transactions, are calcu-
lated to show how little the issue of diseases can be learned
from it.

* « The scurvy is very frequent in Holland ; and draws
its origin partly from their strong food, sea-fish, and smoked

144 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 ani-
mal economy.

It is in consequence of this fluctuation in the
principles and practice of physic being so neces-
sarily 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 phy-
sicians 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

flesh, and partly frQm their dense and moist air, together
with their bad water." Hoffman on Endemical Distempers,

" We ai'e 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 Familar Letters.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 145

practice to the changes in diseases.* This variety
in diseases, which is produced by the changes in
the customs of civilized nations, Vi^ill enable us to
account for many of the contradictions M^hich are
to be found in authors of equal candour and abili-
ties, who have written upon the materia medica.

In forming a comparative view of the re me die s
of the Indians, with those of civilized nations, we
shall remark, that the want of success in a medi-
cine 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.

* We may learn, from these observations, the great im-
propriety of those Egyptian laws, which oblige physicians
to adopt, in all cases, the prescriptions which had been col-
lected, 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 en-
feebled 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 cor-
dial medicines, are prescribed in London in almost every
kind of fever.

VOX. I. T

14G NATURAL HISTORY Of MEDICINE

Considering the violence of the diseases of the
Indians, it is probable their want of success is al-
ways occasioned by a want of efficacy in their me-
dicines. 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 ne-
gligence or obstinacy of our patients I What mis-
chief have we done under the belief of false facts
(if I may be allowed the expression) and false theo-
ries ! We have assisted in multiplying diseases.
We have done more — we have increased their
mortality.

I shall not pause to beg paidon of the faculty,
for acknowledging, in this public manner, the weak-
nesses of our profession. I am pursuing Truth,
and while I can keep my eye fixed upon my guide,
I am indifferent whither 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
anxious wish for futurity : except it is of being
admitted to an " equal sky," where

AMONG THE INDIANS. 147

•' 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 ima-
gination which renders the plague most fatal, upon
its first appearance in a country.

Under all these disadvantages in the state of me-
dicine, among civilized nations, do more in pro-
portion die of the diseases peculiar to them, than
of fevers, casualties, and old age, among the In-
dians ? 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 inliabitants, by several thousands,
than it did forty yeai's 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

148. NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

Indians, we are told, were numerous in this coun-
try, 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 spirituous
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 fu-
turity ; 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
foretell, that, in proportion as the white people
multiply, the Indians will diminish ; so that in a
few centuries they will probably be entirely extir-
pated.*

* 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 be-
fore there were about thirty Indian congregations in the
Southern parts of the province of Massachusetts-Bay." The

AMONG THE INDIANS. 149

It may be said, that health among the Indians,
like insensibility to cold and hunger, is propor-
tioned 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, victo-
ries 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 com-
pose so great a part of modem conversation ! What
sums of money have been lavished in foreign coun-

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 chris-
tian religion." At present there is but one Indian congre-
grationin the whole Massachusetts province.

It may serve to extend our knowledge of diseases, to re-
mark, that epidemics were often observed to prevail among
the Indians in Nantucket, without affecting the white people.

150 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

tries in pursuit of health!* FamiUes have been
ruined by the unavoidable expences of medicines
and watering-places. In a M^ord, 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 support-
ing themselves.!

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 ne-
cessary to ask another : Who would 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

* It is said there are seldom less than 20,000 British sub-
jects in France and Italy ; one half of whom reside or travel
in those countries upon the account of their health.

t 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,
*nd Italy.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 151

to humble the pride of philosophy ; and to con-
vince 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 graws in our woods is possessed of
some medicinal virtue, and that Heaven would be
wanting in benignity, if our country did not pro^
duce remedies for all the different diseases of its
inhabitants. It would be arrogating too mucph, to
suppose that man was the only creature in our
world for whom vegetables grow. I'he 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 orna-
ments for our globe. It would seem strange that
the Author of nature should furnish eveiy 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 com-
mon in almost every corner of the globe ; but a
sovereign remedy for it has been discovered only

152 NATUIIAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

in South America. The combination of bitter and
astringent substances, which serve as a succeda-
neum to the Peruvian bark, is as much a prepara-
tion 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 unimpeach-
ed, when we suppose that he intended medicines
to serve (with other articles) to promote that know-
ledge, humanity and politeness, among the inhabi-
tants of the earth, which have been so justly attri-
buted 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 phycisians were not more successful than
the Indians, even in the treatment of their o^vn
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 answer-
ed under some limitations. When natural liberty
is given up for laws which enslave instead of pro-
tecting us, we are immense losers by the exchange.
Thus, if we arm the whole elements ag^dnst our
health, ^nd render every pore in the body an ave-

AMONG THE INDIANS. 153

nue 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 consti-
tution. 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.* 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, t Let art supply the place of nature

* 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, ra-
ther than be delivered by a man-midwife. It appears from
the bills of mortality in I.ondon 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-
midvvives, only one in a hundred and forty perishes in child-
birth.

t There has been much common-place declamation
against the custom among the great, of not suckling their
VOL. I. U

154 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

ill the preparation and digestion of all our aliment.
Let our fine ladies keep up their colour with car-
mine, 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 cor-
rupt stages of society. We must imitate, in these
cases, the practice of those phycisians, who consult
the appetite only in diseases which do not admit of
a remedy.

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,

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 Pha-
raoh'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 inter-
rupted by the calls of enervating pleasures, must always af-
ford 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."

AMONG THE INDIANS. 155

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.* The opulence of physicians, and

* " Aurengezebe, etnperov of Persia, being asked, Why '*
he did not build hospitals ? said, / ivill make iny 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, ex-
cept 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 hos-
pitals, because fortune subjects them to a thousand acci-
dents ; 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." Spi-
rit 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 institu-
tions. 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 ?

156 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

the divisions of their offices, into those of surgery,
pharmacy, and midwifery, are Ukewise 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 prin-
ciples 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.*

* 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 employ-
ments of war and husbandry. Their diseases, of course,
were too few and simple, to render the cure of them an ob-
ject 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 I'ank 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, al-
though 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.

AMONG THE INDIANS. 157

I am sorry to add, in tliis 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 lias bccomc so familiar to us, that
we look upon it as a natural disease. Dr. Sj'den-
ham, so faithful in his history of fevers, talvcs
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 b}^ that dis-
ease. Its rapid progress among us has been un-
justly attributed to the growing resemblance of
our climate to that of Great-Britain. The hys-
teric 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 an-
cestors.

The blessings of literature, commerce, and re-
ligion, were not originally purchased at the expence
of health. The complete enjoyment of health is

158 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 vv^hich 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 govern-
ment, except such as were inflicted by a superna-
tural power.* We should be tempted to doubt

* The principal employments of the Jews, like those of
the Romans in their simple ages, consisted in war and hus-
bandry. Their diet was plain, consisting chiefly of vegeta-
bles. Their only remedies were plaisters 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 Nebu-
chadnezzar 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, hemorrhagia uterina. Sec.
It is unnecessary to suppose that they were let loose at this
juncture, on ]iurpose 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

AMONG THE INDIANS. 159.

die 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 anti-
quity. 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 Swis-
serland, Denmark, Norway,* 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 re-
mote nations, to prove that health is not incompa-
tible with civilization. The inhabitants of many
parts of New-England, particularly of the province
of Connecticut, are but little affected by artificial dis-
eases. Some of you may remember the time, 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
liistorian adds (contrary to what is common after a fever)
"that she arose iminediately^ and ministered unto them."

* In the city of Bergen, which consists of 30,000 inhabi-
tants, there is but one physician ; who is supported at the
expense of the public. Pontoppidan's Nat. Hist, of Norway.

160 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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
^vas water ; their appetites were restrained by la-
bour ; 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 primaeval 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.

Our esteem for the customs of our savage
neighbours ^vill 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 na-
tions. It would be easy to decide this assertion
in our favour, by appealing to facts in the natural
histories of Britain, Norway, Sweden, North- Ame-
rica,* and several of the West-India islands.

* It has been urged against the state of longevity iix
America, that the Europeans, who settle among us, gene-
rally 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 constitii-

AMONG THE INDIANS. 161

The laws of decency and nature are not ne-
cessarily abolished by the customs of civilized na-
tions. In many of these we read of women, among
whom nature alone still performs tlie office of a
midwife,* and who feel the obligations of suck-
ling their cliildren to be equally binding with the
common obligations of morality.

tion acquires by a change of climate. A Frenchman (car-
teris 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 w^ould derive the same ad-
vantages, 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 Ameri-
ca. 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.

* Parturition, in the simple ages of all countries, is per-
formed 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

VOL. I. X

162 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 countrj^*

Civilization does not always multiply the ave-
nues of death. It appears from the bills of mor-
tality, of many countries, that fewer in proportion
die among civilized, than among savage nations.

is attended with so little pain in Guiana, that the women
seem to be exempted from the curse inflicted upon Eve.
These easy birtljs are not confined to warm climates. They
ax'e equally safe and easy in Norway and Iceland, according
to Pontoppidan and Anderson's histories of those countries.

* Civilized nations have, in the end, always conquered
savages as nnuch 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 mihtary 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 I'Art de la Guerre, chant 1. Old sol-
diers generally lose the advantages cf their veteranism, by
their habits of idleness and debauchery. An able general,
and experienced ofiicers, will always supply the defects of
age in young soldiers.

AlCONC THE INDIANS. 163

Even the charms of beauty arc heightened by
civilization. We read of stateliness, proportion,
fine teeth,* and complexions, in both sexes,
forming the principal outlines of national charac-
ters.

The danger of many diseases is not propor-
tioned to their violence, but to their duration.
America has advanced but a few paces in luxury
and eifeminacy. 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 agi-eeable to nature.

* Bad teeth are observed chiefly in middle latitudes,
•which are subject to alternate heats and colds. The inha-
bitants 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 ,

164 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE

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 em-
ployed in describing the political evils that lately
threatened our country, it would be too littie 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 for-
merly 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 countr5\ Let us first try the force of se-
vere manners. Lycurgus governed more by these,
than by his laws. " Boni mores, non bona2 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 manufac-
tures we admit among us. The rickets made their
first appearance in the manufacturing towns in

AMONG THE INDIANS. 165

England. Dr. Fothergill informed me, that he
had often observed, when a pupil, that the greatest
part of the chronic patients in the London Hospi-
tal 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. Per-
haps a pure air, and the a^bstraction of spirituous li-
quors, 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 accom-
plished 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 primogeni-
ture, 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

J66 NATURAJ. HISTORY OF MEDICINE

of national health, riches, and populousness. Na-
tions, like individuals, never rise higher than when
they are ignorant whither 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
aiid 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

AMONG THE INDIANS. 167

should compose a city, which should be the third,
if not the second, in commerce in the British em-
pire. The pursuits of hterature 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 cathoUc in its foundation, and
extensive in its objects, already sees her sons exe-
cuting offices in the highest departments of soci-
ety. I have now the honour of speaking in the
presence of a most respectable number of philoso-
phers, 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 offer-
ing 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 weli-
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 ac-

168 NATURAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE, &C.

knowledge, that v^'c have always found the latter
willing to encourage by their patronage, and re-
ward by their liberality, all our schemes for pro-
moting useful knowledge. What may we not ex-
pect from this harmony between the sciences and
government! Methinks I see canals cut, rivers
once impassable rendered navigable, bridges erect-
ed, and roads improved, to facilitate the expor-
tation 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 1 forbear — imagination
cannot swell with the subject.

I beg leave to conclude, by deriving an argu-
ment from our connection with the legislature, to
remind my auditors of the duty they owe to the
society. Patriotism and literature are here con-
nected 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 INQUIRY

INTO THE

INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY.

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE AMERICA]^ PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,

HELD AT PHILADELPHIA,

Oy THE TWEKTY-SEVfiNTH OF FEBRUARY, 1785.

VOL. I.

AN INQUIRY, &c.

Gentlemen,

IT was for the laudable purpose of exciting
a spirit of emulation and inquiry among the mem-
bers of our body, that the founders of our society
instituted an annual oration. The task of prepar-
ing, and delivering this exercise, hath devolved,
once more, upon me. I have submitted to it, not
because I thought myself capable of fulfiling your
intentions, but because I wished, by a testimony
of my obedience to your requests, to atone for my
Ipng absence from the temple of science.

The subject, upon which I am to have the ho-
nour of addressing you this evening, is on the in-
Juence of physical causes upon the moral faculty.

172 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

By the moral faculty I mean a capacity in the
human mind of distinguishing and choosing good
and evil, or, in other words, virtue and vice. It is
a native principle, and though it be capable of im-
provement by experience and reflection, it is not
derived from either of them. St. Paul and Cicero
give us the most perfect account of it that is to be
found in modern or ancient authors. " For when
the Gentiles (says St. Paul) which have not the
law, do by nature the things contained in tlie law,
these^ having not the law, are a law unto them-
selves ; which show the works of the law written
in their hearts, their consciences also, bearing wit-
ness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing,
pr else excusing, another."*^

The words of Cicero are as follow : " Est igi-
tur hsec, judices, non scripta, sed nata lex, quam
non didicimus, accepimus, legimus, verum ex na-
tura ipsa arripuimus, hausimus, expressimus, ad
quam non docti, sed facti, non instituti, sed im-
buti sumus."t This faculty is often confounded
with conscience, which is a distinct and indepen-
dent capacity of the mind. This is evident from
the passage quoted from the writings of St. Paul,
in which conscience is said to be the witness that

* ]Rom. i. 14, 15. t Oratio pro Milone.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 173

accuses or excuses us, of a breach of the law writ-
ten in our hearts. The moral faculty is what the
schoolmen call the " regula regulans ;" the con-
science is their *' regula regulata ;" or, to speak in
more modern terms, the moral faculty performs
the office of a law-giver, while the business of con-
science is to perform the duty of a judge. The
moral faculty is to the conscience, what taste is to
the judgment, and sensation to perception. It is
quick in its operations, and, like the sensitive plant,
acts without reflection, while conscience follows
with deliberate steps, and measures all her actions
by the unerring square of right and wrong. The
moral faculty exercises itself upon the actions of
others. It approves, even in books, of the virtues
of a Trajan, and disapproves of the vices of a Ma-
rius, while conscience confines its operations only
to its own actions. These two capacities of the
mind are generally in an exact ratio to each other,
but they sometimes exist in different degrees in
the same person. Hence we often find conscience
in its full vigour, with a diminished tone, or total
absence of the moral faculty.

It has long been a question among metaphysi-
cians, whether the conscience be seated in the will
or in the understanding. The controversy can
only be settled by admitting the will to be the seat

174 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

of the moral faculty, and the understanding to be
the seat of the conscience. The mysterious na-
ture of the union of those two moral principles with
the will and understanding is a subject foreign to
the business of the present inquiry.

As I consider virtue and vice to consist in acttoriy
and not in opinion, and as this action has its seat in
the ivill, and not in the conscience, I shall confine
my inquiries chiefly to the influence of physical
causes upon that moral power of the mind, which
is connected with volition, although many of these
causes act likewise upon the. conscience, as I shall
show hereafter. The state of the moral faculty is
visible in actions, which affect the well-being of
society. The state of the conscience is invisible,
and therefore removed beyond our investigation.

The moral faculty has received different names
from different authors. It is the " moral sense"
of Dr. Hutchison; "the sympathy" of Dr. Adam
Smith ; the " moral instinct" of Rousseau ; and
" the light that lighteth every man that cometh in-
to the world" of St. John. I have adopted the
term of moral faculty from Dr. Beattie, because I
conceive it conveys, with the most perspicuity, the
idea of a capacity in the mind of choosing good and
evil.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 175

t3ur books of medicine contain many records of
the effects of physical causes upon the memory,
the imagination, and the judgment. In some in-
stances we behold their operation only on one,
in others on two, and, in many cases, upon the
whole of these faculties. Their derangement has
received different names, according to the number
or nature of the faculties that are affected. The
loss of memory has been called " amnesia;" false
judgment upon one subject has been called " me-
lancholia ;" false judgment upon all subjects has
been called " mania;" and a defect of all the three
intellectual faculties that have been mentioned has
received the name of ''amentia." PersoHs who
labour under the derangement, or want, of these
faculties of the mind, are considered, very pro-
perly, as subjects of medicine ; and there are many
cases upon record, that prove that their diseases
have yielded to the healing art.

In order to illustrate the effects of physical
causes upon the moral faculty, it will be neces-
sary ^r^^ to show their effects upon the memory,
the imagination, and the judgment; and at the
same time to point out the analogy between their
operation upon the intellectual faculties of the mind
and the moral faculty.

176 INILUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

1. Do we observe a connection between the
intellectual faculties and the degrees of consistency
and firmness of the brain in infancy and childhood?
The same connection has been observed between
the strength, as well as the progress, of the moral
faculty in children.

2. Do we observe a certain size of the brain,
and a peculiar cast of features, such as the pro-
minent eye, and the aquiline nose, to be connected
with extraordinary portions of genius? We ob-
serve a similar connection between the figure 'and
temperament of the body and certain moral quali-
ties. Hence we often ascribe good temper and
benevolence to corpulency, and irascibility to san-
guineous habits. Caesar thought himself safe in
the friendship of the " sleek- headed" Anthony and
Dolabella , but was afraid to trust to the profes-
sions of the slender Cassius.

3. Do we observe certain degrees of the intel-
lectual faculties to be hereditary in certain families?
The same observation has been frequendy extend-
ed to moral quaUties. Hence we often find certain
virtues and vices as peculiar to families, through
all their degrees of consanguinity and duration, as
a peculiarity of voice, complexion, or shape.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 177

4. Do we observe instances of a total want of
memory, imagination, and judgment, either from
an original defect in the stamina of the brain, or
from the influence of physical causes ? The same
unnatural defect is sometimes observed, and proba-
bly from the same causes, of a moral faculty. The
celebrated Servin, whose character is drawn by the
duke of Sully, in his Memoirs, appears to be an
instance of the total absence of the moral faculty,
while the chasm, produced by this defect, seems to
have been filled up by a more than common ex-
tension of every other power of his mind. I beg
leave to repeat the history of this prodigy of vice
and knowledge. " Let the reader represent to
himself a man of a genius so lively, and of an
understanding so extensive, as rendered him
scarce ignorant of any thing that could be known ;
of so vast and ready a comprehension, that he
immediately made himself master of whatever
he attempted ; and of so prodigious a memory,
that he never forgot what he once learned. He
possessed all parts of philosophy, and the ma-
thematics, particularly fortification and drawing.
Even in theology he was so well skilled, that
he was an excellent preacher, whenever he had
a mind to exert that talent, and an able dispu-
tant for and against the reformed religion, indif-
ferently. He not only understood Greek, He-

VOL. I. z

178 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAlTSES

brew, and all the languages which we call
learned, but also all the different jargons, or
modern dialects. He accented and pronounced
them so naturally, and so perfectly imitated the
gestures and manners both of the several nations
of Europe, and the particular provinces of
France, that he might have been taken for a
native of all, or any, of these countries : and this
quality he applied to counterfeit all sorts of per-
sons, wherein he succeeded wonderfully. He
was, moreover, the best comedian, and the great-
est droll that perhaps ever appeared. He had a
genius for poetry, and had wrote many verses.
He played upon almost all instruments, was a
perfect master of music, and sang most agree-
ably and justly. He likewise could say mass,
for he was of a disposition to do, as well as to
know, all things. His body was perfectly well
suited to his mind. He was light, nimble, and
dexterous, and fit for all exercises. He could
ride well, and in dancing, wrestling, and leap-
ing, he was admired. There are not any re-
creative games that he did not know, and he
was skilled in almost all mechanic arts. But
now for the reverse of the medal. Here it ap-
peared, that he was treacherous, cruel, cowardly,
deceitful, a liar, a cheat, a drunkard, and a glut-
ton, a sharper in play, immersed in every species

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 17i9

of vice, a blasphemer, an atheist. In a word,
in him might be found all the vices that are con-
trary to nature, honour, religion, and society, the
truth of w^hich he himself evinced with his latest
breath ; for he died in the flower of his age, in
a common brothel, perfectly corrupted by his
debaucheries, and expired with the glass in his
hand, cursing and denying God."*

It was probably a state of the human mind such
as has been described, that our Saviour alluded
to in the disciple who was about to betray him,
when he called him " a devil." Perhaps the es-
sence of depravity, in infernal spirits, consists in
their being wholly devoid of a moral faculty. In
them the will has probably lost the power of choos-
ing, t as well as the capacity of enjoying, moral
good. It is true, we read of their trembling in a
belief of the existence of a God, and of their antici-
pating future punishment, by asking whether they
were to be tormented before their time : but this is

* Vol. iii. p. 216,217.

t Milton seems to have been of this opinion. Hence,
after ascribing repentance to Satan, he makes him declare,

" Farewell remorse : all good to me is lost,

" £vilf be thou my good."

Paradise Lost, Book IV.

180 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

the effect of conscience, and hence arises another
argument in favour of this judicial power of the
mind being distinct from the moral faculty. It
would seem as if the Supreme Being had preserved
the moral faculty in man from the. ruins of his fall,
on purpose to guide him back again to Paradise,
and at the same time had constituted the conscience,
both in men and fallen spirits, a kind of royalty in
his moral empire, on purpose to show his property
in all intelligent creatures, and their original resem-
blance to himself. Perhaps the essence of moral
depravity in man consists in a total, but temporary,
suspension of the power of conscience. Persons
in this situation are emphatically said in the Scrip-
tures to " be past feeling," and to have their con-
sciences seared Avith a " hot iron ;" they are like-
wise said to be '* twice dead," that is, the same
torpor, or moral insensibility, has seized both the
moral faculty and the conscience.

5. Do we ever observe instances of the existence
of only one of the three intellectual powers of the
mind that have been named, in the absence of the
other two ? We observe something of the same
kind with respect to the moral faculty. I once
knew a man, who discovered no one mark of rea-
son, who possessed the moral sense or faculty in so
high a degree, that he spent his whole life in acts

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 181

of benevolence. He was not only inoffensive
(which is not always the case with idiots) but he
was kind and affectionate to every body. He had
no ideas of time, but what were suggested to him
by the returns of the stated periods for public wor-
ship, in which he appeared to take great delight.
He spent several hours of eveiy day in devotion,
in which he was so careful to be private, that he
was once found in the most improbable place in
the world for that purpose, viz. in an oven.

6. Do we observe the memory, the imagina-
tion, and the judgment, to be affected by diseases,
particularly by madness ? Where is the physician,
who has not seen the moral faculty affected from
the same causes ! How often do we see the tem-
per wholly changed by a fit of sickness ! And
how often do we heai' persons of the most deli-
cate virtue utter speeches, in the delirium of a fe-
ver, that are offensive to decency or good manners !
I have heard a well-attested history of a clergyman
of the most exemplary moral character, who spent
the last moments of a fever, which deprived him
both of his reason and his life, in profane cursing
and swearing. I once attended a young woman
in a nervous fever, who discovered, after her reco-
very, a loss of her former habit of veracity. Her
memory (a defect of which might be suspected of

182 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

being the cause of this vice) was in every respect
as perfect as it was before the attack of the fever.*-
The instances of immoraUty in maniacs, who were
formerly distinguished for the opposite character,
are so numerous, and well known, that it will not
be necessary to select any cases, to establish the
truth of the proposition contained under this head.

7. Do we observe any of the three intellectual
faculties that have been named enlarged by dis-
eases ? Patients, in the delirium of a fever, often
discover extraordinary flights of imagination, and
madmen often astonish us with their wonderful
acts of memory. The same enlargement, some-
times, appears in the operations of the moral fa-
culty. I have more than once heard the most sub-
lime discourses of morality in the cell of an hospi-
tal, and who has not seen instances of patients in
acute diseases discovering degrees of benevolence
and integrity, that were not natural to them in the
ordinary course of their lives ?t

* I have selected this case from many others which have
come u er my notice, in which the moral faculty appeared
to be impaired by diseases, particularly by the typhus of Dr.
• CuUen, and by those species of palsy which affect the brain.

t Xenophon makes Cyrus declare, in his last moments,
" That the soul of man, at the hour of death, appears mosf
divine, and then foresees something of future events."

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 183

8. Do we ever observe a partial insanity, or false
perception on one subject, while the judgment is
sound and correct, upon all others ? We perceive,
in some instances, a similar defect in the moral fa-
culty. There are persons who are moral, in the
highest degree, as to certain duties, who neverthe-
less live under the influence of some one vice. I
knew an instance of a woman, who was exemplary
in her obedience to every command of the moral
law, except one. She could not refrain from steal-
ing. What made this vice the more remarkable
was, that she was in easy circumstances, and not
addicted to extravagance in any thing. Such was
her propensity to this vice, that when she could
lay her hands upon nothing more valuable, she
would often, at the table of a friend, fill her pock-
ets secretly with bread. As a proof that her judg-
ment was not affected by this defect in her mora
faculty, she would both confess and lament her
crime, when detected in it.

9. Do we observe the imagination in many in-
stances to be affected with apprehensions of dan-
gers that have no existence ? In like manner we
observe the moral faculty to discover a sensibility
to vice, that is by no means proportioned to its de-
grees of depravity. How often do we see persons
labouring under this morbid sensibility of the mo-

184 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

ral facult)^ refuse to give a direct answer to a plain
question, that related perhaps only to the weather,
or to the hour of the day, lest they should wound
the peace of their minds by telling a falsehood !

10. Do dreams affect the memorj'^, the imagina-
tion, and the judgment ? Dreams are nothing but
incoherent ideas, occasioned by partial or imperfect
sleep. There is a variety in the suspension of the
faculties and operations of the mind in this state of
the system. In some cases the imagination only is
deranged in dreams, in others the memory is affec-
ted^ and in others the judgment. But there are
cases, in which the change that is produced in the
state of the brain, by means of sleep, affects the
moral faculty likewise ; hence we sometimes dream
of doing and^saying things, when asleep, which we
shudder at, as soon as we awake. This supposed
defection from virtue exists frequently in dreams,
where the memory and judgment are scarcely im-
paired. It cannot therefore be ascribed to an ab-
sence of the exercises of those two powers of the
mind.

11. Do we read, in the accounts of travellers,
of men, who, in respect of intellectual capacity and
enjoyments, are but a few degrees above brutes ?
We read likewise of a similar degradation of our

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 185

species, in respect to moral capacity and feeling.
Here it will be necessary to remark, that the low
degrees of moral perception, that have been disco-
vered in certain African and Russian tribes of men,
no more invalidate our proposition of the universal
and essential existence of a moral faculty in the
human mind, than the low state of their intellects
prove, that reason is not natural to man. Their
perceptions of good and evil are in an exact pro-
portion to their intellectual faculties. But I will go
further, and admit, with Mr. Locke,* that some
savage nations are totally devoid of the moral fa-
culty, yet it will by no means follow, that this
was the original constitution of their minds. The
appetite for certain aliments is uniform among all
mankind. Where is the nation and the indiA'idual,
in their primitive state of health, to whom bread
is not agreeable ? But if we should find savages,
or individuals, whose stomachs have been so disor-
dered by intemperance as to refuse this simple and
wholesome article of diet, shall we assert that this
was the original constitution of their appetites ? By
no means. As well might we assert, because sa-
vages destroy their beauty by painting and cutting
their faces, that the principles of taste do not exist

* Essay concerning the Human Understanding^, book I.
chap. 3.

VOL. I. A a

186 INFLUENCE OF FHYSIGAL CAUSED

naturally in the human mind. It is with virtue as
with fire. It exists in the mind, as • fire does in
certain bodies, in a latent or quiescent state. As
collision renders the one sensible, so education
renders the other visible. It would be as absurd
to maintain, because olives become agreeable to
many people fi-om habit, that we have no natural
appetites for any other kind of food, as to assert
that any part of the human species exist without a
moral principle, because in some of them it has
wanted causes to excite it into action, or has been
perverted by example. There are appetites that
are wholly artificial. There are tastes so entirely
vitiated, as to perceive beauty in deformity. There
are torpid and unnatural passions. Why, under
certain unfavorable circumstances, may there not
exist also a moral faculty, in a state of sleep, or sub-
ject to mistakes ?

The only apology I shall make, for presuming to
differ from that justly-celebrated oracle,* who first
unfolded to us a map of the intellectual world,
shall be, that the eagle eye of genius often darts
its views beyond the notice of facts, which are ac-
commodated to the slender organs of perception
of men, who possess no other talent than that of
observation.

* Mr. Locke.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 187

It is not surprising, that Mr. Locke has con-
founded this moral principle with reason^ or that
lord Shaftsbury has confounded it with taste^
since all three of these faculties agree in the objects
of their approbation, notwithstanding they exist
in the mind independenriy of each other. The fa-
vourable influence, which the progress of science
and taste has had upon the morals, can be ascribed
to nothing else, but to the perfect union that sub-
sists in nature between the dictates of reason, of
taste, and of the moral faculty. Why has the spi-
rit of humanity made such rapid progress for some
years past in the courts of Europe ? It is because
kings and their ministers have been taught to rea-
son upon philosophical subjects. Why have inde-
cency and profanity been banished from the stage
in London and Paris ? It is because immorality
is an offence against the highly cultivated taste of
the French and English nations.

It must afford great pleasure to the lovers of
virtue, to behold the depth and extent of this mo-
ral principle in the human mind. Happily for the
human race, the intimations of duty and the road
to happiness are not left to the slow operations or
doubtful inductions of reason, nor to the precarious
decisions of taste. Hence we often find the moral
faculty in a state of vigour in persons, in whom

188 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

reason and taste exist in a weak, or in an unculti-
vated state. It is worthy of notice, likewise, that
while second thoughts are best in matters of judg-
ment, first thoughts are always to be preferred in
matters that relate to rnorality. Second thoughts,
in these cases, are generally parlies between duty
and corrupted inclinations. Hence Rousseau has
justly said, that " a well regulated moral instinct is
the surest guide to happiness."

It must afford equal pleasure to the lovers of
virtue to behold, that our moral conduct and hap-
piness are not committed to the determination of a
single legislative power. The conscience, like a
wise and faithful legislative council, performs the
office of a check upon the moral faculty, and thus
prevents the fetal consequences of immoral actions.

An objection, I foresee, will arise to the doc-
trine of the influence of physical causes upon the
moral faculty, from its being supposed to favour
the opinion of the materiality of the soul. But I
do not see that this doctrine obliges us to decide
upon the question of the nature of the soul, any
more than the facts which prove the influence of
physical causes upon the memory, the imagination,
or the judgment. I shall, however, remark upon
this subject, that the writers in favour of the im^

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 189

morfaiittf of the soul have done that truth great
injury, by connecting it necessarily with its imma-
teriality. The immortality of the soul depends
upon the will of the Deity, and not upon the sup-
posed properties of spirit. Matter is in its own
nature as immortal as spirit. It is resolvable by
heat and mixture into a variety of forms; but it
requires the same Almighty hand to annihilate it,
that it did to create it. I know of no arsruments to
prove the immortality of the soul, but such as are
derived from the Christian revelation.^' It would
be as reasonable to assert that the bason of the
ocean is immortal, from the greatness of its capa-
city to hold water ; or that we are to live for ever
in this world, because we are afraid of dying ; ^
to maintain the immortality of the soul, from the
greatness of its capacity for knowledge and happi-
ness, or from its dread of annihilation.

I remarked, in the beginning of this discourse,
that persons who are deprived of the just exercise
of memory, imagination, or judgment, were proper
subjects of medicine ; and that there are many
cases upon record which prove, that the diseases
from the derangement of these faculties have yield-
ed to the healmg art.

* " Life and immortality ere brought to light orz/r/ through
the gospel." 2 Tim. i. 10.

190 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

It is perhaps only because the diseases of the
moral faculty have not been traced to a connection
with physical causes, that medical writers have ne-
glected to give them a place in their systems of no.
sology, and that so few attempts have been hitherto
made to lessen or remove them, by physical as well
as rational and moral remedies.

I shall not attempt to derive any support to my
opinions, from the analogy of the influence of phy-
sical causes upon the temper and conduct of brute
animals. The facts which I shall produce in favour
of the action of these causes upon morals in the
human species, will, I hope, render unnecessary
the arguments that might be drawn from that quar-.
ter.

I am aware, that in venturing upon this subject
I step upon untrodden ground. I feel as ^Eneas
did, when he was about to enter the gates of Aver-
nus, but without a sybil to instruct me in the mys-
teries that are before me. I forsee, that men who
have been educated in the mechanical habits of
adopting popular or established opinions will revolt
at the doctrine I am about to deliver, while men of
sense and genius will hear my propositions with
candour, and if they do not adopt them, will com

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 191

mend that boldness of inquiry, that prompted me
to broach them.

I shall begin with an attempt to supply the de-
fects of nosological writers, by naming the partial
or weakened action of the moral faculty, microno-
MIA. The total absence of this faculty I shall call
ANOMiA. By the law, referred to in these new
genera ofvesanias, I mean the law of nature writ-
ten in the human heart, and which I formerly quot-
ed from the writings of St. Paul.

In treating of the effects of physical causes upon
the moral faculty, it might help to extend our ideas
upon this subject, to reduce virtues and vices to
certain species, and to point out the effects of par-
ticular species of virtue and vice ; but this would
lead us into a field too extensive for the limits of
the present inquiry. I shall only hint at a few
cases, and have no doubt but the ingenuity of my
auditors will supply my silence, by applying the rest.

It is immaterial, whether the physical causes that
are to be enumerated act upon the moral facult\-
through the medium of the senses, the passions,
the memory, or the imagination. Their influence
is equally certain, whether they act as remote, pre-
disposing, or occasional causes.

192 IJfFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

1. The effects of climate upon the moral
faculty claim our first attention. Not only indivi-
duals, but nations, derive a considerable part of
their moral, as well as intellectual character, from
the different portions they enjoy of the rays of the
sun. Irascibility, levity, timidity, and indolence,
tempered with occasional emotions of benevolence,
are the moral qualities of the inhabitants of warm
climates, while selfishness, tempered mth sincerity
and integrity, form the moral character of the inha-
bitants of cold countries. The state of the weathefj
and the seasons of the year also, have a visible ef-
fect upon moral sensibility. The month of No-
vember, in Great Britain, rendered gloomy by con-
stant fogs and rains, has been thought to favour the
perpetration of the worst species of murder, while
the vernal sun, in middle latitudes, has been as ge-
nerally remarked for producing gendeness and be-
nevolence.

2. The effects of diet upon the moral faculty
are more certain, though less attended to, than
the effects of climate. " Fulness of bread," we
are told, was* one of the predisposing causes of the
vices of the cities of the plain. The fasts so often
inculcated among the Jews were intended to les.
sen the incentives to vice ; for pride, cruelty, and
sensuality, are as much the natural consequenceg

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 193

of luxury, as apoplexies and palsies. But the
quality as well as the quantity of aliment has an
influence upon morals ; hence we find the moral
diseases that have been mentioned are most fre-
quently the offspring of animal food. The pro-
phet Isaiah seems to have been sensible of this,
when he ascribes such salutary effects to a tempe-
rate and vegetable diet. " Butter and honey shall
he eat," says he, " that he may know to refuse
the evil, and to choose the good." But we have
many facts which prove the efficacy of a vegetable
diet upon the passions. Dr. Arbuthnot assures
us, that he cured several patients of irascible tern -
pers, by nothing but a prescription of this simple
and temperate regimen.

3. The effects of certain drinks upon the
moral faculty are not less observable, than upon
the intellectual powers of the mind. Fermented
liquors, of a good quality, and taken in a mode-
rate quantity, are favorable to the virtues of can-
dour, benevolence, and generosity ; but when they
are taken in excess, or when they are of a bad
quality, and taken even in a moderate quantity,
they seldom fail of rousing every latent spark of
vice into action. The last of these facts is so noto-
rious, that when a man is observed to be ill-na-
tured or quarrelsome in Portugal, after drinking,

VOL. I. B b

194 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

it is common in that country to say, that " he has
drunken bad wine." While occasional fits of in-
toxication produce ill-temper in many people, ha-
bitual drunkenness ( which is generally produced
by distilled spirits) never fails to eradicate veracity
and integrity from the human mind. Perhaps
this may be the reason why the Spaniards, in an-
cient times, never admitted a man's evidence in a
court of justice, who had been convicted of drunk-
enness. Water is the imiversal sedative of tur-
bulent passions; it not only promotes a general
equanimity of temper, but it composes anger. I
have heard several well-attested cases, of a draught
of cold water having suddenly composed this vio-
lent passion, after the usual remedies of reason had
been applied to no purpose.

4. Extreme hunger produces the most un-
friendly effects upon moral sensibility. It is imma-
terial, whether it act by inducing a relaxation of
the solids, or an acrimony of the fluids, or by the
combined operations of both those physical causes.
The Indians in this country whet their appetites
for that savage species of war, which is peculiai-
to them, by the stimulus of hunger; hence, we
are told, they always return meagre and emaciated
from their military excursions. In civilized life
we often behold this sensation to overbalance

ITPDiir THE MORAL FACULTY. 195

the restraints of moral feeling ; and perhaps this
may be the reason why poverty, which is the most
frequent parent of hunger, disposes so generally to
theft ; for the character of hunger is taken from
that vice ; it belongs to it " to break through stone
walls." So nmch does this sensation predomi-
nate over reason and moral feeling, that Cardinal
de Retz suggests to politicians, never to risk a
motion in a popular assembly, however wise or
just it may be, immediately before dinner. That
temper must be uncommonly guarded, which is not
disturbed by long abstinence from food. One of
the worthiest men I ever knew, who made his
breakfast his principal meal, was peevish and disa-
greeable to his friends and family, from the time
he left his bed till lie sat down to his morning re-
past, after which, cheerfulness sparkled in his
countenance, and be became the delight of all
around him,

5, I hinted formerly, in proving the analogy
between the effects of diseases upon the intel-
lects and upon the moral faculty, that the latter
was frequently impaired by madness. I beg leave
to add further upon this head, that not only mad-
ness, but the hysteria and hypochondriasis, as well
as all those states of the bod}, whether idiopathic
or symptomatic^ which are accompanied with pre-

196 INFI^UENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

ternatural irritability, sensibility, torpor, stupor,
or mobility of the nervous system, dispose to vice,
either of the body or of the mind. It is in vain
to attack these vices with lectures upon morality.
They are only to be cured by medicine, particu-
larly by exercise, the cold bath, and by a cold or
warm atmosphere. The young woman, whose
case I mentioned formerly, that lost her habit of
veracity by a nervous fever, recovered this virtue,
as soon as her system recovered its natural tone,
from the cold weather which happily succeeded
her fever.*

* There is a morbid state of excitability in the body during
the convalescence from fever, which is intimately connected
with an undue propensity to venereal pleasures. I have
met with several instances of it. The marriage of the cele-
brated Mr. Howard to a woman who was twipe as old as
himself, and very sickly, has been ascribed, by his biogra-
pher, Dr. Aiken, to gratitude for her great attention to him
in a fit of sickness. I am disposed to ascribe it to a sudden
paroxysm of another passion, which, as a religious man, he
could not gratify in any other than in a lawful way. I have
heara of two young clergymen who married the women
who had nursed them in fits of sickness. In both cases there
was great inequality in their years, and condition in life.
Their motive was, probably, the same as that which I have
attributed to Mr. Howard. Dr. Patiick Russel takes notice
of an uncommon degree of venereal excitability which fol
lowed attacks of the plague at Messina, in 1 7 43, in all ranks

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 197

6. Idleness is the parent of every vice. It is
mentioned in the Old Testament as another of the
predisposing causes of the vices of the cities of the
plain. Labour, of all kinds, favours and facili-
tates the practice of virtue. The country life is
happy, chiefly because its laborious employments
are favourable to virtue, and unfriendly to vice.
It is a common practice, I have been told, for the
planters, in the southern states, to consign a house
slave, who has become vicious from idleness, to
the drudgery of the field, in order to reform him.
The bridewells and workhouses of all civilized
countries prove, that labour is not only a very se-
vere, but the most benevolent of all punishments,
inasmuch as it is one of the most suitable means
of reformation. Mr. Howard tells us, in his His-
tory of Prisons, that in Holland it is a common
saying, " Make men work, and you will make
them honest." And over the rasp and spin-
house at Grceningen, this sentiment is expressed
(he tells .us) by a happy motto :

" Vitiorum semina— otium — labore exhauriendum."

The effects of steady labour in early life, in creating

of people. Marriages, he says, were more frequent after
it than usual, and virgins were, in some instances, violated,
■who died of that disease, by persons who had just recovered
from it.

198 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

virtuous habits, is still more remarkable. The late
Anthony Benezet, of this city, whose benevolence
was the centinel of the virtue, as well as of the
happiness of his country, made it a constant rule,
in binding out poor children, to avoid putting them
into wealthy families, but always preferred mas-
ters for them who worked themselves, and who
* obliged these children to work in their presence.
If the habits of virtue, contracted by means of
this apprenticeship to labour, are purely mechani-
cal, their effects are, nevertheless, the same upon
the happiness of society, as if they flowed from
principle. The mind, moreover, when preserved
by these means from weeds, becomes a more mel-
low soil, afterwards, for moral and rational im-
provement.

7. The effects of excessive sleep are inti-
mately connected Math the effects of idleness upon
the moral faculty : hence we find that moderate,
and even scanty portions of sleep, in every part of
the world, have been found to be friendly, not
only to health and long life, but in many instances
to morality. The practice of the monks, who of-
ten sleep upon a floor, and who generally rise with
the sun, for the sake of mortifying their sensual
appetites, is certainly founded in wisdom, and has
often produced the most salutary moral effects.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 199

8. The effects of bodily pain upon the moral
are not less remarkable than upon the intellectual
powers of the mind. The late Dr. Gregory, of
the university of Edinburgh, used to tell his pupils,
that he always found his perceptions quicker in a
fit of the gout, than at any other time. The pangs
which attend the dissolution of the body are often
accompanied with conceptions and expressions, up-
on the most ordinary subjects, that discover an
uncommon elevation of the intellectual powers*
The effects of bodily pain are exactly the same in
rousing and directing the moral faculty. Bodily
pain, we find, was one of the remedies employed
in the Old Testament, for extirpating vice, and
promoting virtue : and Mr. Howard tells us, that
he saw it employed successfully as a means of re-
formation, in one of the prisons which he visited.
If pain has a physical tendency to cure vice, I sub-
mit it to the consideration of parents and legislators,
whether moderate degrees of coi-poral punishments,
inflicted for a great length of time, would not be
more medicinal in their effects than the violent
degrees of them, which are of short duration.

9. Too much cannot be said in favour of
CLEANLINESS, asa physical means of promoting
virtue. The writings of Moses have been called,
by military men, the best " orderly book" in the

200 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

world. In every part of them we find cleanliness
inculcated with as much zeal, as if it was part of
the moral, instead of the Levitical law. Now it is
well known, that the principal design of every pre-
cept and rite of the ceremonial parts of the Jew-
ish religion was, to prevent vice, and to promote
virtue. All writers upon the leprosy take notice
of its connection with a certain vice. To this dis-
ease gross animal food, particularly swine's flesh,
and a dirty skin, have been thought to be predis-
posing causes : hence the reason, probably, why
pork was forbidden, and why ablutions of the
body and limbs were so frequently inculcated by
the Je^^^sh law. Sir John Pringle's remarks, in
his Oration upon captain Cook's voyage, deli-
vered before the Royal Society, in London, are
very pertinent to this part of our subject. " Clean .
liness (says he) is conducive to health, but is it
not obvious that it also tends to good order and
other virtues. Such (meaning the ship's crew)
as were made more cleanly, became more sober,
more orderly, and more attentive to duty." The
benefit to be derived by parents and school-masters
from attending to these facts is too obvious to be
mentioned.

10. I hope I shall be excused in placing soli-
tude among the physical causes which influence

UPON THE MORAL f ACULTV. 201

the moral faculty, when T add, that T mufinf its
effects to persons who are irreclaimable by rational
or moral remedies. Mr. Howard informs us, that
the chaplain of the prison at Liege, in Germany,
assured him, " that the most refractory and turbu-
lent spirits became tractable and submissive, by
being closely confined for four or five days."
In bodies that are predisposed to vice, the stimulus
of cheerful, but much more of profane society and
conversation upon the animal spirits becomes an
exciting cause, and^ like the stroke of the flint upon
the steel, renders the sparks of vice both active and
visible. By removing men out of the reach of this
exciting cause, they are often reformed, especially
if they are confined long enough to produce a suf-
ficient chasm in their habits of vice. Where the
benefit of reflection and instruction from books can
be added to solitude and confinement, their good
effects are still more certain. To this philosophers
and poets in every age have assented, by describing
the life of a hermit as a life of passive virtue.

II. Connected with solitude, as a mechanical
means of promoting virtue, silence deserves to
be mentioned in this place. The late Dr. Fother-
gill, in his plan of education for that benevolent
institution at Ack worth, which was the last care
of his useful life, says every thing that can be said

VOL. I. c c

202 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

in favour of this necessary discipline, in the follow-
ing words : " To habituate children, from their
early infancy, to silence and attention, is of the
greatest advantage to them, not only as a prepa-
rative to their advancement in religious life, but
as the groundwork of a well cultivated under-
standing. To have the active minds of children
put under a kind of restraint ; to be accustomed
to turn their attention from external objects,
and habituated to a degree of abstracted quiet ;
is a matter of great consequence, and lasting be-
nefit to them. Although it cannot be supposed,
that young and active minds are always engaged
in silence as they ought to be, yet to be accus-
tomed thus to quietness is no small point gained
towards fixing a habit of patience, and recollec-
tion, which seldom forsakes those, who have
been properly instiaicted in this entrance of the
school of wisdom, during the residue of their
days."

For the purpose of acquiring this branch of edu-
cation, children cannot associate too early nor too
often with their parents, or with their superiors in
age, rank, and wisdom.

12. The effects of music upon the moral faculty
have been felt and recorded in every country.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 203

Hence we are able to discolor the virtues and vi-
ces of different nations, by their tunes, as certainly
as by their laws. The effects of music, when sim-
ply mechanical, upon the passions, are powerful
and extensive. But it remains yet to determine
the degi'ees of moral ecstacy that may be produc-
ed by an attack upon the ear, the reason, and the
moral principle, at the same time, by the combined
powers of music and eloquence.

13. The ELOQUENCE of the pulpit is nearly
allied to music in its effects upon the moral faculty.
It is true, there can be no permanent change in the
temper and moral conduct of a man, that is not
derived from the understanding and the will ; but
we must remember, that these two powers of the
mind are most assailable, when they are attacked
through the avenue of the passions ; and these, we
know, when agitated by the powers of eloquence,
exert a mechanical action upon every power of the
soul. Hence we find, in every age and countr^-
where Christianity has been propagated, the most
accomplished orators have generally been the most
successful reformers of mankind. There must be
a defect of eloquence in a preacher, who, with the
resources for oratory which are contained in the
Old and New Testaments, does not produce itut
every man who heai's him at least a tempoi^ary
love of virtue. I grant that the eloquence of the

204 INFLUENCE OF rHYSICAL CAUSES

pulpit alone cannot diinge men into christians, but
it certainly possesses the power of changing brutes
into men. Could the eloquence of the stage be
properly directed, it is impossible to conceive the
extent of its mechanical effects upon morals. The
language and imagery of a Shakespeare, upon mo-
ral and religious subjects, poured upon the passions
and the senses, in all the beauty and variety of dra-
matic representation ; who could resist, or des-
cribe their effects ?

14. Odours of various kinds have been observ-
ed to act in the most sensible manner upon the mo-
ral faculty. Brydone tells us, upon the authority
of a celebrated philosopher in Italy, that the pecu-
liar wickedness of the people who live in the neigh-
bourhood of JKtna. and Vesuvius is occasioned
chiefly by the smell of the sulphur, and of the hot
exhalations which are constantly discharged from
those volcanoes. Agreeable odours seldom fail to
inspire serenity, and to compose the angry spirits.
Hence the pleasure, and one of the advantages, of
a flower garden. The smoke of tobacco is likewise
of a composing nature, and tends not only to pro-
duce what is called a train in perception, but to
hush the agitated passions into silence and order.
.Hence the practice of connecting the pipe or segar
and the bottle together, in public company.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 205

15. It will be sufficient onl^o mention light
and DARKNESS, to suggest facts in favour of the
influence of each of them upon moral sensibility.
How often do the peevish complaints of the night,
in sickness, give way to the composing rays of
the light of the morning ? Othello cannot murder
Desdemona by candle-light, and who has not felt
the effects of a blazing fire upon the gentle pas-
sions ?*■

16. It is to be lamented, that no experiments
have as yet been made, to determine the effects
of all the different species of airs, which chemistry
has lately discovered, upon the moral faculty. I
have authority, from actual experiments, only to
declare, that dephlogisticated air, when taken in-
to the lungs, produces cheerfulness, gentleness, and
serenity of mind.

17. What shall we say of the effects of medi-
cines upon the moral faculty? That many sub-
stances in the materia medica act upon the in-
tellects is well known to physicians. Why should

* The temperature of the air has a considerable influence
upon moral feeling. Henry the Thipd of France was always
ill humoured, and sometimes cruel, in cold weather. There
is a damp air which comes from the sea in Northumberlani
county in England which is known by the name of the Sea^
fret ; from its inducing fretfulness in the temper.

I

206 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

it be thought impossible for medicines to act in
like manner upon the moral faculty ? May not the
earth contain, in its bowels, or upon its surface, an-
tidotes? But I will not blend facts with conjec-
tures. Cloulds and darkness still hang upon this
part of my subject.

Let it not be suspected, from any thing that I
have delivered, that I suppose the influence of phy-
sical causes upon the moral faculty renders the
agency of divine influence unnecessary to our mo-
ral happiness. I only maintain, that the opera-
tions of the divine government are carried on in
the moral, as in the natural world, by the instru-
mentality of second causes. I have only trodden
in the footsteps of the inspired writers ; for most
of the physical causes I have enumerated are con-
nected with moral precepts, or have been used as
the means of reformation from vice, in the Old
and New Testaments. To the cases that have
been mentioned, I shall only add, that Nebuchad-
nezzar was cured of his pride, by means of soli-
tude and a vegetable diet. Saul was cured of his
evil spirit, by means of David's harp, and St. Paul
expressly says, " I keep my body under, and bring
it into subjection, lest that by any means, when
I have preached to others, I myself should be a
cast-away." But I will go one step further, and
add, in favour of divine influence upon the moral

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 2Q7

principle, that in those extraordinary cases, where
bad men are suddenly reformed, without the in-
strumentality of physical, moral or rational causes,
I believe that the organization of those parts of the
body, in which the faculties of the mind are seated,
undergoes a physical change ;* and hence the ex-
pression of a " new creature," which is made use
of in the scriptures to denote this change, is pro-
per in a literal, as well as a figurative sense. It is
probably the beginning of that perfect renovation
of the human body, which is predicted by St. Paul
in the following words : " For our conversation
is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savi-
our, who shall change our vile bodies, that they
may be fashioned according to his own glorious
body." I shall not pause to defend myself
against the charge of enthusiasm in this place ; for
the age is at length arrived, so devoutly wished for *,
by Dr. Cheyne, in which men will not be deterred
in their researches after truth, by the terror of odi-
ous or unpopular names.

* St. Paul was suddenly transformed from a persecutor in-
to a man of a gentle and amiable spirit. The manner in
which this change was effected upon his mind, he tells us
in the following words : « Neither circumcision availeth
any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. From
henceforth let no man troxible me ; for I bear in my bodij
tbemarX-«ofour Lord Jesus." Galatians vi. 15. 17.

iii.ki-

208 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

I cannot help remarking under this head, that if
the conditions of those parts of the human body
which are connected with the human soul influence
morals, the same reason may be given for a virtu-
ous education, that has been admitted for teaching
music, and the pronunciation of foreign languages,
in the early and yielding state of those organs which
form the voice and speech. Such is the effect of
a moral education, that we often see its fruits in
advanced stages of life, after the religious princi-
ples which were connected with it have been re-
nounced; just as we perceive the same care in a
surgeon in his attendance upon patients, after the
sympathy %vhich first produced this care has ceas-
ed to operate upon his mind. The boasted mora-
lity of the deists is, I believe, in most cases, the
offspring of habits, produced originally by the prin-
^ ciples and precepts of Christianity. Hence appears
the wisdom of Solomon's advice, " Train up a
child in the way he should go, and when he is
old he will not," I had almost said, he cannot,
■' depart from it*"

Thus have I enumerated the principal causes

which act mechanically upon morals. If, from the

combined action of physical powers that are oppos-

^ed to each other, the moral faculty should become

itationarj% or if the virtue or vice produced by

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 209

them should form a neutral quality, composed of
both of them, I hope it will not call in question the
truth of our general propositions. I have only
mentioned the effects of physical causes in a simple
state.*

It might help to enlarge our ideas upon this
W subject, to take notice of the influence of the dif-
ferent stages of society, of agriculture and com-
merce, of soil and situation, of the different degrees
of cultivation of taste, and of the intellectual pow-
ers, of the different forms of government, and, last-
ly, of the different professions and occupations of
mankind, upon the moral faculty ; but as these act
indirectly only, and by the intervention of causes
that are unconnected with matter, I conceive they
are foreign to the business of the present inquiry.
If they should vary the action of the simple physi-
cal causes in any degree, I hope it will not call in
question the truth of our general propositions, any
more than the compound action of physical powers
that are opposed to each other. There remain but
a few more causes which are of a compound na-

* The doctrine of the influence of physical causes on mo-
rals is happily calculated to beget charity towards the fail-
ings of our fellow-creatures. Our duty to practise this vir-
tue is enforced by motives drawn fi"om science, as well as
from the precepts of Christianity. '

VOL. I. D d

^-

210 INFLUENCE Of PHYSICAL CAUSES

ture, but they are so nearly related to those which
ai-e purely mechanical, that I shall beg leave to
trespass upon your patience, by giving them a
place in my oration.

The effects of imitation, habit, and association,
upon morals would furnish ample matter for in-
vestigation. Considering how much the shape,
texture, and conditions of the human body influ-
ence morals, I submit it to the consideration of the
ingenious, whether, in our endeavours to imitate
moral examples, some advantage may not be de-
rived, from our copying the features and external
manners of the originals. What makes the suc-
cess of this experiment probable is, that we gene-
rally find men, whose faces resemble each other,
have the same manners and dispositions. I infer
the possibility of success in an attempt to imitate
originals in a manner that has been mentioned,
from the facility Avith which domestics acquire a
resemblance to their masters and mistresses, not
only in manners, but in countenance, in those cases
where they are tied to them by respect and affec-
tion. Husbands and wives also, where they pos-
sess the same species of face, under circumstances
of mutual attachment often acquire a resemblance
to each other.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 211

From the general detestation in which hypocrisy
is held, both by good and bad men, the mechani-
cal effects of habit upon virtue have not been suf-
ficiently explored. There are, I am persuaded,
many instances, where virtues have been assumed
by accident, or necessity, which have become real
from habit, and afterwards derived their nourish-
ment from the heart. Hence the propriety of
Hamlet's advice to his mother :

" Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, Custom, who all sense doth eat

Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence ; the next more easy :

For use can almost change the stamp of nature,

And master even the devil, or throw him out,

With wondrous potency."

The influence of association upon moi-als
opens an ample field for inquir)^ It is from this
principle, that we explain the reformation from
theft and drunkenness in servants, which we some-
times see produced by a draught of spirits, in which
tartar emetic had been secretly dissolved. The
recollection of the pain and sickness excited by
the emetic naturally associates itself ^vith the spi-

212 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

rits, so as to render them both equally the objects
of aversion. It is by calling in this principle only,
that we can account for the conduct of Moses,
in grinding the golden calf into a powder, and
afterwards dissolving it (probably by means of
hepar sulphuris) in water, and compelling the
children of Israel to drink of it, as a punishment
for their idolatry. This mixture is bitter and nau-
seating in the highest degree. An inclination to
idolatry, therefore, could not be felt, without be-
ing associated with the remembrance of this disa^
greeable mixture, and of course being rejected,
with equal abhorrence. The benefit of corporal
punishments, when they are of a short duration,
depends in part upon their being connected, by
time and place, with the crimes for which they
are inflicted. Quick as the thunder follows the
lightning, if it were possible, should punishments
follow the crimes, and the advantage of association
would be more certain, if the spot where they
were committed were made the theatre of their
expiation. It is from the effects of this association,
probably, that the change of place and company,
produced by exile and transportation, has so often
reclaimed bad men, after moral, rational, and
physical means of reformation had been used to no
purpose.

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 213

As SENSIBILITY IS thc avcnue to the moral fa-
culty, every thing which tends to diminish it tends
also to injure morals. The Romans owed much
of their corruption to the sights of the contests of
their gladiators, and of criminals, with wild beasts.
For these reasons, executions should never be pub-
lic. Indeed, I believe there are no pubUc punish-
ments of any kind, that do not harden the hearts
of spectators, and thereby lessen the natural horror
which all crimes at first excite in the human mind.

Cruelty to brute animals is another means of
destroying moral sensibility. The ferocity of sa-
vages has been ascribed in part to their peculiar
mode of subsistence. Mr. Hogarth points out, in
his ingenious prints, the connection between cru-
elty to brute animals in youth, and murder in man-
hood. The emperor Domitian prepared his mind,
by the amusement of killing flies, for all those
bloody crimes which afterwards disgraced his
reign. I am so perfectly satisfied of the truth of
a connection between morals and humanity to
brutes, that I shall find it difficult to restrain mv
idolatry for that legislature, that shall first establish
a system of laws to defend them from outrage and
oppression.

214 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

In order to preserve the vigour of the moral
facult}', it is of the utmost consequence to keep
young people as ignorant as possible of those crimfes
that are generally thought most disgraceful to hu-
man nature. Suicide, I believe, is often propa-
gated by means of newspapers. For this reason,
I should be glad to see the proceedings of our
courts kept from the public eye, when they expose
or punish monstrous vices.

The last mechanical method of promoting mo-
rality that I shall mention, is to keep sensibility
alive, by a familiarity with scenes of distress from
poverty and disease. Compassion never awakens
in the human bosom, without being accompanied
by a train of sister virtues. Hence the wise man
justly remarks, that " By the sadness of the coun-
tenance, the heart is made better."

A late French writer, in liis prediction of events
that are to happen in the year 4000, says, " That
mankind in that asra shall be so far improved by
religion and government, that the sick and the
dying shall no longer be thrown, together with
the dead, into splendid houses, but shall be re-
lieved and protected in a connection with their
families and society." For the honour of huma^

•UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 215

nity, an institution,* destined for that distant pe-
riod, has lately been founded in this city, that shall
perpetuate the year 1786 in the history of Penn-
sylvania. Here the feeling heart, the tearful eye,
and the charitable hand, may always be connected
together, and the flame of sympathy, instead of
being extinguished in taxes, or expiring in a soli-
tary blaze by a single contribution, may be kept
alive by constant exercise. There is a necessary
connection between animal sympathy and good
morals. The priest and the Levite, in the New
Testament, would probably have relieved the poor
man who fell among thieves, had accident brought
them near enough to his wounds. The unfortunate
Mrs. Bellamy was rescued from the dreadful pur-
pose of drowning herself, by nothing but the dis-
tress of a child, rending the air with its cries for
bread. It is probably owing, in some measure, to
the connection between good morals and sympathy,
that the fair sex, in every age and country, have
been more distinguished for virtue than men;
for how seldom do we hear of a woman devoid of
humanity ?

Lastly, ATTRACTION, coMrosiTiON, and de-
composition, belong to the passions as well as

* A public dispensary.

216 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

to matter. Vices of the same species attract each
other with the most force : hence the bad conse-
quences of crowding young men, whose propensi-
ties are generally the same, under one roof, in our
modern plans of education. The effects of com-
position and decomposition upon vices appear, in
the meanness of the school-boy being often cured
by the prodigality of a military life, and by the pre-
cipitation of avarice, which is often produced by
ambition and love.

If physical causes influence morals in the man-
ner we have described, may they not also influence
reUgious principles and opinions? I answer in
the affirmative ; and I have authority, from the
records of physic, as well as from my own obser-
vations, to declare, that religious melancholy and
madness, in all their variety of species, yield with
more facility to medicine, than simply to polemical
discourses, or to casuistical advice. But this sub-
ject is foreign to the business of the present in-
quiry.

From a review of our subject, we are led to
contemplate, with admiration, the curious structure
of the human mind. How distinct are the num-
ber, and yet how united 1 How subordinate, and
yet how co-equal, are all its faculties ! How won-

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 217

derful is the action of the mind upon the body !
of the body upon the mind! and of the Divine
Spirit upon both ! What a mystery is the mind

of man to itself! O ! Nature !^ ^oi, to speak

more properly, O ! thou God of Nature ! in
vain do we attempt to scan thy immensity, or to
comprehend thy various modes of existence, when
a single particle of light, issued from thyself,
and kindled into intelligence in the bosom of man,
thus dazzles and confounds our understandings !

The extent of the moral powers and habits in
man is unknown. It is not improbable but the
human mind contains principles of virtue, which
have never yet been excited into action. We be-
hold with surprise the versatility of the human
body in the exploits of tumblers and rope dancers.
Even the agility of a wild beast has been demon-
strated in a girl of France, and an amphibious na-
ture has been discovered in the human species in
a young man in Spain. We listen \vith astonish-
ment to the accounts of the memories of Mithri-
dates, Cyrus, and Servin. We feel a veneration,
bordering upon divine homage, in contemplating
the stupendous ujiderstandings of lord Verulam
and sir Isaac Newton ; and our eyes grow dim,
in attempting to pursue Shakespeare and Milton in
their immeasurable flights of imagination. And if

VOL. I. EC

218 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

the history of mankind does not furnish similar in-
stances of the versatility and perfection of our spe-
cies in virtiie, it is becatise the moral faculty has
been the subject of less culture and fewer experi-
ments than the body, and the intellectual powers
of the mind. From what has been said, the rea-
son of this is obvious. Hitherto the cultivation
of the moral faculty has been the business of pa-
rents, schoolmasters, and divines.* But if the
principles, we have laid down, be just, the im-
provement and extension of this principle should
be equally the business of the legislator, the na-
tural philosopher, and the physician ; and a phy-
sical regimen should as necessarily accompany a
moral precept, as directions with respect to the
air, exercise, and dietj generally accompany pre-
scriptions for the consumption, and the gout. To
encourage us to undertake experiments for the

* The people commonly called Quakers, and the Metho-
dists, make use of the greatest number of physical remedies. '
in their religious and moial discipline, of any sects of Chris-
tians ; and hence we find them every where distinguished
for their good morals. There are several excellent physical
institutions in other churches ; and if they do not produce
the same m:oral effects that we observe from physical insti-
tutions among those two modern sects, it must be ascribed
to their being more neglected by the members of those
churches.

trPON THE MORAL FACULTY.

219

improvement of morals, let iis recollect the suc-
cess of philosophy in lessening the number, and
mitigating the violence of incurable diseases. The
intermitting fever, which proved fatal to two of
the monarchs of Britain, is now under absolute
subjection to medicine. Continual fevers are
much less fatal than formerly. The small-pox is
disarmed of its mortality by inoculation, and even
the tetanus and tlie cancer have lately received a
check in their ravages upon mankind. But medi-
cine has done more. It has penetrated the deep
and gloomy abyss of death, and acquired fresh ho-
nours in his cold embraces. Witness the many
hundred people who have lately been brought back
to life by the successful efforts of tiie humane so-
cieties, which are now established in many parts of
Europe, and in some parts of America. Should
the same industiy and ingenuity, which have pro-
duced these triumphs of medicine over diseases
and death, be applied to the morol science, it is
highly probable that most of those baneful vices,
which deform the human breast, and convulse the
nations of the earth, might be banished from the
world. I am not so sanguine as to suppose, that
it is possible for man to acquire so much perfection
from science, religion, liberty, and good govern-
mient, as to cease to be mortal ; but I am fully
persuaded, that from the combined action of causes.

220 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

which operate at once upon the reason, the moral
faculty, the passions, the senses, the brain, the
nerves, thp blood, and the heart, it is possible to
produce such a change in his moral character, as
shall raise him to a resemblance of angels ; nay,
more, to the likeness of God himself. The state
of Pennsylvania still deplores the loss of a man, in
whom not only reason and revelation, but many of
the physical causes that have been enumerated,
concurred to produce such attainments in moral
excellency, as have seldom appeared in a human
being. This amiable citizen considered his fellow-
creature, man, as God's extract, from his own
works ; and whether this image of himself was cut
out from ebony or copper ; whether he spoke his
own, or a foreign language ; or whether he wor-
shipped his Maker with ceremonies, or without
them, he still considered him as a brother, and
equally the object of his benevolence. Poets and
historians, who are to live hereafter, to you I com-
mit his panegyric ; and when you hear of a law for
abolishing slavery in each of the American states,
such as was passed in Pennsylvania in the year
1780 ; when you hear of the kings and queens of
Europe publishing edicts for abolishing the trade
in human souls ; and, lastly, when you hear of
schools and churches, with all the arts of civilized
life, being established among the nations of Africa,

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 221

then remember and record, that this revolution in
favour of human happiness was the effect of the
labours, the pubhcations, the private letters, and
the prayers, of Anthony Benezet.*

I return from this digression, to address my-
self in a particular manner to you, venerable

* This worthy man was descended from an ancient and
honourable family that flourished in the court of Louis XIV.
With liberal prospects in life, he early devoted himself to
teaching an English school ; in which, for industry, capacity,
and attention to the morals and principles of the youth com-
mitted to his care, he was without an equal. He published
many excellent tracts against the African trade, against war,
and the use of spirituous liquors, and one in^favour of civilizing
and christianizing the Indians. He wrote to the queen of
Great Britain, and the queen of Portugal, to use their influ-
ence in their respective courts to abolish the African trade.
He also wrote an affectionate letter to the king of Prussia,
to dissuade him from making war. The history of his life
affords a remarkable instance, how much it is possible for
an individual to accomplish in the world ; and that the most
humble stations do not preclude good men from the most
extensive usefulness. He bequeathed his estate (after the
death of his widow) to the support of a school for the edu-
cation of negro children, which he had founded and taught
for several years before he died. He departed this life in
May, 1784, in the seventy-first year of his age, in the meri^
dian of his usefulness, universally lamented by persons of all
ranks and denominations.

223 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

SAGES and FELLOW CITIZENS in the republic
OF LETTERS. The mfiuence of philosophy, we
have been told, has already been felt in courts.
To increase, and complete, this influence, there is
nothing more necessary, than for the numerous
literai-y societies in Europe and America to add
the SCIENCE OF MORALS to their experiments and
inquiries. The godlike scheme of Henry IV. of
France, and of the illustrious queen EUzabeth, of j

England, for establishing a pei-petual peace in Eu- «

rope, may be accomplished without a system of
jurisprudence, by a confederation of learned men
and learned societies. It is in their power, by mul-
tiplying the objects of human reason, to bring the
monarchs and rulers of the world under their sub-
jection, and thereby to extirpate war, slavery, and
capital punishments, from the list of human evils.
Let it not be suspected that I detract, by this de-
claration, from the honour of the Christian religion.
It is true, Christianity was propagated without the
aid of human learning ; but this was one of those
miracles, which was necessary to establish it, and
which, by repetition, would cease to be a miracle.
They misrepresent the Christian religion, who sup-
pose it to be wholly an internal revelation, and ad-
dressed only to the moral faculties of the mind.
The truths of Christianity afford the greatest scope
for the human understanding, and they will becom(^

UPON THE MORAL FACULTY. 222>

intelligible to us, only in proportion as the human
genius is stretched, by means of philosophy, to its
utmost dimensions. Errors may be opposed to
errors; but truths, upon all subjects, mutually
support each other. And perhaps one reason why
some parts of the Christian revelation are still in-
volved in obscurity, may be occasioned by our
imperfect knowledge of the phenomena and laws oi
nature. The truths of philosophy and Christianity
dwell alike in the mind of the Deity, and reason
and religion are equally the offspring of his good-
ness. They must, therefore, stand and fall toge-
ther. By reason, in the present instance, I mean
the power of judging of truth, as well as the power
of comprehending it. Happy sera ! when the di-
vine and the philosopher shall embrace each other.
and unite their labours for the reformation and hap-
piness of mankind !

Illustrious counsellors and senators
of Pennsylvania* ! I anticipate your candid recep-
tion of this feeble effort to increase the quantity of
virtue in our republic. It is not my business to

* The president and supreme executive council, and the
members of the general assembly of Pennsylvania, attended
Ihe delivery of the oration, in the hsU of the university, by
invitation from the Philosophical Society.

224 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES

remind you of the immense resources for great-
ness, ^whicli nature and Providence have bestowed
upon our state. Every advantage which France
has derived from being placed in the centre of
Europe, and which Britian has derived from her
mixture of nations, Pennsylvania has opened to her.
But my business^ at present, is to suggest the
means of promoting the happiness, not the great-
ness, of the state. For this purpose, it is abso-
lutely necessary that our government, which unites
into one all the minds of the state, should possess,
in an eminent degree^ not only the understanding,
the passions, and the will, but, above all, the moral
faculty and the conscience of an individual. No-
diing can be politically right, that is morally
wrong ; and no necessity can ever sanctify a law,
that is contrary to equity. Virtue is the soul of
a republic. To promote this, laws for the sup-
pression of vice and immorality will be as ineffec-
tual, as the increase and enlargement of jails.
There is but one method of preventing crimes,
and of rendering a republican form of government
durable, and that is, by disseminating the seeds of
virtue and knowledge through every part of the
state, by means of proper modes and places of edu-
cation, and this can be done effectually only by the
interference and aid of the legislature. I am so
deeply impressed with the truth of this opinion,

UPON THE MORAL PACULTV. 225

that were this evening to be the last of my life, I
would not only say to the asylum of my ancestors,
and my beloved native country, with the patriot of
Venice, " Esto perpetua," but I would add, as
the last proof of my affection for her, my parting
advice to the guardians of her liberties, " To esta-
blish and support public schools in every part
of the state."

VOL. |.

AN ACCOUNT

INFLUENCE OF THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL EVENTS

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE HUMAN BODY.

AN ACCOUNT, &c.

THERE were several circumstances pecu»
liar to the American revolution, which should be
mentioned previously to an account of the influence
of the events which accompanied it upon the hu-
man body.

1. The revolution interested every inhabitant
of the country of both sexes, and of every rank and
age that was capable of reflection. An indifferent,
or neutral, spectator of the controversy was scarcely
to be found in any of the states.

2. The scenes of war and government which it
introduced were new to the greatest part of the
inhabitants of the United States, and operated with
all the force of novelty upon the human mind.

230 INFLUENCE 0? THE REVOLUTION

3. The controversy was conceived to be the
most important of any that had ever engaged the
attention of mankind. It was generally believed,
by the friends of the revolution, that the very ex-
istence of freedom^ upon our globe, was involved
in the issue of the contest in favour of the United
States.

4. The American revolution included in it the
cares of government, as well as the toils and dan-
gers of war. The American mind was, therefore,
frequently occupied, at the same time^ by the diffi-
cult and complicated duties of political an^ military
life.

5. The revolution, was conducted by men wha»
had been bornyree, and whose sense of the blessings
of liberty was of course more exquisite than if they
had just emerged from a state of slavery.

6. The greatest part of the soldiers in the armies
of the United States had family comijecticMis and
property in the country.

7. The war was carried on by the Americans
against a nation, to whom they had long been tied
by the numerous obligations of consanguinity, laws,
religion, commerce, language, interest, and a mu-

UPO^I* tfeE ^tJMAK BODY. 231

tUkl isdnse of national glory. The resentments of
the Americans of course rose, as is usual in all
disputes, in proportion to the number and force of
these ancient bonds of affection and union.

8. A predilection to a limited monarchy, as an
^isential part of a free and safe government, and an
attachment to the reigning king of Great Briton
(vdth a very few exceptions) were universal in
every part of the United States.

9. There was at one time a sudden dissolution
tf civil government in all., and of ecclesiastical
Establishments in several, of the states.

10. The expences of the war were supported
by means of a paper currency, which was continu-
ally depreciating.

From the action of each of these causes, and
frequently from their combination in the same per-
sons, effects might reasonably be expected, both
upon the mind and body, which have seldom oc-
curred ; or if they have, I believe were never fully
recorded in any age or country.

It might afford some useful instruction, to point
out the influence of the military and political events

232 INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION.

of the revolution upon the understandings, passions,
and morals of the citizens of the United States ;
but ray business in the present inquiry is only to
take notice of the influence of those events upon
the human body, through the medium of the mind.

I shall first mention the effects of the military,
and, secondly, of the political events of the revolu-
tion. The last must be considered in a two-fold
view, accordingly as they affected the friends, or
the enemies, of the revolution.

I. In treating of the effects of the military events,
I shall take notice, first, of the influence of actual
war, and, secondly, of the influence of the military
life.

In the beginning of a battle, I have observed
thirst to be a very common sensation among both
officers and soldiers. It occurred where no exer-
cise, or action of the body, could have excited it.

Many officers have informed me, that after the
first onset in a battle they felt a glow of heat, so
universal as to be perceptible in both their ears.
This was the case, in a particular manner, in the
battle of Princeton, on the third of January, in the

UPON THE HUMAN BODY. 233

year 1777, on which day the weather was remark-
ably cold.

A veteran colonel of a New England regiment,
whom I visited at Princeton, and who was wound-
ed in the hand at the battle of Monmouth, on the
28th of June, 1778 (a day in which the mercury
stood at 90° of Fahrenheit's thermometer) after de-
scribing his situation at the time he received his
wound, concluded his story by remarking, that
fighting was hot work on a cold day, but much
more so on a warm day." The many instances
which appeared after that memorable battle, of
soldiers who were found among the slain without
any marks of wounds or violence upon their bo-
dies, were probably occasioned by the heat excited
in the body, by the emotions of the mind, being
added to that of the atmosphere.

Soldiers bore operations of every kind, immedi-
ately after a battle, with much more fortitude than
they did at any time afterwards.

The effects of the military life upon tlie human
body come next to be considered under this head.

In another place I have mentioned three cases

VOL. I G ^

234 INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION

of pulmonary consumption being perfectly cured
by the diet and hardships of a camp life.

Doctor Blane, in his valuable observations on
the diseases incident to seamen, ascribes the ex-
traordinary healthiness of the British fleet in the
month of April, 1782, to the effects produced on
the spirit of the soldiers and seamen, by the vic-
tory obtained over the French fleet on the 12th
of that month ; and relates, upon the authority of
Mr. Ives, an instance, in the war between Great-
Britian and the combined powers of France and
Spain, in 1744, in which the scurvy, as well as
-Other diseases, were checked by the prospect of a
naval engagement.

The American army furnished an instance of
the effects of victory upon the human mind, which
may serve to establish the inferences from the facts
related by Doctor Blane. The Philadelphia mi-
litia who joined the remains of General Washing-
ton's army, in December, 1776, and shared with
them a few days afterwards in the capture of a
large body of Hessians at Trenton, consisted of
1500 men, most of whom had been accustomed
to the habits of a city life. These men slept in
tents and barns, and sometimes in the open air,
during the usual colds of December and January ;

UPON THE HUMAN BODY.

235

aiid yet there were but two instances of sickness,
and only one of death, in that body of men in the
course of nearly six weeks, in those winter months.
This extraordinary healthiness of so great a num-
ber of men, under such trying circumstances, can
only be ascribed to the vigour infused into the
human body by the victory of Trenton having
produced insensibility to all the usual remote causes
of diseases.

Militia officers and soldiers, who enjoyed good
health during a campaign, were often affected by
fevers and other diseases, as soon as they return-
ed to their respective homes. I knew one instance
of a militia captain, who was seized with convul-
sions the first night he lay on a feather bed, after
sleeping several months on a mattrass, or upon the
ground. These affections of the body appeared
to be produced only by the sudden abstraction of
that tone in the system , which was excited by a
sense of danger, and the other invigorating objects
of a military life.

The NOSTALGIA of Doctor CuUen, or the
iiome- sickness^ was a frequent disease in the Ame-
rican army, more especially among the soldiers of
the New England states. But this disease was
suspended by the superior action of the mind, un-

236 INFLUENCE Of THE REVOLUTION

der the influence of the principles which governed
common soldiers in the American army. Of this
General Gates furnished me with a remarkable in-
stance in 1776, soon after his return from the
command of a large body of regular troops and
militia at Ticonderoga. From the effects of the
nostalgia, and the feebleness of the discipline
which was exercised over the militia, desertions
were very frequent and numerous in his army, in
the latter part of the campaign ; and yet during
the three weeks in which the general expected every
hour an attack to be made upon him by General
Burgoyne, there was not a single desertion from
his army, which consisted at tiiat time of 10,000
men.

The patience, firmness and magnanimity, with
which the officers and soldiers of the American
army endured the complicated evils of hunger,
cold and nakedness, can only be ascribed to an
insensibility of body produced by an uncommon
tone of mind, excited by the love of liberty and
their country.

Before I proceed to the second general division
of this subject, I shall take notice, that more in-
stances of apoplexies occurred in the city of Phi-
ladelphia, in the winter of 1774-5, than had been

UPON THE HUMAN BODY. ^37

known in former years. I should have hesitated
in recording this fact, had I not found the obser-
vation supported by a fact of the same kind, and
produced by a nearly similar cause, in the appen-
dix to the practical works of Doctor Baglivi, pro-
fessor of physic and anatomy at Rome. After a
very wet season in the winter of 1694-5, he in-,
forms us, that " apoplexies displayed their rage ;
and perhaps (adds our author) some part of
this epidemic illness was owing to the universal
grief and domestic care, occasioned by all Europe
being engaged in a war. All commerce was dis-
turbed, and all the avenues of peace blocked up,
so that the strongest heart could scarcely bear the
thoughts of it." The winter of 1774-5 was a
period of uncommon anxiety among the citizens
of America. Every countenance wore the marks
of painful solicitude for the event of a petition to
the throne of Britain, which was to determine whe-
ther reconciliation, or a civil war, with all its terri-
ble and distressing consequences, were to take
place. The apoplectic fit, which deprived the
world of the talents and virtues of Peyton Ran-
dolph, while he filled the chair of congress, in 1775,
appeared to be occasioned in part by the pressure
of the uncertainty of those great events upon his
mind. To the name of this illustrious patriot,
several others might be added, who were affected

238 ^INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION

by the apoplexy in the same memorable year. At
this time a difference of opinion upon the subject
of the contest with Great Britain had scarcely
taken place among the citizens of America.

II. The political events of the revolution pro-
duced different effects upon the human body,
through the medium of the mind, according as
they acted upon the friends or enemies of the re-
volution.

I shall first describe its effects upon the former
class of citizens of the United States.

Many persons, of infirm and delicate habits,
were restored to perfect health, by the change of
place, or occupation, to which the war exposed
them. This was the case in a more especial man-
ner with hysterical women, who were much inter-
ested in the successful issue of the contest. The
same effects of a civil war upon the hysteria, were
observed by Doctor CuUen in Scotland, in the
years 1745 and 1746. It may perhaps help to
extend our ideas of the influence of the passions'
upon diseases, to add, that when either love, jea-
lousy, grief, or even devotion, wholly engross the
female mind, they seldom fail, in like maimer, to
cure or to suspenp hysterical complaints.

UPON THE HUMAN BODY. 239

An uncommon cheerfulness prevailed every-
where, among the friends of the revolution. De-
feats, and even the loss of relations and property,
were soon forgotten in the great objects of the
war.

The population in the United States was more
rapid from births during the war, than it had ever
been in the same number of years since the settle-
ment of the countrj^

I am disposed to ascribe this increase of births
chiejiy to the quantity and extensive circulation of
money, and to the facility of procuring the means
of subsistence during the war, which favoured
maiTiages among the labouring part of the peo-
ple.* But I have sufficient documents to prove,
that marriages were more fruitful than in former
years, and that a considerable number of unfruit-
ful marriages became fruitful during the war. In
1783, the year of the peace, there were several

* Wheat, which was sold before the war for seven shil-
lings and six pence, was sold for several years during the war
for four, and in some places for two and six pence Pennsyl-
vania currency per bushel. Beggars of every description
disappeared in the year 1776, and were seldom seen till
near the close of the war.

240 INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION

children bom of parents who had lived many years
together without issue.

Mr, Hume informs us, in his History of Eng-
land, that some old people, upon hearing the news
of the restoration of Charles H. died suddenly
of joy. There was a time when I doubted the
truth of tliis assertion ; but I am now disposed to
believe it, from having heard of a similar effect
from an agreeable political event, in the course of
the American revolution. The door-keeper of
congress, an aged man, died suddenly, immedi-
ately after hearing of the capture of lord Corn-
wallis's army. His death was universally ascribed
to a violent emotion of political joy. This species
of joy appears to be one of the strongest emotions
that can agitate the human mind.

Perhaps the influence of that ardour in trade
and speculation, which seized many of the friends
of the revolution, and which was excited by the
fallacious nominal amount of the paper money,
should rather be considered as a disease, than as a
passion. It unhinged the judgment, deposed the
moral faculty, and filled the imagination, in many
people, with airy and impracticable schemes of
wealth and grandeur. Desultory manners, and a
peculiar species of extempore conduct, were among

UPON THE HUMAN BODY. 241

its characteristic symptoms. It produce dinsensi-
bility to cold, hunger, and danger. The trading
towns, and in some instances the extremities of
the United States, were frequently visited in a few
hours or days by persons affected by this disease ;
and hence " to travel with the speed of a specu-
lator," became a common saying in many parts
of the country. This species of insanity (if I may
be allowed to call it by that name) did not require
the confinement ofv a bedlam to cure it, like the
South- Sea madness described by Doctor Mead.
Its remedies were the depreciation of the paper
money, and the events of the peace.

The poUtical events of the revolution produced
upon its enemies very different effects from those
which have been mentioned.

The hypochondriasis of Doctor Cullen occur-
red, in many instances, in persons of this descrip-
tion. In some of them, the terror and distress of
the revolution brought on a true melancholia.*
The causes which produced these diseases may be
reduced to four heads. 1. The loss of former
power or influence in government. 2. The des-
truction of the hierarchy of the English church in

* Insania partialis sine dyspepsia, of Doctor Cullen.
VOL. I. H h

242 INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION

America. 3. The change in the habits of diet,
and company, and manners, produced by the
annihilation of just debts by means of depreciated
paper money. And 4. The neglect, insults, and
oppression, to which the loyalists were exposed,
from individuals, and, in several instances, from
the laws of some of the states.

It was observed in South Carolina, that several
gentlemen, who had protected their estates by
swearing allegiance to the British government, died
soon after the evacuation of Charleston by the Bri-
tish army. Their deaths were ascribed to the
neglect with which they were treated by their an-
cient friends, who had adhered to the government
of the United States. The disease was called, by
the common people, the protection fever.

From the causes which produced this hypochon-
driasis, I have taken the liberty of distinguishing it
by the name of revolutiana.

In some cases, this disease was rendered fatal
by exile and confinement ; and, in others, by
those persons who were afflicted with it seeking
relief from spirituous liquors.

UPON THE HUMAN BODY, 243

The termination of the war by the peace in
1783 did not terminate the American revolution.
The minds of the citizens of the United States
were wholly unprepared for their new situation.
The excess of the passion for liberty, inflamed by
the successful issue of the war, produced, in many
people, opinions and conduct, which could not be
removed by reason nor restrained by government.
For a while, they threatened to render abortive
the goodness of Heaven to the United States, in
delivering them from the evils of slavery and war.
The extensive uifluence which these opinions had
upon the understandings, passions, and morals of
many of the citizens of the United States, consti-
tuted a form of insanity, which I shall take the
liberty of distinguishing by the name of anarchia.

I hope no offence will be given by the freedom
of any of these remarks. An inquirer after philo-
sophical truth should consider the passions of men
in the same light that he does the laws of matter
or motion. The friends and enemies of the Ame-
rican revolution must have been more, or less, tjian
men, if they could have sustained the magnitude
and rapidity of the events that characterised it,
without discovering some marks of human weak-
ness, both in body and mind. Perhaps these weak-
nesses were permitted, that human nature might

244 INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION, &C.

receive fresh honours in America, by the contend-
ing parties (whether produced by the controver-
sies about independence or the national govern-
ment) mutually forgiving each other, and uniting
in plans of general order and happiness.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

RELATION OF TASTES AND ALIMENTS

TO EACH OTHER,

AND INTO

THE INFLUENCE OF THIS RELATION

HEALTH AND PLEASURE^

AN INQUIRY, &c.

IN entering upon this subject, I feel like
the clown, who, after several unsuccessful attempts
to play upon a violin, threw it hastily from him,
exclaiming at the same time, that " there was mu-
sic in it," but that he could not bring it out.

I shall endeavour, by a few brief remarks, to lay
a foundation for more successful inquiries upon
this difficult subject.

Attraction and repulsion seem to be the active
principles of the universe. They pervade not only
the greatest, but the minutest, works of nature.
Salts, earths, inflammable bodies, metals, and ve-
getables, have all their respective relations to each
other. The order of these relations is so uniform,
that it has been ascribed by some philosophers to

248 THE RELATION OF TASTES AND

a latent principle of intelligence pervading each oi
them.

Colours, odours, and sounds, have likewise their
respective relations to each other. They become
agreeable and disagreeable, only in proportion to
the natural or unnatural combination which takes
place between each of their different species.

It is remarkable, that the number of original
colours and notes in music is exactly the same. All
the variety in both proceeds from tlie difference of
combination. An arbitrary combination of them
is by no means productive of pleasure. The rela-
tion which every colour and sound bear to each
other, was as immutably established at the creation,
as the order of the heavenly bodies, or as the rela-
tion of the objects of chemistry to each other.

But this relation is not confined to colours and
sounds alone. It probably extends to the objects
of human aliment. For example, bread and meat,
meat and salt, the alkalescent meats and acescent
vegetables, all harmonize with each other upon the
tongue ; while fish and flesh, butter and raw onions,
fish and milk, when combined, are all offensive to
a pure and healthy taste.

ALIMENTS TO EACH OTHER. 249

It would be agreeable to trace the analogy of
sounds and tastes. They have both their flats and
their sharps They are both improved by the coa-.
trast of discords. Thus pepper, and other condi-
ments (which are disagreeable when taken by them-
selves) enhance the relish of many of our aliments,
and they are both delightful in proportion as they
are simple in their composition. To illustrate
this analogy by more examples from music would
lead us from the subject of the present inquir)\

It is observable that the tongue and the stomach,
like instmct and reason, are, by nature, in unison
with each other. One of those organs must always
be disordered, when they disagree in a single arti-
cle of aliment. When they both unite in articles
of diet that were originally disagreeable, it is owing
to a perversion in each of them, similar to tliat
Avhich takes place in the human mind, when both
the moral faculty and the conscience lose their na-
tural sensibility to virtue and vice.

Unfortunately for this part of science, the taste,
and the stomach are so much perverted in infancy
and childhood by heterogeneous aliment, that it is
difficult to tell what kinds and mixtures of food are
natural, and what are artificial. It is tme, the
system possesses a power of accommodating itself

VOL, I. I i

250 THE RELATION OF TASTES AND

both to artificial food, and to the most discordant
mixtures of that which is natural ; but may we
not reasonably suppose, that the system would pre-
serve its natural strength and order much longer,
if no such violence had been offered to it ?

If the relation of aliments to each other follows
the analogy of the objects of chemistry, then their
union will be influenced by many external circum-
stances, such as heat and cold, dilution, concen-
tration, rest, motion, and the addition of substances
which promote unnatural, or destroy natural mix-
tures. This idea enlarges the field of inquiry be-
fore us, and leads us still further from facts and
certainty upon this subject, but at the same time
it does not preclude us from the hope of obtaining
both ; for every difficulty that arises out of this
view of the subject may be removed by observa-
tion and experiment.

I come now to apply these remarks to health
and pleasure. I shall select only a few cases for
this purpose ; for if my principles be true, my
readers cannot avoid discovering many other illus-
trations of them.

1. When an article of diet is grateful to the
taste, and afterwards disagrees with the stomach,

ALIMENTS TO EACH OTHER. 251

may it not be occasioned by some other kind of
food, or by some drink being taken into the sto-
mach, which refuses to unite with the offending
article of diet ?

2. May not the uneasiness which many pcxsons
feel, after a moderate meal, arise from its having
consisted of articles of aliment which were not re-
lated to each other ?

3. May not the delicacy of stomach which some-
times occurs after the fortieth or forty-fith year of
human life be occasioned by nature recovering
her empire in the stomach, so as to require simpli-
city in diet, or such articles only of aliment as are
related ? May not this be die reason why most
people, who have passed those periods of life, are
unable to retain or to digest fish and flesh at the
same time, and why they generally dine only upon
one kind of food ?

4. Is not the language of nature in favour of
simplicity in diet discovered, by the avidity witli
which the luxurious and intemperate often seek
relief from variety and satiety, by retreating to
spring water for drink, and to bread and milk for
aliment ?

252 THE RELATION OF TASTES AND

5. May not the reason why plentiful meals of
fish, venison, oysters, beef, or mutton, when eaten
alone, lie so easily in the stomach, and digest so
speedily, be occasioned by no other food being
taken with them ? A pound, and even more, of
the above articles, frequently oppress the system
much less than half the quantity of heterogeneous
aliments.

6. Does not the facility with which a due mix-
ture of vegetable and animal food digests in the
stomach indicate the certainty of their relation to
each other ?

7. May not the peculiar good effects of a diet
wholly vegetable, or animal, be occasioned by the
more frequent and intimate relation of the articles
6f the same kingdoms to each other ? And may
not this be the reason why so few inconveniences
are felt from the mixture of a variety of vegetables
in the stomach ?

8. May not the numerous acute and chronic dis-
eases of the rich and luxurious arise from hetero-
geneous aliments being distributed in a diffused,
instead of a mixed state, through every part of the
body.

ALIMENTS TO EACH OTHER. 253

9. M'dj not the many cures which are ascribed
to certain articles of diet be occasioned more by
their being taken alone, than to any medicinal
quality inherent in them ? A diet of oysters in one
instance, of strawberries in another, and of sugar
of roses in many instances, has cured violent and
dangerous diseases of the breast.* Grapes, ac-
cording to Doctor Moore, when eaten in large
quantities, have produced the same salutary effect.
A milk diet, persisted in for several years, has
cured the gout and epilepsy. I have seen many
cases of dyspepsia cured by a simple diet of beef
and mutton, and have heard of a well-attested case
of a diet of veal alone having removed the same
disease. Squashes, and turnips likewise, when
taken by themselves, have cured that distressing
complaint in the stomach. It has been removed
even by milk, when taken by itself in a moderate
quantity. t The further the body, and more espe-
civ^lly the stomach, recede from health, the more
this simplicity of diet becomes necessary. The
appetite in these cases does not speak the language
of uncorrupted nature. It frequently calls for va-

* Vansweiten, 1209. 3,

t Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. vi. p, 31&,
31-9.

254 THE RELATION OF TASTES AND

rioiis and improper aliment ; but this is the eiFect
of intemperance having produced an early breach
between the taste and the stomach.

Perhaps the extraordinsry cures of obstinate dis-
eases, which are sometimes performed by persons
not regularly educated in physic, may be occa-
sioned by a long and steady perseverance in the use
of a single article of the materia medica. Those
chemical medicines which decompose each other,
are not the only substances which defeat the inten-
tion of the prescriber. Galenical medicines, by
combination, I believe, frequently produce effects
that are of a compound and contrary nature to their
original and simple qualities. This remark is ca-
pable of extensive application, but I quit it as a di-
gression from the subject of this inquiry.

10. I wish it to be observed, that I have con-
demned the mixture of different aliments in the
stomach only in a few cases, and under certain cir-
cumstances. It remains yet to determine by ex-
periments, what changes are produced upon ali-
ments by heat, dilution, addition, concentration,
motion, rest, and the addition of uniting substances,
before we can decide upon the relation of aliments
to each other, and the influence of that relation
upon health. The olla podrida of Spain is said

ALIMENTS TO EACH OTHER. 255

to be a pleasant and wholesome dish. It is proba-
bly rendered so, by a previous tendency of all its
ingredients to putrefaction, or by means of heat
producing a new arrangement, or additional new
relations of all its parts. I suspect heat to be a
powerful agent in disposing heterogeneous aliments
to unite with each other ; and hence the mixture
of aliments is probably less unhealthy in France and
Spain, than in England, where so much less fire is
used in preparing them, than in the former coun-
tries.

As too great a mixture of glaring colours, which
are related to each other, becomes painful to the
eye, so too great a mixture of related aliments op-
presses the stomach, and debilitates the powers of
the system. The original colours of the sky, and
of the surface of the globe, have ever been found
the most permanently agreeable to the eye. In
like manner, I am disposed to believe that there
are certain simple aliments which correspond, in
their sensible qualities, with the intermediate co-
lours of blue and green, that are most permanently
agreeable to the tongue and stomach, and that
every deviation from them is a departure from the
simplicity of health and nature.

256 THE RELATION OF TASTES AND

1 1. While nature seems to have limited us to
simplicity in aliment, is not this restriction abun-
dantly compensated by the variety of tastes which
she allows us to impart to it, in order to diversify
and increase the pleasure of eating ? It is remark-
able that salt, sugar, mustard, horse-radish, capers,
and spices of all kinds, according to Mr. Gosse's
experiments, related by Abbe Spallanzani,* all
contribute not only to render aliments savoury, but
to promote their digestion.

12. When we consider, that part of the ait of
cookery consists in rendering the taste of aliments
agreeable, is it not probable that the pleasure of
eating might be increased beyond our present
knowledge upon that subject, by certain new ar-
raneements or mixtures of the substances which
are used, to impart a pleasant taste to our ali-
ment?

13. Should philosophers ever stoop to this sub-
ject, may they not discover and ascertain a table of
the relations of sapid bodies to each other, with
the same accuracy that they have ascertained the
relation of the numerous objects of chemistry to
each other ?

* Dissertations, vol. I. p. 326.

ALIMENTS TO lACH OTHER. 257»a

14. When the tongue and stomach agree in the
same kinds of aliment, may not the increase of the
pleasure of eating be accompanied with an increase
of health and prolongation of life ?

15. Upon the pleasure of eating, I shall add the
following remarks. In order to render it truly ex-
quisite, it is necessary that all the senses, except
that of taste, should be as quiescent as possible.
Those persons mistake the nature of the appetite
for food, who attempt to whet it by accompanying
a dinner by a band of music, or by connecting the
dining table with an extensive and delightful pros-
pect. The undue excitement of one sense always
produces weakness in another. Even conversa-
tion sometimes detracts from the pleasure of eat-
ing ; hence great feeders love to eat in silence, or
alone ; and hence the speech of a passionate French-
man, while dining in a talkative company, was not
so improper as might be at first imagined. " Hold
your tongues (said he) I cannot taste my dinner."
I know a physician, who, upon the same principle,
always shuts his eyes, and requests silence in a sick
chamber, when he wishes to determine by the pulse
the propriety of blood-letting, in cases where its
indication is doubtful. His perceptions become
more distinct, by confining his whole attention to
the sense of feeling.

VOL. I. K k.

258 THE RELATION OF TASTES, &C.

It is impossible to mention the circumstance of
the senses acting only in succession to each other
in the enjoyment of pleasure, without being struck
with the impartial goodness of Heaven, in placing
the rich and the poor so much upon a level in the
pleasures of the table. Could the numerous ob-
jects of pleasure, which are addressed to the ears
and the eyes, have been possessed at the same time
with the pleasure of eating, the rich would have
commanded three times as much pleasure in that
enjoyment as the poor ; but this is so far from be-
ing the case, that a king has no advantage over a
beggar, in eating the same kind of aliment.

THE RESULT OF OBSERVATIONS

UPON THE DISEASES

WHICH OCCURRED

IN THE MILITARY HOSPITALS

OF THE UNITED STATES,

DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN
AND THE UNITED STATES.

i

RESULT OF OBSERVATIONS, &c.

1. THE army, when in tents, was always
rfiore sickly than in the open air. It was likewise
more healthy when it was kept in motion, than
when it lay in an encampment.

■'^ 2. Young men under twenty years of age were
subject to the greatest number of camp diseases.

3. The southern troops were more sickly than
the northern or eastern troops.

4. The native Americans were more sickly than
the natives of Europe who served in the Ameri-
can army.

5. Men above thirty and five and thirty years
of age were the hardiest soldiers in the army.
Perhaps the reason why the natives of Europe

262 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE

were more healthy than the native Americans was,
they were more advanced in life.

6. The southern troops sickened from the want
of salt provisions. Their strength and spirits were
restored only by means of salted meat. I once
saw a private in a Virginia regiment throw away
his ration of choice fresh beef, and give a dollar
for a pound of salted bacon.

7. Those officers who wore flannel shirts or
waistcoats next to their skins, in general, escaped ;|
fevers and diseases of all kinds.

8. The principal diseases in the hospitals were
the typhus gravior and mitior of Doctor Cullen#^
Men who came into the hospitals with pleurisies
or rheumatisms soon lost the types of their ori-
ginal diseases, and suffered, or died, by the above-
mentioned states of fever.

9. The typhus mitior always prevailed most, and
with the worst symptoms, in winter. A free air,
which could only be obtained in summer, always
prevented, or mitigated it.

10. In all those cases, where the contagion
was received, cold seldom failed to render it ac-

DISEASES OF MILITARY HOSPITALS. 263

tive. Whenever an hospital was removed in vidn-
ter, one half of the patients generally sickened on
the way, or soon after their arrival at the place to
which they were sent.

11. Drunken soldiers and convalescents were
most subject to this fever.

12. Those patients in this fever, who had large
ulcers on their backs or limbs, generally recover-
ed.

13. I met with several instances of buboes, also
of ulcers in the throat, as described by Doctor
Donald Monro. They were mistaken by some of

ithe junior surgeons for venereal sores, but they
yielded to the common remedies of the hospital
fever.

14. There were many instances of patients in
this fever, who suddenly fell down dead, upon
being moved, without any previous symptoms of
approaching dissolution. This was more especially
the case, when they arose to go to stool.

15. The contagion of this fever was frequently
conveyed from the hospital to the camp, by means
of blankets and clotlies.

264 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE

16. Those black soldiers who had been pre-
viously slaves died in a greater proportion by this
fever, or had a much slower recovery from it, than
the same number of white soldiers.

17. The remedies which appeared to do most
service in this disease were vomits of tartar eme-
tic, gentle dozes of laxative salts, bai'k, wine, vola-
tile salt, opium, and blisters.

18. An emetic seldom failed of checking this
fever, if exhibited while it was in ^forming state,
and before the patient was confined to his bed.

19. Many causes concurred to produce, and
increase tliis fever ; such as the want of cleanliness,
excessive fatigue, the ignorance or negligence of
officers in providing suitable diet and accommo-
dations for their men, the general use of linen
instead of woollen clothes in the summer months,
and the crowding too many patients together in
one hospital, with such other inconveniences and
abuses, as usually follow the union of the pur-
veying and directing departments of hospitals in the
same persons. But there is one more cause of this
fever which remains to be mentioned, and that is,
the sudden assembling of a great number of per-
sons together of different habits and manners, such

DISEASES OF MILITARY HOSPITALS. 265

as the soldiers of the American army were in the
years 1776 and 1777. Doctor Blane informs us,
in his observations upon the diseases of seamen,
"that it sometimes happens that a ship with a
long estabhshed crew shall be very healthy^ yet
if strangers are introduced among them, who
are also healthy^ sickness will be mutually pro-
duced." The history of diseases furnishes many
proofs of the truth of this assertion.* It is very
remarkable, that while the American army at
Cambridge, in the year 1775, consisted only of
New Englandmen (whose habits and manners were
the same) there was scarcely any sickness among
them. It was not till the troops of the eastern,
middle, and southern states met at New York and
Ticonderoga, in the year 1776, that the typhus
became universal, and spread with such peculiar
mortality in the armies of the United States.

20. The dysentery prevailed, in the summer of
1777, in the military hospitals of New Jersey, but

* " Cleanliness is founded on a natural aversion to what
is unseemly and oifensive in the persons of others : and there
seems also to be an instinctive horror at strangers implanted
in human nature for the same purpose, as is visible in young
children, and uncultivated people. In the early ages of
Rome, the same word signified both a stranger and an ene-
my." Dr. Blane, p. 225.

VOL. I. L I

266 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE

with very few instances of mortality. This dysen-
tery was frequently followed by an obstinate diarr-
hoea, in which the warm bath was found in many
cases to be an effectual remedy.

21. I saw several instances of fevers occasioned
by the use of the common ointment made of the
flour of sulphur and hog's lard, for the cure of the
itch. The fevers were probably brought on by
the exposure of the body to the cold air, in the
usual method in which that ointment is applied. I
have since learned, that the itch may be cured as
speedily by rubbing the parts affected, two or three
times, with the dry flour of sulphur, and that no
inconvenience, and scarcely any smell, follow this
mode of using it.

22. In gun-shot wounds of the joints, Mr.
Ranby's advice of amputating the limb was fol-
lowed with success. I saw two cases of death where
this advice was neglected.

23. There was one instance of a soldier who
lost liis hearing, and another of a soldier who had
been deaf who recovered his hearing, by the noise
of artillery in battle.

s
DISEASES OF MILITARY HOSPITALS. 267

24. Those soldiers who were billetted in private
houses generally escaped the hospital fever, and
recovered soonest from all their diseases.

25. Hospitals built of coarse logs, with ground
floors, with fire-places in the middle of them, and
a hole in the roof, for the discharge of smoke,
were found to be very conducive to the recovery
of the soldiers from the hospital fever. This form
of a military hospital was introduced into the army
by Dr. Tilton, of the state of Delaware.*

26. In fevers and dysenteries, those soldiers re-
covered most certainly, and most speedily, who lay
at the greatest distance from the walls of the hos-
pitals. This important fact was communicated to
me by the late Dr. Beardsley, of Connecticut.

27. Soldiers are but little more than adult chil-
dren. That officer, therefore, will best perform
his duty to his men, who obliges them to take the
most care of their health.

* " It is proved, in innumerable instances, that sick men
recover health sooner and better in sheds, huts, and barns,
exposed occasionally to wind, and sometimes to rain, than
in the most superb hospitals in Europe." Jackson's Re-
marks on the Constitution of the Medical Department of
the British Army, p. 340.

268 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE, &C.

28. Hospitals are the sinks of human life in an
army. They robbed the United States of more
citizens than the s\^ord. Humanity, economy,
and philosophy, all concur in giving a preference
to the conveniences and wholesome air of private
houses ; and should war continue to be the absurd
and unchristian mode of deciding national disputes,
it is to be hoped that the progress of science will
so far mitigate one of its greatest calamities, as to
produce an abolition of hospitals for acute diseases.
Perhaps there are no cases of sickness, in which
reason and religion do not forbid the seclusion of
our fellow creatures from the offices of humanity in
private families, except where they labour under
the calamities of madness and the venereal disease,
or where they are the subjects of some of the ope-
rations of- surgery.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS

UPON THE

HUMAN BODY AND MIND.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MEANS OF PREVENTING,

THE REMEDIES FOR CURING THEM.

AN INQUIRY, &c.

BY ardent spirits, I mean those liquors only
which are obtained by distillation from fermented
substances of any kind. To their effects upon the
bodies and minds of men, the following inquiry
shall be exclusively confined. Fermented liquors
contain so little spirit, and that so intimately com-
bined with other matters, that they can seldom be
drunken in sufficient quantities to produce intoxi-
cation, and its subsequent effects, without exciting
a disrelish to their taste, or pain, from their distend-
ing the stomach. They are moreover, when taken
in a moderate quantity, generally innocent, and
often have a friendly influence upon health and life.

The effects of ardent spirits divide themselves
into such as are of a prompt, and such as are of a

■V-

272 ON THE EFFECTS OF

chronic nature. The former discover themselves
in drunkenness, and the latter, in a numerous train
of diseases and vices of the body and mind.

I. I shall begin by briefly describing their
prompt, or immediate effects, in a fit of drunken-
ness.

This odious disease (for by that name it should
be called) appears with more or less of the follow-
ing symptoms, and most commonly in the order
in which I shall enumerate them.

1. Unusual gaiTulity,

2. Unusual silence.

3. Captiousness, and a disposition to quarrel.

4. Uncommon good humour, and an insipid
simpering, or laugh.

5. Profane swearing, and cursing.

6. A disclosure of their own, or other people's
secrets.

7. A rude disposition to tell those persons in
company, whom they know, their faults. /

ARDENT SPIRITS. 273

8. Certain immodest actions. I am sorry to
say, this sign of the first stage of drunkenness some-
times appears in women, who, when sober, are
uniformly remarkable for chaste and decent man-
ners. .Mf:.

( 9. A clipping of words.

10. Fighting ; a black eye, or a swelled nose,
often mark this grade of drunkenness.

11. Certain extravagant acts, which indicate a
temporary fit of madness. These are singing, hal-
looing, roaring, imitating the noises of brute ani-
mals, jumping, tearing off clothes, dancing naked,
breaking glasses and china, and dashing other ar-
ticles of household furniture upon the ground, or
floor. After a while the paroxysm of drunkenness
is completely formed. The face now becomes
flushed ; the eyes project, and are somewhat watery;
winking is less frequent than is natural ; the under
lip is protruded ; the head inclines a little to one
shoulder ; the jaw falls ; belchings and hiccup take
place ; the limbs totter ; the whole body staggers.
The unfortunate subject of this histoiy next falls on
his seat ; he looks around him with a vacant coim-
tenance, and mutters inarticulate sounds to himself

VOL. I, M m

' -Mlb ' jJtA.

'274 ON tai fiFJ^Ecfs oi

He attempts to rise and walk ; in this attempt, he
falls upon his side, from wliich he gradually turns
upon his back. He now closes his eyes, and falls
into a profound sleep, frequently attended with
snoring, and profuse sweats, and sometimes with
such a relaxation of the muscles which confine the
bladder and the lower bowels, as to produce a
symptom which delicacy forbids me to mention.
In this condition, he often lies from ten, twelve,
and twenty-four hours, to two, three, four, and five
days, an object of pity and disgust to his family
and friends. ■ His recovery from this fit of intoxi-
cation is marked with several peculiar appearances.
He opens his eyes, and closes them again ; he
gapes, and stretches his limbs ; he then coughs and
pukes ; his voice is hoarse ; he rises with difficul-
ty, and staggers to a chair ; his eyes resemble
balls of fire ; his hands tremble ; he loathes the
sight of food ; he calls for a glass of spirits to com-
pose his stomach ; now and then he emits a deep-
fetched sigh, or groan, from a transient twinge of
conscience, but he more frequently scolds, and
curses every thing around him. In this state of
languor and stupidity he remains for two or three
days, before he is able to resume his former habits
of business and conversation.

ARDENT SPIRITS 275

Pythagoras we are told maintained that the souls
of men, after death, expiated the crimes commit-
ted by them in this world, by animating certain
brute animals ; and that the souls of those animals,
in their tums, entered into men, and dft^ed with
them all their peculiar qualities and vices. This
doctrine of one of the wisest and best of the Greek
philosophers, was probably intended only to con-
vey a lively idea of the changes which are induced
in the body and mind of man by a fit of drunken-
ness. In folly, it causes him to resemble a calf;
in stupidity, an ass ; in roaring, a mad bull ; in
quarrelling, and fighting, a dog; in cruelty, a tiger;
in fetor, a skunk ; in fildniness, a hog ; and in ob-
scenity, a he -goat.

It belongs to the history of drunkenness to re-
mark, that its paroxysms occur, like the parox-
ysms of many diseases, at certain periods, and
after longer or shorter intervals. They often
begin with annual, and gradually increase in their
frequency, until they appear in quarterly, monthly,
weekly, and , quotidian or daily periods. Finally,
they afford scarcely any marks of remission, either
during the day or the night. There was a citizen
of Philadelphia, many years ago, in whom diunk-
enness appeared in this protracted form. In speak-
ing of him to one of his neighbours, I said,

276 ON THE EFFECTS OF

^^ Does he not sometimes get drunk ?" " You
mean," said his neighbour, " is he not sometimes
sober?"

\ It is further remarkable, that drunkenness re-
sembles certain hereditary, family, and contagi-
ous diseases. I have once known it to descend
from a father to four out of five of his children.
I have seen three, and once four brothers, who were
bom of sober ancestors, affected by it, and I have
heard of its spreading through a whole family
composed of members not originally related to
each other. These facts are important, and should
not be overlooked by parents, in deciding upon
the matrimonial connections of their children.

Let us next attend to the chronic effects of ar-
dent spirits upon the body and mind. In the bo-
dy, they dispose to every form of acute disease ;
they moreover excite fevers in persons predisposed
to them, from other causes. This has been re-
marked in all the yellow fevers which have visit-
ed the cities of the United States. Hard drinkers
seldom escape, and rarely recover from them.
The followmg diseases are the usual consequences
of the habitual use of ardent spirits, viz.

ARDENT SPIRITS. 277

1. A decay of appetite, sickness at stomach,
and a puking of bile, or a discharge of a frothy
and viscid phlegm by hawking, in the morning.

2. Obstructions of the liver. The fable of
Prometheus, on whose liver a vulture was said to
prey constantly, as a punishment for his stealing fire
from heaven, was intended to illustrate the painful
effects of ardent spirits upon that organ of the
body.

3. Jaundice and dropsy 'of tlife telly and limbs,
and finally of every cavity in the body. A swell-
ing in the feet and legs is so characteristic a mark
of habits of intemperance, that the merchants in
Charleston, I have been told, cease to trust the
planters of South Carolina, as sooli as they perceive
it. They very naturally conclude industry and
virtue to be extinct in that man, in whom that
symptom of disease has been produced by the in-
temperate use of distilled spirits.

4. Hoarseness, and a husky cough, which often
terminate in consumption, and sometimes in an
acute and fatal disease of the lungs.

; 5. Diabetes, that is, a frequent and weakening
discharge of pale, or siveetish urine.

278 ON THE EFFECTS OF

6. Redness and eruptions on different parts of
the body. They generally begin on the nose, and
after gradually extending all over the face, some-
times descend to the limbs in the form of leprosy.
They have been called " rum-buds," when they
appear in the face. In persons who have occa-
sionally survived these effects of ardent spirits on
the skin, the face after a while becomes bloated,
and its redness is succeeded by a death-like pale-
ness. Thus the same fire which produces a red
colour in iron, when urged to a more intense de-
gree, produces what has been called a white heat.

7. A fetid breath, composed of every thing that
is offensive in putrid animal matter.

8. Frequent^ and disgusting belchings. Dr.
Haller relates the case of a notorious drunkard
having been suddenly destroyed, in consequence of
the vapour dicharged from his stomach by belch-
ing accidentally taking fire, by coming in contact
with the flame of a candle.

9. Epilepsy.

10. Gout, in all its various forms of swelled
limbs, colic, palsy, and apoplexy.

ARDENT SPIRITS 279

Lastly, 11. Madness. The late Dr. Waters,
while he acted as house pupil and apothecary of
the Pennsylvania hospital, assured me, that in one-
third of the patients confined by this terrible dis.
ease it had been induced by ardent spirits.

Most of the diseases which have been enume-
rated are of a mortal nature. They are more cer-
tainly induced, and terminate more speedily in
death, when spirits are taken in such quantities,
and at such times, as to produce frequent intoxi-
cation : but it may serve to remove an error with
which some intemperate people console themselves,
to remark, that ardent spirits often bring on fatal
diseases without producing drunkenness. I have
known many persons destroyed by them, who
were never completely intoxicated during the whole
course of their lives. The solitary instances of
longevity which are now and then met with in
hard drinkers, no more disprove the deadly effects
of ardent spirits, than the solitary instances of re-
coveries from apparent death by drowning, prove
that there is no danger to life from a human body
lying an hour or two under water.

The bod}' after its death, from the use of dis-
tilled spirits, exhibits by dissection certain appear-
ances which are of a peculiar nature. The fibres

2S0 ON THE EFFECTS OF

of the stomach and bowels are contracted; ab-
scesses, gangrene, and schirri, are found in the
viscera ; the bronchial vessels are contracted ; the
blood-vessels and tendons, in many parts of the
body, are more or less ossified ; and even the hair
of the head possesses a crispness, which renders it
less valuable to wig-makers than the hair of sober
people.

Not less destructive are the effects of ardent spi-
rits upon the human mind. They impair the
memory, debilitate the understanding, and per-
vert the moral ./acuities. It was probably from
observing these effects of intemperance in drink-
ing upon the mind, that a law was formerly pass-
ed in Spain, which excluded drunkards from being
witnesses in a court of justice. But the demoral-
izing effects of distilled spirits do not stop here.
They produce not only falsehood, but fraud, theft,
uncleanliness, and murder. Like the demoniac
mentioned in the New Testament, their name is
" legion," for they convey into the soul a host of
vices and crimes.

A more affecting spectacle cannot be exhibited,
than a person into whom this infernal spirit, gene-
rated by habits of intemperance, has entered. It
is more or less affecting, according to the station

ARDENT SPIRITS. 281

the person fills in a family, or in society, who is
possessed by it. Is he a husband ? How deep the
anguish which rends the bosom of his wife ! Is
she a wife ? Who can measure the shame and
aversion which she excites in her husband ! Is he
the father, or is she the mother of a family of
children ? See their averted faces from their pa-
rent, and their blushing looks at each other ! Is
he a magistrate ? or has he been chosen to fill a
high and respectable station in the councils of his
country ? What humiliating fears of curruption
in the administration of the laws, and of the sub-
version of public order and happiness, appear in
the countenances of all who see him ! Is he a
minister of the gospel ? Here language fails me.
If angels weep, — it is at such a sight.

In pointing out the evils produced by ardent
spirits, let us not pass by their effects upon the
estates of the persons who are addicted to them.
Are they inhabitants of cities ? Behold their houses
stripped gradually of their furniture, and pa^vned,
or sold by a constable, to pay tavern debts t See
their names upon record in the dockets of every
court, and whole pages of newspapers filled with
advertisements of their estates for public sale ! Arc
they inhabitants of country places ? Behold their
houses with shattered windows! their barns mth

VOL. I. N n

282 ON THE EFFECTS OF

leaky roofs ! their gardens over-run with weeds I
their fields with broken fences ! their hogs without
yokes ! their sheep without wool! their cattle and
horses without fat ! and their children filthy, and
half clad, without manners, principles, and morals !
This picture of agricultural wretchedness is seldom
of long duration. The farms and property thus
neglected, and depreciated, are seized and sold for
the benefit of a groupe of creditors. The children
that were bom with the prospect of inheriting
them are bound out to service in the neighbour-
hood ; while their parents, the unworthy authors
of their misfortunes, ramble into new and distant
s,ettlements, alternately fed on their way by the hand
of charity, or a little casual labour.

Thus we see poverty and misery, crimes and
infamy, diseases and death, are all the natural and
usual consequences of the intemperate use of ar-
dent spirits.

I have classed death among the consequences of
hard drinking. But it is not death from the imme-
diate hand of the Deity, nor from any of the instru-
ments of it which were created by him. It is
death from suicide. Yes ! thou poor degraded
creature, who art daily lifting the poisoned bowl
to thy lips, cease to avoid the unhallowed ground

ARDENT SPIRITS. 283

in which the self-murderer is interred, and wonder
no longer that the sun should shine, and the rain
fall, and the grass look green, upon his grave.
Thou art perpetrating gradually, by the use of ar-
dent spirits, what he has effected suddenly, by
opium or a halter. Considering how many cir-
cumstances, from a sudden gust of passion, or
from derangement, may palliate his guilt, or that
(unlike yours) it was not preceded and accompa-
nied by any other crime, it is probable his con-
demnation will be less than yours at the day of
judgment.

I shall now take notice of the occasions and cir-
cumstances which are supposed to render the use
of ardent spirits necessary, and endeavour to show
that the arguments in favour of their use in such
cases are founded in error, and that in each of
them, ardent spirits, instead of affording strength
to the body, increase the evils they are intended to
relieve.

1. They are said to be necessary in very cokl
weather. This is far from being true ; for the
temporary warmth they produce is always suc-
ceeded by a greater disposition in the body to be
affected by cold. Warm dresses, a plentiful me^
just before exposure to the cold, and eating occa-

284 ON THE EFFECTS OF

sionally a little gingerbread, or any other cordial
food, is a much more durable method of preserv-
ing the heat of the body in cold weather.

2. They are said to be necessary in very warm
weather. Experience proves that they increase
instead of lessening the effects of heat upon the
body, and thereby dispose to diseases of all kinds.
Even in the warm climate of the West Indies,
Dr. Bell asserts this to be true. " Rum (says this
author) whether used habitually, moderately, or
in excessive quantities, in the West Indies, always
diminishes the strength of the body, and renders
men more susceptible of disease, and unfit for any
service in which vigour or activity is required."*
As well might we throw oil into a house, the roof
of which was on fire, in order to prevent the flames
from extending to its inside, as pour ardent spirits
into the stomach, to lessen the effects of a hot sun
upon the skin.

3. Nor do ardent spirits lessen the effects of
hard labour upon the body. Look at the horse :
with every muscle of his body swelled from morn-
ing till night in the plough, or a team, does he

* Inquiry into the causes which produce, and the means
of preventing diseases among British officers, soldiers, and
others, in the West Indies.

ARDENT SPIRITS.

285

make signs for a draught of toddy or a glass of
spirits, to enable him to cleave the ground, or to
climb a hill ? No ; he requires nothing but cool
water, and substantial food. There is no nourish-
ment in ardent spirits. The strength they pro.
duce in labour is of a transient nature, and is al-
ways followed by a sense of weakness and fatigue.

But are there no conditions of the human body

in which ardent spirits may be given ? I answer,

there are. 1st. When the body has been suddenly

exhausted of its strength, and a disposition to faint -

ness has been induced. Here a few spoonsful, or

a wine-glassful of spirits, with or without water,

may be administered with safety and advantage.

In this case we comply strictly with the advice of

Solomon, who restricts the use of " strong drink"^

only " to him who is ready to perish." 2dly.

When the body has been exposed for a long time

to wet weather, more especially if it be combined

with cold. Here a moderate quantity of spirits is

not only safe, but highly proper to obviate debility,

and to prevent a fever. They will more certainly

have those salutary effects, if the feet are at the

same time bathed with them, or a half pint of them

poured into the shoes or boots. These I believe

are the only two cases, in which distilled spirits are

useful or necessary to persons in health.

286 ON THE EFFECTS OF

But it may be said, if we reject spirits from
being a part of ^our drinks, what liquors shall we
substitute in their room ? I answer, in the first
place,

fl. Simple water. I have known many in-
stances of persons, who have followed the most
laborious employments for many years in the
open air, and in warm and cold weather, who
never drank any thing but water, and enjoyed
uninterrupted good health. Dr. Moseley, who
resided many years in the West Indies, confirms
this remark. " I aver (says the Doctor) from
my own knowledge and custom, as well as the
custom and observations of many other people,
that those who drink nothing but water, or make
it their principal drink, ai'e but little affected by
the climate, and can undergo the greatest fatigue
without inconvenience, and are never subject to
troublesome or dangerous diseases."

Persons who are unable to relish this simple be-
verage of nature, may drink some one, or of aU
the following liquors, in preference to ardent spi-
rits.

2. Cyder. This excellent liquor contains a
small quantity of spirit, but so diluted, and blunt-

ARDENT SPIRITS. 287

ed, by being combined with a large quantity of sac-
charine matter, and water, as to be perfectly
wholesome. It sometimes disagrees with persons
subject to the rheumatism, but it may be made
inoftensive to such people, by extinguishing a red
hot iron in it, or by mixing it with water. It is
to be lamented, that the late frosts in the spring
so often deprive us of the fruit which affords this
liquor. The effects of these frosts have been in
some measure obviated by giving an orchard a
north-west exposure, so as to check too early ve-
getation, and by kindling two or three large
fires of brush or straw, to the windward of the or-
chard, the evening before we expect a night of
frost. This last expedient has in many instances
preserved the fruit of an orchard, to the great
joy and emolument of the ingenious husbandman,

3. Malt liquors. The grain from which,
these liquors are obtained is not liable, like the
apple, to be affected by frost, and therefore they
can be procured at all times, and at a mode-
rate price. They contain a good deal of nou-
rishment ; hence w^e find many of the poor peo-
ple in Great Britian endure hard labour with no
other food than a quart or three pints of beer,
with a few pounds of bread in a day. As it will
be difficult to prevent small beer from becoming

288 ON THE EFFECTS OF

sour in warm weather, an excellent substitute may
be made for it tby mixing bottled porter, ale, or
strong beer, jrith an equal quantity of water ; or a
pleasant beer may be made by adding to a bottle
of porter, ten quarts of water, and a pound of
brown sugar, or a pint of molasses. After they
have been well mixed, pour the liquor into bot-
tles, and place them, loosely corked, in a cool cel-
lar. In two or three days, it will be fit for use.
A spoonful of ginger added to the mixture renders
it more lively, and agreeable to the taste.

3. Wines. These fermented liquors are com-
posed of the same ingredients as cyder, and are
both cordial and nourishing. The peasants of
France, who drink them in lai'ge quantities, are
a sober and healthy body of people. Unlike ar-
dent spirits, which render the temper irritable,
wines generally inspire cheerfulness and good hu-
mour. It is to be lamented that the grape has
not as yet been sufficientiy cultivated in our coun-
try, to afford wine to our citizens ; but many ex-
cellent substitutes may be made for it, from the
native fruits of all the states. If two barrels of
cyder, fresh from the press, ai'C boiled into one,
and afterwards fermented, and kept for two or
three years in a dry cellar, it affords a liquor,
which, according to the quality of the apple from

ARDENT SPIRITS. 2S9

which the cyder is made, lias the taste of Mala-
ga, or Rhenish wine. It affords, when mixed with
water, a most agreeable drink in summer. I have
taken the liberty of calling it Pomona wine.
There is another method of making a pleasant
wine from the apple, by adding four and twenty
gallons of new cyder to three gallons of syrup
made from the expressed juice of sweet apples.
When thoroughly fermented, and kept for a few
years, it becomes fit for use. The blackberry
of our fields, and the raspberry and currant of
our gardens, afford likewise an agreeable and
wholesome wine, when pressed and mixed with
certain proportions of sugar and water, and a lit-
tle spirit, to counteract their disposition to an exr
cessive fermentation. It is no objection to these
cheap and home-made wines, that they are unfit
for use until they are two or three years old. The
foreign wines in common use in our country re-
quire not only a much longer time to bring them
to perfection, but to prevent their being disagreea-
ble, even to the taste,

4. Molasses and water, also vinegar and
WATER, sweetened witii sugar or molasses, form an
agreeable drink in warm weather. It is pleasant
and cooling, and tends to keep up those gentle and
uniform sweats, on which health and life often de-

VOL. I. GO

290 ON THE EFFECTS OF

pend. Vinegar and water constituted the only
drink of the soldiers of the Roman republic, and it
is well known they marched and fought in a warm
climate, and beneath a load of arms which weighed
sixty pounds. Boaz, a wealthy farmer in Pales-
tine, we find treated his reapers with nothing but
bread dipped in vinegar. To such persons as ob-
ject to the taste of vinegar, sour milk, or butter-
milk, or sweet milk diluted with water, may be
given in its stead. I have known the labour of
the longest and hottest days in summer supported,
by means of these pleasant and wholesome drinks,
with great firmness, and ended, with scarcely a
complaint of fatigue.

5. The SUGAR MAi'LE affords a thin juice, which
has long been used by the fai'mers in Connecticut
as a cool and refreshing drink, in the time of har-
vest. The settlers in the western counties of the
middle states will do well to let a few of the trees
which yield this pleasant juice remain in all their
fields. They may prove the means, not only of
saving their children and grand-children many
hundred pounds, but of saving their bodies from
disease and death, and their souls from misery be-
yond the grave.

6. Coffee possesses agreeable and exhilarating
qualities, and might be used with great advantage

ARDENT SPIRITS. 291

to obviate the painful effects of heat, cold, and fa-
tigue upon the body. I once knew a country phy-
sician, who made it a practice to drink a pint of
strong coffee previously to his taking a long or cold
ride. It was more cordial to him than spirits, in
any of the forms in which they are commonly used.

Tlie use of the cold bath in the morning, and
of the warm bath in the evening, are happily cal-
culated to strengthen the body in the former part
of the day, and to restore it in the latter, from the
languor and fatigue which are induced by heat
and labour.

Let it not be said, ardent spirits have become
necessary from habit in harvest, and in other sea-
sons of uncommon and arduous labour. The ha-
bit is a bad one, and may be easily broken. Let
but half a dozen farmers in a neighbourhood com-
bine to allow higher wages to their labourers than
are common, and a sufficient quantity of any of
the pleasant and wholesome liquors I have recom-
mended, and they may soon, by their example,
abolish the practice of giving them spirits. In a
little while they wiU be delighted with the good
effects of their association. Their grain and hay
will be gathered into their barns in less time, and
in a better condition, than formerly, and of course

292 ON THE efpeCts of

at a less expence, and a hundred disagreeable,
scenes from sickness, contention, and accidents,
ivill be avoided, all of which follow in a greater or
less degree the use of ardent spirits.

Nearly all diseases have their predisposing caus-
es. The same thing may be said of the intem-
perate use of distilled spirits. It will, therefore,
be useful to point out the different employments,
situations, and conditions of the body and mind,
which predispose to the love of those liquors, and
to accompany them with directions to prevent per-
sons being ignorantly and undesignedly seduced
into the habitual and destructive use of them.

1. Labourers bear with great difficulty long in-
4/tervals between their meals. To enable them to
support the waste of their strength, their stomachs
should be constantly, but moderately, stimulated
by aliment, and this is best done by their eating
four or five times in a day during the seasons of
great bodily exertion. The food at this time should
be solidy consisting chiefly of salted meat. The
vegetables used with it should possess some acti-
vity, or they should be made savoury by a mixture
of spices. Onions and garlic are of a most cordial
nature. They composed a part of the diet which
enabled the Iraelites to endure, in a warm dimate,

ARDENT SPIRITS. 293

the heavy tasks imposed upon them by their Egyp-
tian masters ; and they were eaten, Horace and
Virgil tell us, by the Roman farmers, to repair the
waste of their strength by the toils of harvest.
There are likewise certain sweet substances, which
support the body under the pressure of labour.
The negroes in the West Indies become strong,
and even fat, by drinking the juice of the sugar
cane, in the season of grinding it. The Jewish
soldiers were invigorated by occasionally eating
raisins and figs. A bread composed of wheat
flour, molasses, and ginger (commonly called gin-
gerbread) taken in small quantities during the day,
is happily calculated to obviate the debility induced
upon the body by constant labour. All these sub-
stances, whether of an animal or vegetable nature,
lessen the desire, as well as the necessity, for cor-
dial drinks, and impart equable and durable strength
to every part of the system.

2. Valetudinarians, especially those who are
afflicted with diseases of the stomach and bowels,
are very apt to seek relief from ardent spirits. Let
such people be cautious how they make use of this
dangerous remedy. I have known many men and
women of excellent characters and principles, who
have been betrayed, by occasional doses of gin and
brandy, into a love of those liquors, and have after

294 ON THE EFPECTS OF

wards fallen sacrifices to their fatal effects. The
different preparations of opium are much more safe
and efficacious than distilled cordials of any kind,
in flatulent or spasmodic affections of the stomach
and bowels. So great is the danger of contracting
a love for distilled liquors, by accustoming the sto-
mach to their stimulus, that as few medicines as
possible should be given in spirituous vehicles, in
chronic diseases. A physician, of great eminence
and uncommon worth, who died towards the close
of the last century, in London, in taking leave of a
young physician of this city, who had finished his
studies under his patronage, impressed this caution
with peculiar force upon him, and lamented at the
same time, in pathetic terms, that he had innocent-
ly made many sots, by prescribing brandy and wa-
ter in stomach complaints. It is difficult to tell
how many persons have beq^i destroyed by those
physicians who have adopted Dr. Brown's indiscri-
minate practice in the use of stimulating remedies,
the most popular of ^vhich is ardent spirits, but,
it is well known, several of them have died of in-
temperance in this city since the year 1790. They
were probably led to it, by drinking brandy and
water, to relieve themselves from the frequent at-
tacks of debility and indisposition, to which the la-
bours of a physician expose him, and for which
rest, fasting, a gentle purge, or ^veak diluting

ARDENT bl'IUllb. 295

drinks, would have been safe and more certain
cures.

None of diese remarks are intended to preclude
the use of spirits in the low state of short, or what
are called acute diseases, for, in such cases, they
produce their effects too soon to create a habitual
desire for them.

3. Some people, from living in countries subject
to intermitting fevers, endeavour to fortify them-
selves against them, by taking two or three wine-
glasses of bitters, made with spirits, ever)-- day.
There is great danger of contracting habits of in-
temperance from this practice. Besides, this
mode of preventing intermittents is far from being
a certain one. A much better security against
them, is a tea-spoonful of the Jesuits bark, taken
every morning during a sickly season. If this
safe and excellent medicine cannot be had, a gill or
half a pint of a strong watery infusion of centaury,
camomile, wormwood, or rue, mixed with a little
of the calamus of our meadows, may be taken eve-
ry morning, with nearly the same advantage as the
Jesuits bark. Those persons who live in a sickly
country, and cannot procure any of the preventives
of autumnal fevers which have been mentioned,
should avoid the morning and evening air ; should

296 ON THE EFFECTS OF

kindle fires in their houses, on damp days, and in
cool evenings, throughout the whole summer ; and
put on winter clothes about the first week in Sep-
tember. The last part of these directions applies
only to the inhabitants of the middle states.

4. Men who follow professions, which require
constant exercise of the faculties of their minds,
are very apt to seek relief, by the use of ardent spi-
rits, from the fatigue which succeeds great mental
exertions. To such persons, it may be a discovery
to know, that tea is a much better remedy for
that purpose. By its grateful and gentle stimulus,
it removes fatigue, restores the excitement of the
mind, and invigorates the whole system. I am
no advocate for the excessive use of tea. When
taken too strong, it is hurtful, especially to the fe-
male constitution ; but when taken of a moderate
degi-ee of strength, and in moderate quantities with
sugar and cream, or milk, I believe it is, in gene-
ral, innoxious, and at all times to be preferred to
ardent spirits, as a cordial for studious men. The
late Anthony Benezet, one of the most laborious
schoolmasters I ever knew, informed me, he had
been prevented from the love of spirituous liquors
iDy acquiring a love for tea in early life. Three or
four cups, taken in an afternoon, carried off the
fatigue of a whole day's labour in his school. This

ARDENT SPIRITS. 297

worthy man lived to be seventy-one years of iigc,
and died of an acute disease, With the full exercise
of all the faculties of his mind. But the use of tea
counteracts a desire for distilled spirits, during
great bodily^ as well as mental exertions. Of this,
captain Forest has furnished us with a recent and
remarkable proof, in his History of a Vo}agc froni
Calcutta to the Marqui Archipelago. " I ha\c
always observed (says this ingenious mariner) when
sailors drink tea, it weans them from the thouQ'hts
of drinking strong liquors, and pernicious grog ;
and with this they are soon contented. Not so
with whatever will intoxicate, be it what it ^vil!.
This has always been my remark. I therefore
always encourage it, without their knowing why."

5. Women have sometimes been led to seek re-
lief from what is called breeding sickness, by the
use of ardent spirits. A little gingerbrecd, or
biscuit, taken occasionally, so as to prevent the
stomach being empty, is a much better remedy for
tliat disease.

6. Persons under the pressure of debt, disap-
pointments in worldly pursuits, and guilt, have
sometimes sought to drown their sorrows in strong
drink. The only radical cure for those evils is
to be found in religion ; but where its support is

VOL. I. p p

298 ON THE EFFECTS OF

not resorted to, wine and opium should always be
preferred to ardent spirits. They are far less inju-
rious to the body and mind than spirits, and the
habits of attachment to them are easily broken,
after time and repentance have removed the evils
they were taken to relieve.

7. The sociable and imitative nature of mail
often disposes him to adopt the most odious and
destructive practices from his companions. The
French soldiers who conquered Holland, in the
year 1794, brought back with them the love and
use of brandy, and thereby conaipted the inhabi-
tants of several of the departments of France, who
had been previously distinguished for their tempe-
rate and sober manners. Many other facts might
be mentioned, to show how important it is to avoid
the company of persons addicted to the use of ar-
dent spirits.

8. Smoking and chcAving tobacco, by rendering
water and simple liquors insipid to the taste, dis-
pose very much to the stronger stimulus of ardent
spirits. The practice of smoking segars has, in
every part of our country, been more followed by
a general use of brandy and water as a common
drink, more especially by that class of citizens who
have not been in the habit of drinking wine, or

AllDENT SPIRITS. 299

malt liquors. The less, therefore, tobacco is used
in the above ways, the better.

9. No man ever became suddenly a drunkard.
It is by gradually accustoming the taste and sto-
mach to ardent spirits, in the forms of grog and
TODDY, that men have been led to love them hi
their more destructive mixtures, and in their sim-
ple state. Under the impression of this truth,
were it possible for me to speak with a voice so
loud as to be heard from the river St. Croix to the
remotest shores of the Mississippi, which bound
the territory of the United States, I would say,
Friends and fellow-citizens, avoid the habitual use
of those two seducing liquors, whether they be
made with brandy, rum, gin, Jamaica spirits, whis-
key, or what is called cherry bounce. It is true,
some men, by limiting the strength of those drinks
by measuring the spirit and water, have drunken
them for many years, and even during a long life,
without acquiring habits of intemperance or in-
toxication, but many more have becii insensibly
led, by drinking weak toddy and grog first at their
meals, to take them for their constant drink, in the
intervals of their meals ; afterwards to take them,
of an increased strength, before breakfast in the
morning ; and finally to destroy themselves bv
drinking undiluted spirits, during every hour of

300 ON THE EFFECTS OF

the day and night. I am not singular in this re-
mark. " The consequences of drinking rum and
water, or grog, as it is called (says Dr. Moseley)
is, that habit increases the desire of more spirits,
and decreases its eifects ; and there are very few
grog-drinkers who long survive the practice of de-
bauching with it, without acquiring the odious nui-
sance of dram-drinkers breath, and down right stu-
pidity and impotence."* To enforce the caution
against the use of those two apparently innocent
'and popular liquors still further, I shall select one
instance, from among many, to show the ordinary
manner in which they beguile and destroy their
votaries. A citizen of Philadelphia, once of a fair
and sober character, drank toddy for many years,
as his constant drink. From this he proceeded to
drink grog. After a while nothing would satisfy
him but slings made of equal parts of rum and wa-
ter, with a little sugar. From slings he advanced
to raw rum, and from common rum to Jamaica
spirits. Here he rested for a few months, but at
length, finding even Jamaica spirits were not strong
enough to warm his stomach, he made it a constant
practice to throw a table-spoonful of ground pep-
per in each glass of his spirits, in order, to use his
own words, " to take off their coldness. " He soon
^fter died a martyr to his intemperance.

* Treatise on Tropical Disease^.

ARDENT SPIRITS. 301

Ministers of the gospel, of every denomination,
in the United States ! aid me with all the weight
you possess in society, from the dignity and useful-
ness of your sacred office, to save our fellow men
from being destroyed bj' the great destroyer of
their lives and souls. In order more successfully
to effect this purpose, permit me to suggest to you
to employ the same wise modes of instruction,
which you use in your attempts to prevent their
destruction by other vices. You expose the evils
of covetousness, in order to prevent theft ; you
point out the sinfulness of impure desires, in order
to prevent adultery ; and you dissuade from an-
ger, and malice, in order to prevent murder. In
like manner, denounce, by your preaching, con-
versation, and examples, the seducing influence of
toddy and grog, when you aim to prevent all the
crimes and miseries which are the offspring of
strong drink.

We have hitherto considered the effects of ar-
dent spirits upon individuals, and tlie means of
preventing them. I shall close this head of our
inquiry, by a few remarks upon their effects upon
the population and welfare of our country, and the
means of obviating them.

It is highly probable not less than 4000 people
die annually, from the use of ardent spirits, in the

\

302 ON THE EFFECTS 01

United States. Should they continue to exert this
deadly influence upon our population, where will
tlieir evils terminate ? This question may be an-
swered, by asking, where are all the Indian tribes,
whose numbers and arms formerly spread terror
among their civilized neighbours ? I answer, in the
words of the famous Mingo chief, " the blood of
many of them flows not in the veins of any human
creature." They have perished, not by pesti-
lence, nor war, but by a greater foe to human
life than either of them — ardent spirits. The
loss of 4000 American citizens, by the yellow fe-
ver, in a single year, awakened general sympathy
and terror, and called forth all the strength and
ingenuity of laws, to prevent its recurrence. Why
is not the same zeal manifested in protecting our
citizens from the more general and consuming ra-
vages of distilled spirits ? Should the customs of
civilized life preserve our nation from extinction,
and even from an increase of mortality, by those
liquors ; they cannot prevent our country being
governed by men, chosen by intemperate and
corrupted voters. From such legislators, the
repubhc would soon be in danger. To avert
this evil, let good men of every class unite, and
besiege the general and state governments with
petitions to limit the number of taverns ; to impose
heavy duties upon ardent spirits ; to inflict a mark
of disgrace, or a temporary abridgment of some

ARDENT SPIRITS. 30S

civil right, upon every man convicted of drunken-
ness ; and finally to secure the property of habitual
drunkards, for the benefit of their families, by
placing* it in the hands of trustees, appointed for
that purpose by a court of justice.

To aid the operation of these laws, would it
not be extremely useful for the rulers of the dif-
ferent denominations of christian churches to unite,
and render the sale and consumption of ardent
spirits a subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction ?
The methodists, and society of friends, have, for
some time past, viewed them as contraband arti-
cles to the pure laws of the gospel, and have borne
many public and private testimonies against mak-
ing them the objects of commerce. Their success,
in this benevolent enterprise, affords ample encou-
ragement for all other religious societies to follow
their example.

We come now to the third part of this inquiry,
that is, to mention the remedies for the evils which
are brought on by the excessive use of distilled spi-
rits.

These remedies divide themselves into two
kinds.

304 ON THE EFFECTS OF

' I. Such as are proper to cure a fit of drunken
ness, and

II. Such as are proper to prevent its recurrence,
and to destroy a desire for ardent spirits.

I. I am aware that the efforts of science and hu-
manity, in applying their resources to the cure of
a disease induced by an act of vice, will meet with
a cold reception from many people. But let such
people remember, the subjects of our remedies are
their fellow creatures, and that the miseries brought
upon human nature, by its crimes, are as much the
objects of divine compassion (which we are bound
to imitate) as the distresses which are brought
upon men by the crimes of other people, or which
they bring upon themselves by ignorance or acci-
dents. Let us not then pass by the prostrate suf-
ferer from strong drink, but administer to him the
same relief we would afford to a fellow creature, in
a similar state, from an accidental, and innocent
cause.

1. The first thing to be done to cure a fit of
drunkenness, is to open the collar, if in a man, and
remove all tight ligatures from every other part of
the body. The head and shoulders should at the ■

ARDENT SPIRITS. 30/)

Same time be elevated, so as to favour a more feeble
determination of the blood to the brain.

2. The contents of the stomach should be dis-
charged, by thrusting a feather down the throat. It
often restores the patient immediately to his senses
and feet. Should it foil of exciting a puking,

3. A napkin should be wrapped round the head,
and wetted for an hour or two with cold water,
or cold water should be poured in a stream upon
the head. In the latter way I have sometimes seen
it used, when a boy, in the city of Philadelphia.
It was applied, by dragging the patient, when
found drunk in the street, to a pump, and pump-
ing water upon his head for ten or fifteen minutes.
The patient generally rose, and walked off, sober
and sullen, after the use of this remedy.

Other remedies, less common, but not less ef-
fectual for a fit of drunkenness, are,

4. Plunging the whole body into cold water.
A number of gentlemen who had drunken to in-
toxication, on board a ship in the stream, near
Fell's point, at Baltimore, in consequence of their
reeling in a small boat, on their way to the shore,
in the evening, overset it, and fell into the water.

VOL. I. ^9

306 ON THE EFFECTS OF

Several boats from the shore hurried to their relief.
They were all picked up, and went home, perfectiy
sober, to their families.

5. Terror. A number of young merchants, who
had drunken together, in a compting- house, on
James river, above thirty years ago, until they were
intoxicated, were carried away by a sudden rise
of the river, from an immense fall of rain. Thev
floated several miles with the current, in their little
cabin, iialf filled with water. An island in the river
arrested it. When they reached the shore that
saved their lives, they were all sober. It is proba-
ble terror assisted in the cure of the persons who
fell into the water at Baltimore.

6. The excitement of a fit of anger. The late
Dr. Witherspoon used to tell a story of a man in
Scotland, who was always cured of a fit of drunk
enness by being made angry. The means chosen
for that purpose was a singular one. It was talk-
ing against religion.

7. A severe whipping. This remedy acts by
exciting a revulsion of the blood from the brain to
the external parts of the body.

8. Profuse sweats. By means of this evacua-
tion, nature sometimes cures a fit of drunkenness.

ARDENT SPIRITS. 307

Their good effects are obvious in labourers, \vhom
quarts of spirits taken in a day will seldom intoxi-
cate while they sweat freely. If the patient be
unable to swallow warm drinks, in order to produce
sweats, they may be excited by putting him in a
warm bath, or wrapping his body in blankets, un-
der which should be placed half a dozen hot bricks,
or bottles filled with hot water.

9. Bleeding. This remedy should always be
used, when the former ones have been prescribed
to no purpose, or where there is reason to fear, from
the long duration of the disease, a material injury
may be done to the brain.

It is hardly necessary to add, that each of the
above remedies should be regulated by the grade
of drunkenness, and the greater or less degree in
which the intellects are affected in it.

II. The remedies which are proper to prevent the
recurrence of fits of drunkenness, and to destroy the
desire for ardent spirits, are religious, metaphysical,
and medical. I shall briefly mention them.

1. Many hundred drunkards have been cured of
their desire for ardent spirits, by a practical belief in
the doctrines of the christian religion. Examples

368 ON THE EFFECTS OF

of the divine efficacy of Christianity for this purpose
have lately occurred in many parts of the United
States.

2. A sudden sense of the guilt contracted by
drunkenness, and of its punishment in a future
world. It once cured a gentiement in Philadel-
phia, who, in a fit of drunkenness, attempted to
murder a wife whom he loved. Upon being told
of it when he was sober, he was so struck with the
enormity of the crime he had nearly committed,
that he never tasted spirituous liquors afterwards.

3. A sudden sense of shame. Of the efficacy
of this deep seated principle in the human bosom,
in curing drunkenness, I shall relate three remark-
able instances.

A farmer in England, who had been many years
in the practice of coming home intoxicated, from
a market town, one day observed appearances of
rain, while he was in market. His hay was cut,
and ready to be housed. To save it, he returned
in haste to his farm, before he had taken liis cus-
tomary dose of grog. Upon coming into his
house, one of his cliildren, a boy of six years old,
ran to his mother, and cried out, ^^ O, mother !
father is come home, and he is not drunk." Th^

ARDENT SPIRITS. 309

father, who heard this exclamation, was so se-
verely rebuked by it, that he suddenly became a
sober man.

A noted drunkard was once followed by a favour-
ite goat to a tavern, into which he was invited by
his master, and drenched with some of his liquor.
The poor animal staggered home with his master, a
good deal intoxicated. The next day he followed
him to his accustomed tavern. When the goat
came to the door, he paused : his master made signs
to him to follow him into the house. The goat
stood still. An attempt was made to thrust him
into the tavern. He resisted, as if struck with the
recollection of what he suffered from being intoxi-
cated the night before. His master was so much
affected by a sense of shame, in observing the con
duct of his goat to be so much more rational than
his own, that he ceased from that time to drink spi-
rituous liquors.

A gentleman, in one of the southern states, who
had nearly destroyed himself by strong drink, was
remarkable for exhibiting the grossest marks of
folly in his fits of intoxication. One evening, sit-
ting in his parlour, he heard an uncommon noise
in his kitchen. He went to the door, and peeped
through the key hole, from whence he saw one of

310 ON THE EFFECTS OF

his negroes diverting his fellow servants, by mi-
micking his master's gestures and conversation
when he was drunk. The sight overwelmed him
with shame and distress, and instantly became the
means of his reformation.

4. The association of the idea of ardent spirits
with a painful or disagreeable impression upon some
part of the body, has sometimes cured the love of
strong drink. I once tempted a negro man, who
was habitually fond of ardent spirits, to drink some
rum (which I placed in his way) and in which I
had put a few grains of tartar emetic. The tartar
sickened and puked him to such a degree, that he
supposed himself to be poisoned. I was much gra-
tified by observing he could not bear the sight, nor
smell, of spirits for two years afterwards.

I have heard of a man who was cured of the love
of spirits, by working off a puke by large draughts
of brandy and water, and I know a gentleman, who
in consequence of being affected with a rheumatism,
immediately after drinking some toddy, when over-
come with fatigue and exposure to the rain, has
ever since loathed that liquor, only because it was
accidentally associated in his memory with the re-
collection of the pain he suffered from his disease.

ARDENT SPIRITS. 3ll

This appeal to that operation of the human mind,
which obHges it to associate ideas, accidentally or
otherwise combined, for the cure of vice, is very-
ancient. It was resorted to by Moses, when he
compelled the children of Israel to drink the solu-
tion of the golden calf ( which they had idolized) in
water. This solution, if made, as it most probably
was, by means of what is called hepar sulphuris, was
extremely bitter, and nauseous, and could never be
recollected afterwards, without bringing into equal
detestation the sin which subjected them to the
necessity of drinking it. Our knowledge of this
principle of assocition upon the minds and conduct
of men should lead us to destroy, by means of other
impressions, the influence of all those circumstan-
ces, with which the recollection and desire of spirits
are combined. Some men drink only in the morn-
ing, some at noouj and some only at night. Some
men drink only on a market day, some at one tavern
only, and some only in one kind of company. Now
by finding a new and interesting employment or
subject of conversation for drunkards, at the usual
times in which they have been accustomed to drink,
and by restraining them by the same means from
those places and companions, which suggested to
them the idea of ardent spirits, their habits of in-
temperance may be completely destroyed. In the
same way the periodical returns of appetite, and a

312 ON THE EFFECTS OF

desire of sleep, have been destroyed in a hundred
instances. The desire for strong drink differs from
each of them, in being of an artificial nature, and
therefore not disposed to return, after being chased
for a few weeks from the system.

5. The love of ardent spirits has sometimes been
subdued, by exciting a counter passion in the mind.
A citizen of Philadelphia had made many unsuc-
cessful attempts to cure his wife of drunkenness.
At length, despairing of her reformation, he pur-
chased a hogshead of rum, and, after tapping it,
left the key in the door of the room in which it was
placed, as if he had forgotten it. His design was
to give his wife an opportunity of drinking herself
to death. She suspected this to be his motive, in
what he had done, and suddenly left off drinking.
Resentment here became the antidote to intemper-
ance.

6. A diet consisting wholly of vegetables cured
a physician in Maryland of drunkenness, probably
by lessening that thirst, which is always more or
less excited by animal food.

7. Blisters to the ankles, which were followed by
an unusual degi'ee of inflammation, once suspended
the love of ardent spirits, for one month, in a lady

ARDENT SPIRITS. 3V3

in this city. The degrees of her intemperance may
be conceived of, when I add, that her grocer's ac-
count for brandy alone amounted, annually, to one
hundred pounds, Pennsylvania currency, for seve-
ral years.

8. A violent attack of an acute disease has some-
times destroyed a habit of drinking distilled liquors.
I attended a notorious drunkard, in the yellow fe-
ver in the year 1798, who recovered, with the loss
of his relish for spirits, which has, I believe, con-
tinued ever since.

9, A salivation has lately performed a cure of
drunkenness, in a person of Virginia. The new
disease excited in the mouth and throat, while it
rendered the action of the smallest quantity of spi-
rits upon them painful, was happily calculated to
destroy the disease in the stomach which pronmts
to drinking, as well as to render the recollection of
them disagreeable, by the laws of association for
merly mentioned.

10. I have known an oath, taken before a ma^s-
trate, to drink no more spirits, produce a perfect
Cure of drunkenness. It is sometimes cured iii
this way in Ireland. Persons who take oaths fer
this purpose are called affidavit men.

VOL, I. R r

t u

m

314 ON THE EFfECTS OF, &C.

11. An advantage would probably arise from
frequent representations being made to drunkards,
not only of the certainty, but of the suddenness of
death, from habits of intemperance. I have heard
of two persons being cured of the love of ardent
spirits, by seeing death suddenly induced by fits of
intoxication; in the one case, in a stranger, and in
the other, in an intimate friend.

12. It has been said, that the disuse of spirits
should be gradual, but my observations authorise
me to say, that persons who have been addicted to
them should abstain from them suddenly^ and en-
tirely. " Taste not, handle not, touch not," should
be inscribed upon every vessel that contains spirits,
in the house of a man who wishes to be cured of
habits of intemperance. To obviate, for awhile,
the debility which arises from the sudden abstrac-
tiigpi of the stimulus of spirits, laudanum, or bit-
^ters infused in water, should be taken, and perhaps

larger quantity of beer or wine, than is consistent
vidth the strict rules of temperate living. By the
temporary use of these substitutes for spirits, I
have never known the transition to sober habits to
be attended \vith any bad effects, but often with
permanent health of body, and peace of mind.

*.#

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE TETANUS.

4

OBSERVATIONS. &p.

FOR a history of the different names and
^symptoms of this disease, I beg leave to refer the
reader to practical books, particularly to Doctor
Cullen's First Lines. My only design in this in-
quiry is, to deliver such a theory of the disease, as
may lead to a new and successful use of old and
common remedies for it.

All the remote and predisposing causes of the
tetanus act by inducing preternatural debility, and
irritability in the muscular parts of the body. In
many cases, the remote causes act alone, but they
more frequently require the co-operation of an ex-
citing cause. I shall briefly enumerate, without
discriminating them, or pointing out when they
act singly, or when in conjunction with each other.

.318 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS,

I. Wounds on different parts of the body are
the most frequent causes of this disease. It was
formerly supposed it was the effect only of a wound,
which paitially divided a tendon, or a nerve ; but
we now know it is often the consequence of lasions
which affect the body in a superficial manner. The
following is a list of such wounds and lassions as
have been known to induce the disease :

1. Wounds in the soles of the feet, in the
palms of the hands, and under the nails, by mean:^
of nails or splinters of wood.

2. Amputations, and fractures of limbs.

3. Gun-shot wounds.

4. Venesection.

5. The extraction of^a tooth, and the insertion
of new teeth.

6. The extirpation of a schirrus.

7. Castration.

8. A wound on the tongue.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 319

9. The injury which is done to the feet by frost.

lOi The injury which is sometimes done to one
of the toes, by stumping it (as it is called) in
walking.

11. Cutting a nail too closely. Also,

12. Cutting a corn too closely.

13. Wearing a shoe so tight as to abrade the
skin of one of the toes.

14. A wound, not more than an eighth part of an
inch, upon the forehead.

15. The stroke of a whip upon the arm, which
only broke the skin.

16. Walking too soon upon a broken limb.

17. The sting of a wasp upon the glands penis.

18. A fish bone sticking in the throat.

19. Cutting the naval string in new- bom in-
fants.

320 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANlTSi

Between the time in which the body is thus
wounded or injured, and the time in which the
disease makes its appearance, there is an interval,
which extends from one day to six weeks. In the
person who injured his toe by stumping it in
walking, the disease appeared the next day. The
trifling wound on the forehead which I have men-
tioned, produced both tetanus and death, the day
after it was received. I have known two instances
of tetanus, from running nails in the feet, which
did not appear until six weeks afterwards. In most
of the cases of this disease from wounds, which I
have seen, there was a total absence of pain and
inflammation, or but very moderate degrees of
ihem, and in some of them the wounds had entirely
healed, before any of the symptoms of the disease
had made their appearance. Wounds and Isesions
are most apt to produce tetanus, after the long con-
tinued application of heat to the body ; hence its
greater frequency, from these causes, in warm than
in cold climates, and in warm than in cold wea-
ther, in northern countries.

II. Cold applied suddenly to the body, after it
has been exposed to intense heat. Of this Dr.
Girdlestone mentions many instances, in his Trea-
tise upon Spasmodic Affections in India. It was
most commonly induced by sleeping upon the

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 321

ground, after a warm day. Such is the dampness
and unwholesome nature of the ground, in some
parts of that country, that " fowls (the Doctor
say^) put into coops at night, in the sickly season
of the year, and on the same soil that the men slept,
were always found dead the next morning, if
the coop was not placed at a certain height above
the surface of the earth."* It was brought on by
sleeping on a damp pavement in a servant girl of
Mr. Alexander Todd, of Philadelphia, in the even-
ing of a day in which the mercury in Fahrenheit's
thermometer stood at 90°. Dr. Chalmers relates
an instance of its having been induced by a person's
sleeping without a nightcap, after shaving his head.
The late Dr. Bartram informed me, that he had
known a draught of cold water produce it in a
man who was in a preternaturally heated state.
The cold air more certainly brings on this disease,
if it be applied to the body in the form of a cuiTent,
The stiff neck, which is sometimes felt after expo-
sure to a stream of cool air from an open window,
is a tendency to a locked jaw, or a feeble and par-
tial tetanus.

III. Worms and certain acrid matters in the
-^imentary canal. Morgagni relates an instance of

* Page 55.
VOL. I. S S

322 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

the former, and I shall hereafter mention instances
of the latter in new-born infants.

IV. Certain poisonous vegetables. There are
several cases upon record of its being induced by
the hemlock dropwort, and the datura stramonium,
or Jamestown weed, of our country.

V. It is sometimes a symptom of the bilious
remitting and intermitting fever. It is said to oc-
cur more frequently in those states of fever in the
island of Malta, than in any other part of the world.

VI. It is likewise a symptom of that malignant
state of fever which is brought on by the bite of a
rabid animal, also of hysteria and gout.

VII. The grating noise produced by cutting
with a knife upon a pewter plate excited it in a
servant, while he was waiting upon his master's
table in London. It proved fatal in three days.

VIII. The sight of food, after long fasting.

IX. Drunkenness.

X. Certain emotions and passions of the mind.
Terror brought it on a brewer in this city. He

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS 325

had been previously debilitated by great labour, in
warm weather. I have heard of its having been
induced in a man by agitation of mind, occasioned
by seeing a girl tread upon a nail. Fear excited
it in a soldier who kneeled down to be shot. Upon
being pardoned he was unable to rise, from a sud-
den attack of tetanus. Grief produced it in a
case mentioned by Dr. Willan.

XI. Parturition.

All these remote and exciting causes act with
more or less certainty and force, in proportion to
the greater or less degrees of fatigue which have
preceded them.

It has been customar}^ with authors to call all
those cases of tetanus, which are not brought on
by wounds, symptomatic. They are no rnore so
than those which are said to be idiopathic. They
all depend alike upon irritating impressions made
upon one part of the body, producing morbid ex-
citement, or disease in another. It is immaterial,
whether the impression be made upon the intes-
tines by a worm, upon the ear by 3f\ ungrateful
noise, upon the mind by a strong emotion, or upon
the sole of the foot by a nail ; it is alike commu-
nicated to the muscles, which, from their previous

324 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

debility and irritability, are thrown into commo-
tions by it. In yielding to the impression of irri-
tants, they follow in their contractions the order of
their predisposing debility. The muscles which
move the lower jaw are affected more early, and
more obstinately, than any of the other external
muscles of the body, only because they are more
constantly in a relaxed, or idle, state.

The negroes in the West Indies are more sub-
ject to this disease than white people. This has
been ascribed to the greater irritability of their
muscular systems, which constitutes a part of its
predisposing cause. It is remarkable that their sen-
sibility lessens with the increase of their irritability ;
and hence, Dr. Moseley says, they bear surgical
operations much better than white people.

The new-born infants of the negroes in the West
Indies are often affected with this disease, among
whom it is known by the name of the jaw-fall.
Dr. Dazille says, that during a residence of thirty
years in the islands, and chiefly at St. Domingo, he
saw but one instance of it in a white child. It is
said one- tenth of all the negro children that are bom
in the West Indies, die of it. Local circumstances
influence its mortality. Nineteen out of twenty
black children. Dr. Gordon informed me, in his
visit to Philadephia in the summer of 1806, died

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS- 325

Upon a plantation in Berbice, while upon a neigh-
bouring plantation not a single instance of death
had ever occurred from it. Dr. Cleghom informs
us that it is a common disease among the white
children in Minorca.* I have seen a few cases of
it in the children of white persons in Philadelphia-
Its causes are,

1. The cutting of the navel-string. TWs is
often done with a pair of dull scissars, by which
means the cord is bruised.

2. The acrimony of the meconium retained in
the bowels.

3. Cold air acting upon the body, after it has
been heated by the air of a hot room.

4. Smoke is supposed to excite it in the negro
quarters in the West Indies. Perhaps this, and
the preceeding cause induced the great mortality
of the disease upon the plantation in Berbice, men-
tioned by Dr. Gordon.

It is unknown, Dr. Winterbottom informs us,
among the native Africans in the neighbourhood of
Sierra Leone.

* Diseases of Minorca, p. 46. P^iiladelphia Edition.

326 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

I am aware that it is ascribed by many physi-
cians to only one of the above causes ; but I see
no reason why it should not be induced by more
than one cause in infants, when we see it. brought
on by so many different causes in grown people.

The tetanus is not confined to the human species.
It often affects horses in the West Indies. I have
seen several cases of it in Philadelphia. I have
likewise seen it appear in the form of opisthotinos
in a pidgeon, brought on by a wound in one of its
wings.

The want of uniform success in the treatment of
this disease has long been a subject of regret
among physicians. It may be ascribed to the use
of the same remedies, without any respect to the
nature of the causes which produce it, and to an
undue reliance upon some one remedy, under a
belief of its specific efficacy. Opium has been
considered as its antidote, without recollecting that
it was one only, of a numerous class of medicines,
that are all alike useful in it.

Tetanus, from all its causes, has nearly the same
premonitory symptoms. These are, a stiffness in the
neck, a disposition to bend forward, in order to

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 327

relieve a pain in the back, costiveness, a pain about
the external region of the stomach, and a disposi-
tion to start in sleep. In this feeble state of the
disease, an emetic, a strong dose of laudanum, the
warm bath, or a few doses of bark, have often pre-
vented its being completely formed. When it has
arisen from a wound, dilating it, if small or healed,
and afterwards inflaming it, by applying to it tur-
pentine, common salt, corrosive sublimate, or Spa-
nish flies, have, in many hundred instances, been
attended with the same ^salutary effects.

The disease I have said is seated in the muscles,
and, while they are preternaturally excited, the
blood-vessels are in a state of reduced excitement.
This is evident from the feebleness and slowness
of the pulse, and the feeble coherence, or total disso-
lution, of the blood. The pulse sometimes beats,
according to Dr. Lining, but forty strokes in a mi-
nute. By stimulating the wound, we not only restore
the natural excitement of the blood-vessels, but we
produce an inflammatory diathesis in them, which
abstracts morbid excitement from the muscular
system, and, by equalizing it, cures the disease.
This remedy, I acknowledge, has not been as suc-
cessfully employed in the West-Indies as in the
United States, and that for an obvious reason.
The blood-vessels in a warm climate refuse to as-

328' OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

sume an inflammatory action. Stimuli huny
them on suddenly to torpor or gangrene. This is
so uniformly the case, that Dr. Dazille not only
forbids their application to recent wounds, but ad-
vises the most lenient applications to them.* But
widely different is the nature of wounds, and of the
tension of the blood-vessels, in the inhabitants of
northern countries. While Dr. Dallas deplores the
loss of 49 out of 50 affected with tetanus from
wounds, in the West India islands, I am sure I
could mention many hundred instances of the dis-
ease being prevented, and a very different propor-
tion of cures being performed, by inflaming the
wounds, and exciting a counter morbid action in
the blood-vessels.

This disease like many others has its anomalies.
I have seen it attended with a complete intermis-
sion of spasms, and a total relaxation of all the
muscles which are usually affected by it, and in
one instance I have observed the spasms to be con-
fined exclusively to one side of the body. I have
likewise met with a case in a black girl, in whom
all the symptoms of the disease occurred, except a
trismus or a contraction of the jaw. The force of

* Observations sur le Tetanos, p. 326.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 329

the disease in that part of her body spent itseh'"
upon her tongue. She lost the power of speech.
The disease was brought on by a wound in her
hand. She was cured by tonic remedies.

When the disease is the effect of fever, the
same remedies should be given, as are employed
in the cure of that fever. I have once unlocked
the jaw of a woman, who was seized at the same
time with a remitting fever, by an emetic, and I
have heard of its Ijeing cured in a company of sur-
veyors, in whom it was the effect of an intermit-
tent, by large doses of bark. When it accompa-
nies malignant fever, hysteria, or gout, the reme-
dies for those forms of disease should be employ-
ed. Bleeding was higlily useful in it, in a case of
yellow fever which occured in Philadelphia in the
year 1794.

When it is produced by the suppression of per»
spiration by means of cold, the warm bath and
sweating medicines have been found most useful
in it. Nature has in one instance pointed out the
use of this remedy, by curing the disease by a mi-
liary eruption on the skin.*

* Burserus.
VOL. I, T t

330 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

If it be the effect of poisonous substances taken
into the stomach, or of worms in the bowels, the
cure should be begun by emetics, purges, and an-
thelmintic medicines.

Where patients are unable to swallow, from the
teeth of the upper and lower jaw pressing upon
each other, a tooth or two should be extracted,
to open a passage for our medicines into the throat.
If this be impracticable, or objected to, they should
be injected by way of glyster.

In the locked jaw which arises from the extrac-
tion of a tooth, an instrument should be introduced
to depress the jaw. This has been done by a
noted English dentist in London, with success.

As the habit of diseased action often continues
after the removal of its causes, and as some of the
remote causes of this disease are beyond the reach
of medicine, such remedies should be given as are
calculated, by their stimulating power, to overcome
the morbid or spasmodic action of the muscles.
These are :

1. Opium. It should be given in large and
frequent doses. Dr. Streltz says he has found
from one to two drachms of an alkali, taken in the

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 331

course of a day, greatly to aid the action of the
opium in this disease.

Dr. Dazille advises the exhibition of opium in
glysters, and speaks in high terms of the efficacy
of a plaister composed of three drachms of opium
and a dram of camphor finely powdered, and applied
to the sole of each foot, in the tetanus of the West-
Indies.*

2. Wine. This should be given in quarts, and
even gallons, daily. Dr. Currie relates a case of a
man in the infirmary of Liverpool, who was cured
of tetanus, by drinking nearly a quarter cask of
Madeira wine. Dr. Hosack speaks in high terms
of it, in a letter to Dr. Duncan, and advises its
being given without any other stimulating medi-
cine.

3. Ardent SPIRITS. A quack in New- Eng-
land has lately cured tetanus, by giving ai-dent spi-
rits in such quantities as to produce intoxication.
Upon being asked his reason for this strange prac-
tice, he said he had always observed the jaw to fall
in drunken men, and any thing that would produce
that eifect, he supposed to be proper in the locked
jaw.

* Observations sur le Tetanus, p. 286 and 300,

332 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

4. The BARK has of late years been used in this
disease with success. I had the pleasure of first
seeing its good effects in the case of colonel Stone,
in whom a severe tetanus followed a wound in the
foot, received at the battle of Germantown, in Oc-
tober, 1777.

5. The COLD BATH. This remedy has been
revived by Dr. Wright of Jamaica, and has in many
instances performed cures of this disease. In one
of two cases in which I have used it with success,
the patient's jaw opened in a few minutes after the
affusion of a single bucket of water upon her body.
The disease was occasioned by a slight injury done
to one of her toes, by wearing a tight shoe. The
signals for continuing the use of the cold bath are,
its being followed by a slight degree of fever, and
a general warmth of the skin. Where these do
not occur, there is reason to believe it will do no
service, or perhaps do harm. We have many
proofs of the difference in the same disease, and in
the operation of the same medicine, in different and
opposite climates. Dr. Girdlestone has mentioned
the result of the use of the cold bath in tetanus in
the East Indies, which furnishes a striking addition
to the numerous facts that have been collected upon
that subject. He tells us the cold bath uniformly
destroyed life, in every case in which it was used.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 335

The reason is obvious. In that extremely debili-
tating climate, the system in tetanus was prostrated
too low, to re- act under the sedative operation of
the cold water.

6. The WARM BATH has often been used with
success in this disease. Its temperature should be
regulated by our wishes to promote sweats, or to
produce excitement in the blood-vessels. In the
latter case it should rise above the heat of the hu-
man body.

7. The OIL OF AMBER acts powerfully upon
the muscular system. I have seen the happiest
effects from the exhibition of six or eight drops of
it, every two hours, in this disease.

8. AsALivATioN has been often recommended
for the cure of tetanus, but unfortunately it can
seldom be excited in time to do service. I once
saw it complete the cure of a sailor in the Pennsyl-
vania hospital, whose life was prolonged by the
alternate use of bark and wine. The disease was
brought on him by a mortification of his feet, m
consequence of their being frost-bitten.

9. Dr. Girdlestone commends blisters in
high terms in this disease. He says he never saw

334 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

it prove fatal, even where they only produced a
redness on the skin.

10. I have heard of electricity having been
used with advantage in tetanus, but I can say no-
thing in its favour from my own experience.

In order to ensure the utmost benefit from the
use of the above remedies, it will be necessary for
a physician always to recollect, that the disease is
attended with great morbid action, and of course
each of the stimulating medicines that has been
mentioned should be given, 1st, in large doses ;
2dly, in succession ; 3dly, in rotation ; and 4thly,
by way of glyster, as well as by the mouth.

The jaw-fall in new-born infants is, I believe,
always fatal. Purging off the meconium from the
bowels immediately after birth has often prevented
it from one of its causes ; and applying a rag wet-
ted with spirit of turpentine to the navel-string, im-
mediately after it is cut, Dr. Chisholm says, pre-
vents it from another of its causes which has been
mentioned. Dr. Dazille says it is prevented by the
Indians, in the neighbourhood of Cayenne, by
anointing their children daily, for nine days after
their birth, with sweet oil.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 335

This disease, I have said, sometimes aiFects
horses. I have twice seen it cured by applying a
potential caustic to the neck,. under the mane, by
large doses of the oil of amber, and by plunging
one of them into a river, and throwing buckets of
cold water upon the other. It was cured in the
pidgeon formerly mentioned, by two grains of
opium administered in the form of a pill.

I shall conclude my observations upon the teta-
nus with the following queries :

1. What would be the effects of copious blood-
letting in this disease ? There is a case upon re-
cord of its efficacy, in the Medical Journal of Paris,
and I have now in my possession a letter from the
late Dr. Hopkins of Connecticut, containing the
history of a cure performed by it. Where tetanus
is the effect of primaiy gout, hysteria, or fever, at-
tended with highly inflammatory symptoms, bleed-
ing is certainly indicated, in order to prevent the
blood-vessels opposing their force to the action of
tonics, and to place them in a minus or craving
state of excitement. By means of this remedy
employed owce in the case of Mrs. Coates, at Ken-
sington, and twice in the case of Miss Germon, in
Swanson street, I was enabled to cure the disease
in both of them. It was brought on by a corn in

336 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

the former, and by a wound in the latter instance.
The blood of Miss Germon was very sizy. In
general, however, the disease is so completely
insulated in the muscles, and the arteries are so far
below their par of excitement in frequency and
force, that litde benefit can be expected from that
remedy. The disease, in these cases, seems to
call for an elevation, instead of a diminution, of
the excitement of the blood-vessels. Perhaps
bleeding ad deliguium animi might so far relax
the muscles, as to enable the blood-vessels and
other parts of the body to abstract from them
their agreeable and natural portions of excitement.
It is certain the muscles of a horse in a tetanus
become relaxed the instant he dies. By inducing
this relaxation, in the manner that has been men-
tioned, before the relations of the different sys-
tems of the body to each other are weakened and
dissolved, it is possible the disease might be cured.

2. What would be the effect of extreme cold in
this disease? Mr. John Hunter used to say, in
his lectures, " Were he to be attacked by it, he
would, if possible, fly to Nova-Zembla, or throw
himself into an ice-house." I have no doubt of
the efficacy of intense cold, in subduing the inordi-
nate morbid actions which occur in the muscular
system ; but it offers so much violence to the

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS. 337

fears and prejudices of sick people, or their friends,
that it can seldom be applied in such a manner as
to derive much benefit from it. Perhaps the seda-
tive effects of cold might be obtained with less
difficulty, by wrapping the body in sheets, and
wetting them occasionally for an hour or two with
cold water.

3. What would be the effect of exciting a strong
counter-action in the stomach and bowels in this
disease ? Dr. Brown of Kentucky cured a tetanus
by inflaming the stomach, by means of the tincture
of cantharides. It has likewise been cured by a
severe cholera morbus, induced by a large dose of
corrosive sublimate. The stomach and bowels, and
the external muscles of the body, discover strong
associations in many diseases. A sick stomach is
always followed by general weakness, and the dry
gripes often paralyse the muscles of the arms and
limbs. But further, one of the remote causes of
tetanus, viz. cold air, often shows the near relation-
ship of the muscles to the bowels, and the vicarious
nature of disease in each of them. It often pro-
duces in the latter, in the West Indies, what the
French Physicians call a " crampe seche," or, in
other words, if I may be allowed the expression, a
tetanus in the bowels,

VOL, I, u u

338 OBSERVATIONS ON THE TETANUS.

4. A sameness has been pointed out between
many of the symptoms of hydrophobia and te-
tanus. A similar difficulty of swallowing, and
similar convulsions after it, have been remarked in
both diseases. Death often takes place suddenly
in tetanus, as it does in hydrophobia, without pro-
ducing marks of fatal disorganization in any of the
internal parts of the body. Dr. Physick supposes
death in these cases to be the effect of suffocation,
from a sudden spasm and closure of the glottis,
and proposes to prevent it in the same manner that
he has proposed to prevent death from hydropho-
bia, that is, by laryngotomy.* The prospect of
success from it appears alike reasonable in both
cases.

• Medical Repository.

AN ACCOUNT

OF

THE DISEASE OCCASIONED

BY

DRINKING COLD WATER,

IN WARM WEATHER,

AND THE METHOD OF CURING IT.

AN ACCOUNT, &c.

FEW summers elapse in Philadelphia, in I
which there are not instances of many persons be-
ing diseased by drinking cold water. In some sea-
sons, four or five persons have died suddenly from
this cause in one day. This mortality falls chiefly
upon the labouring part of the community, who
seek to allay their thirst by drinking the water from
the pumps in the streets, and who are too impatient,
or too ignorant, to use the necessary precautions
for preventing its morbid or deadly eflfects upon
them. These accidents seldom happen, except
when the mercury rises above 85^ in Fahrenheit's
thermometer. ^-^

Three circumstances generally concur to pro-
d,uce disease or death, from drinking cold water.
1. The patient is extremely warm. 2. The water
is extremely cold. And 3. A large quantity of
it is suddenly taken into the body. The danger
from drinking the cold water is always in propor^

342 OF THE DISEASE OCCASIONED BY

tion to the degrees of combination which occur in
the three circumstances that have been mentioned.*

The following symptoms generally follow, where
cold water has been taken, under the above cir-
cumstances, into the body :

In a few minutes after the patient has swallowed
the water, he is affected by a dimness of sight ; he
staggers, in attempting to walk, and unless sup-
ported, falls to the ground ; he breathes with diffi-
culty ; a; rattling is heard in his throat ; his nos-
trils and cheeks expand and contract in every act
of respiration ; his face appears suffused with blood,
and of a livid colour ; his extremities become cold,
and his pulse imperceptible ; and, unless relief be
speedily obtained, the disease terminates in death,
in four or five minutes.

This description includes only the less common
cases of the effects of drinking a large quantity of

* Dr. Cnrrie has supposed, in his Medical Reports, that the
persons who are thus affected by drinking cold water ai'e in
a state of debility, from the long continued action of heat upon
their bodies ; but this is not the case. They are generally
in a state of very high excitement. The Doctor's mistake
is founded upon an erroneous belief, that the skin and the
stomach possess a similar susceptibility to the action of cold
water.

DRINKING COLD WATER. 343

cold water, when the body is preternaturally heat-
ed. More frequently, patients are seized with
acute spasms in the breast and stomach. These
spasms are so painful as to produce syncope, and
even asphyxia. They are sometimes of the tonic,
but more frequently of the clonic kind. In the
intervals of the spasms, the patient appears to be
perfectly well. The intervals between each spasm
become longer or shorter, according as the disease
tends to life or death.

It may not be improper to take notice, that
punch, beer, and even toddy, when drunken under
the same circumstances as cold water, have all
been known to produce the same morbid and fatal
effects.

I know of but one certain remedy for this dis.
ease, and that is lk^uid laudanum. The doses
of it, as in other cases of spasm, should be propor-
tioned to the violence of the disease. From a tea-
spoonful to near a table-spoonful have been given
in some instances, before relief has been obtained.
Where the powers of life appear to be suddenly
suspended, the same remedies should be used,
which have been so successfully employed in re-
covering persons supposed to be dead from drown-
ing.

344 ON THE DISEASE OCCASIONED BY

Care should be taken in every case of disease, or
apparent death, from drinking cold water, to pre-
vent the patient's suffering from being surrounded,
or even attended, by too many people.

Persons who have been recovered from the im-
mediate danger which attends this disease are
sometimes affected, after it, by inflammations and
obstructions in the breast or liver. These gene-
rally yield to the usual remedies which are admi-
nistered in those complaints, when they arise from
other causes.

If neither the voice of reason, nor the fatal ex-
amples of those who have perished from this cause,
are sufficient to produce restraint in drinking a
large quantity of cold liquors, when the body is
preternaturally heated, then let me advise to

1. Grasp the vessel out of which you are about
to drink for a minute or longer, with both your
hands. This will abstract a portion of heat from
the body, and impart it at the same time to the
cold liquor, provided the vessel be made of metal,
glass, or earth ; for heat follows the same laws, in
many instances, in passing tlirough bodies, with
regard to its relative velocity, which we observe to
take place in electricity.

DRINKING COLD WATER. 345

2. If you are not furnished with a cup, and are
obliged to drink by bringing your mouth in con-
tact with the stream which issues from a pump, or
a spring, always wash your hands and face, previ-
ously to your drinking, with a little of the cold
water. By receiving the shock of the water first
upon those parts of the body, a portion of its heat
is conveyed away, and the vital parts are thereby
defended from the action of the cold.

By the use of these preventives, inculcated by
advertisements pasted upon pumps by the Humane
Society, death from drinking cold water has be-
come a rare occurrence for many years past in
Philadelphia.

VOL. I. XX

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE

CURE OF SEVERAL DISEASES,

BY THE

EXTRACTION OF DECAYED TEETH,

AN ACCOUNT, &c.

SOME time in the month of October, 1801,
I attended Miss A. C. with a rheumatism in lier
hip joint, which yielded, for awhile, to the several
remedies for that disease. In the month of No-
vember it returned with great violence, accompa-
nied with a severe tooth-ache. Suspecting the
rheumatic affection was excited by the pain in
her tooth, which was decayed, I directed it to be
extracted. The rheumatism immediately left her
hip, and she recovered in a few days. She has
continued ever since to be free from it.

Soon after this I was consulted by Mrs. J. R,
who had been affected for several weeks with dys-
pepsia and tooth-ache. Her tooth, though no mark
of decay appeared in it, was drawn by my advice.
The next day she was relieved from her distress-
ing stomach complaints, and has continued ever
since to enjoy good health. From the soundness
of the external part pf the tooth, and the adjoining

350 ON TflE CURE or SEVERAL DISEASES,

gum, there was no reason to suspect a discharge
of matter from it had produced the disease in her
stomach.

Some time in the year 1801 I was consulted by
the father of a young gentleman in Baltimore, who
had been affected with epilepsy. I inquired into the
state of his teeth, and was informed that several
of them in his upper jaw were much decayed. I
directed them to to be extracted, and advised him
afterwards to lose a few ounces of blood, at any time
when he felt the premonitory symptoms of a recur-
rence of his fits. He followed my advice, in
consequence of which I had lately the pleasure of
hearing from his brother that he was perfectly
cured. ^

I have been made happy by discovering that I
have only added to the observations of other
physicians, in pointing out a connexion between
the extraction of decayed and diseased teeth and
the cure of general diseases. Several cases of the
efficacy of that remedy in relieving head- ache and
vertigo are mentioned by Dr. Darwin. Dr. Gater
relates that Mr. Pettit, a celebrated French sur-
geon, had often cured intermitting fevers, which
had resisted the bark for months, and even years,
by this prescription ; and he quotes from his works

BY EXTRACTING DECAYED TEETH. 351

two cases, the one of consumption, the other of
vertigo, both of long continuance, which were
suddenly cured by the extraction of two decayed
teeth in the former, and of two supernumerary
teeth in the latter case.*

In the second number of a late work, entitled,
" Bibliotheque Germanique Medico Chirurgicale,"
published in Paris, by Dr. Bluver and Dr. Dela-
roche, there is an account, by Dr. Siebold, of a
young woman who had been affected for several
months with greatinflammation, pain and ulcers, in
her right upper and lower jaws, at the usual time
of the appearance of the catamenia, which at that
period were always deficient in quantity. Upon
inspecting the seats of those morbid affections,
the Doctor discovered several of the molares in
both jaws to be decayed. He directed them to be
drawn, in consequence of which the woman was
relieved of the monthly disease in her mouth, and
afterwards had a regular discharge of her cata-
menia.

These facts, though but litde attended to, should
not surprise us, when we recollect how often the

• Recherches sur differens points de Physiologic de Pa-
thologie et de Therapeutiquc, p. 353, 354.

352 ON THE CURE OF SEVERAL DISEASES,

most distressing general diseases are brought on
by very inconsiderable inlets of morbid excitement
into the system. A small tumour, concealed in a
fleshy part of the leg, has been known to bring oh
epilepsy. A trifling wound with a splinter or a
nail, even after it has healed, has often induced a
fatal tetanus. Worais in the bowels have produced
internal dropsy of the brain, and a stone in the kid-
ney has excited the most violent commotions in
every part of the system. Many hundred facts of
a similar nature are to be met with in the records
<£ medicine.

When we consider how often the teeth, when
decayed, are exposed to irritation from hot and
cold drinks and aliments, from pressure by masti-
cation, and from the cold air, and how intimate
the connection of the mouth is with the whole sys-
tem, I am disposed to believe they are often the
unsuspected causes of general, and particularly of
nervous diseases. When we add to the list of
those diseases the morbid effects of the acrid and
putrid matters which are sometimes discharged
from caries teeth, or from ulcers in the gums crea-
ted by them, also the influence which both have in
preventing perfect mastication, and the connection
of that animal function with good health, I cannot
help thinking that our success in the treatment of

BY EXTRACTING DECAYED TEETH. 353

all chronic diseases would be very much pro-
moted, by directing our inquiries into the state of
the teeth in sick people, and by advising their ex-
traction in every case in which they are decayed.
It is not necessary that they should be attended
with pain, in orderto produce diseases, for splinters,
tumours, and other irritants before mentioned, often
bring on disease and death, when they give no
pain, and are unsuspected as causes of them. This
translation of sensation and motion to parts remote
from the place where impressions are made ap-
pears in many instances, and seems to depend upon
an original law of the ariimal economy.

VOL. 9. Y y

OBSERVATIONS

UPON

WORMS IN THE ALIMENTARY CANALS,

AND UPON

ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES,

OBSERVATIONS, &c.

WITH great diffidence I venture to lay be-
fore the public my opinions upon worms ; nor
should I have presumed to do it, had I not enter-
tained a hope of thereby exciting further inquiries
upon this subject.

When we consider how universally worms are
found in all young animals, and how frequently
they exist in the human body, without producing
disease of any kind, it is natural to conclude, that
they serve some useful and necessary purposes in
the animal economy. Do they consume the super-
fluous aliment which all young animals are dis-
posed to take, before they have been taught, by ex-
perience or reason, the bad consequences which
arise from it? It is no objection to this opinion,
that worms are unknown in the human bodv in

558 OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

some countries. The laws of nature are diversi-
fied, and often suspended under peculiar circum-
stances in many cases, where the departure from
uniformity is still more unaccountable than in th e
present instance. Do worms produce diseases
from an excess in their number, and an error in
their place, in the same manner that blood, bile,
and air produce diseases from an error in their
place, or from excess in their quantities ? Before
these questions are decided, I shall mention a few
facts, which have been the result of my own obser-
vations upon this subject.

1. In many instances, I have seen worms dis-
charged in the small-pox and measles, from chil-
dren who were in perfect health previously to their
being attacked by those diseases, and who never
before discovered a single symptom of worms. I
shall say nothing here of the swarms of worms
■which are discharged in fevers of all kinds, until I
attempt to prove that an idiopathic fever is never
produced by worms.

' 2. Nine out of ten of the cases which I have
seen of worms, have been in children of the gros's-
est habits and most vigorous constitutions. This
is more especially the case, where the worms are
dislodged by the small-pox and measles. Doctor

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 359

Capelle of Wilmington, in a letter which I received
from him, informed me, that in the livers of six-
teen, out of eighteen rats which he dissected, he
found a number of the ta3nia worms. The rats
were fat, and appeared in other respects to have
been in perfect health. The two rats in which he
found no worms, he says, " were very lean, and
" their livers smaller in proportion than the others."

3. In weakly children, I have often known the
most powerful anthelmintics given without bring-
ing away a single worm. If these medicines have
afforded any relief, it has been by their tonic qua-
lity. From this fact, is it not probable — the con-
jecture, I am afraid, is too bold, but I will risk it :
— is it not probable, I say, that children are some-
times disordered from the want of worms? Per-
haps the tonic medicines which have been men-
tioned render the bowels a more quiet and com-
fortable asylum for them, and thereby provide the
system with the means of obviating the effects of
crapulas, to which all children are disposed. It is
in this way that nature, in many instances, cures
evil by evil. I confine the salutary office of worms
only to that species of them which is known by
the name of the round worm, and which occurs
most frequently in children. ^

360 OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

Is there any such disease as an idiopathic worm-
TEVER ? The Indians in this country say there is
not, and ascribe the discharge of worms to a fever,
and not a fever to the worms.*

By adopting this opinion, I am aware that I
Contradict the observations of many eminent and
respectable physicians.

i

Doctor Huxham describes an epidemic pleurisy,
in the month of March, in the year 1740, which
he supposes was produced by his patients feeding
upon some corn that had been injured by the rain
the August before.! He likewise mentions that a
number of people, and those too of the elderly
sort, J were afflicted at one time with worms, in
the month of April, in the year 1743.

v.- ■

Lieuteaud gives an account of an epidemic worm
fever from Velchius, an Italian physician ;|I and
Sauvages describes, from Vandermonde, an epide-
mic dysentery from worms, which yielded finally
only to worm medicines. § Sir John Pringle, and

* See the Inquiry into the Diseases of the Indians, ^

t Vol. ii. of his Epidemics, p. 56.

I P. 136. * Vol.i. p. 76.

§ Vol. ii. p. 329.

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 361

Doctor Monro, likewise, frequently mention worms
as accompanying the dy sentery and remitting fever,
and recommend the use of calomel as an antidote
to them.

I grant that worms appear more frequently in
some epidemic diseases than in others, and oftener
in some years than in others. But may not the
same heat, moisture, and diet, which produced the
diseases, have produced the worms ? And may not
their discharge from the bowels have been occa-
sioned in those epidemics, as in the small-pox and
measles, by the increased heat of the body, by tlie
want of nourishment, or by an anthelmintic quality
being accidentally combined with some of the me-
dicines that are usually given in fevers ?

In answer to this, we are told that we often see
the crisis of a fever brought on by the discharge
of worms from the bowels by means of a purge,
or by an anthelmintic medicine. Whenever this
is tile case, I believe it is occasioned by offending
bile being dislodged by means of the purge, at the
same time with the worms, or by the anthelmintic
me(^cine (if not a purge) having been given on, or
fiear, one of the usual critical days of the fever.
What makes the latter supposition probable is,
that worms are seldom suspected in the beginning

VOL. I. z z

362 OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

of fevers, and anthelmintic medicines seldom given,
till ev^ry other remedy has failed of success ; and
this generally happens about the usual time in
which fevers terminate in life or death.

It is very remarkable, that since the discovery
and description of the hydrocephalus internus we
hear and read much less than formerly of worm-
fevers. I suspect that disease of the brain has laid
the foundation for the principal part of the cases of
worm-fevers, which are upon record in books of
medicine. I grant that worms sometimes increase
the danger from fevers, and often confound the
diagnosis and prognosis of them, by a number of
new and anomalous symptoms. But here we see
nothing more than that complication of symptoms,
which often occurs in diseases of a very different
and opposite nature.

Having rejected worms as the cause of fevers, I
proceed to remark, that the diseases most com-
monly produced by them belong to Dr. CuUen's
class of NEUROSES. And here I might add, that
there is scarcely a disease, or symptom of a disease,
belonging to this class, which is not produced by
worms. It would be only publishing extracts from
books, to describe them.

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 363

The chronic and nervous diseases of children,
which are so numerous, and frequently fatal, are, I
believe, frequendy occasioned by worms. There
is no great danger, therefore, of doing mischief, by
prescribing anthelmintic medicines in all our first
attempts to cure their chronic and nervous diseases.

I have been much gratified by finding myself
supported in the above theory of worm-fevers, by
the late Dr. William Hunter, and by Dr. Butter,
in his excellent treatise upon the infantile remitting
fever.

I have taken great pains to find out, whether
the presence of the different species of worms might
not be discovered by certain peculiar symptoms :
but all to no purpose. I once attended a girl of
twelve years of age in a fever, who discharged four
yards of a tsenia, and who was so far from having
discovered any peculiar symptom of this species
of worms, that she had never complained of any
other indisposition, than now and then a slight
pain in the stomach, which often occurs in young
girls from a sedentary life, or from eiTors in their
diet. I beg leave to add further, that there is not
a symptom which has been said to indicate the
presence of worms of any kind, as the cause of a
disease, that has not deceived me ; and none oftener

364 OBSERVATIONS UPOU WORMS

than the one that has been so much depended
upon, viz. the picking of the nose. A discharge
of worms from the bowels is, perhaps, the only-
symptom that is pathognomonic of their presence
in the intestines.

I shall now make a few remarks upon anthel-
mintic remedies.

But I shall first give an account of some experi-
ments which I made in the year 1771, upon the
common earth-worm, in order to ascertain the an-
thelmintic virtues of a variety of substances. I
made choice of the earth-worm for this purpose,
as it is, according to naturalists, nearly the same
in its structure, manner of subsistence, and mode
ofpropagating its species, with the round worm of
the human body.

In the first column I shall set down, under dis-
tinct heads, the substances in which worms were
placed ; and in the second and third columns the
time of their death, from the action of these sub-
stances upon them.

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 365

I. Biter and astringent

Hours.

Minutes*

SDBSTANCES

Watery infusion of aloes

2

48

1

30

*
1

30

II. Purges.

«

Watery infusion of Jalap

1

..

1

17

1

^^

III. Salts.

1. Jcids.-

Vinegar

—

]! convulsed.

Lime juice

—

1

Diluted nitrous acid

—

H

2. JlkaE.

A watery solution of salt of

tartar

—

2 convulsed, throw-
ing up a mucus

3. Keutral Salts.

on the surface of

In a watery solution of com-

the water.

mon salt

...

1 convulsed.

_

ditto.

—

ditto.

— — of sal ammoniac

—

H

gar

—

4

4. Earthy and metallic salts.

In a watery solution of Epsom

salt

_

10

_

_

\^ convulsed.

— - of calomel

— .

49

of turpeth mineral

—

L convulsed.

— — of sugar of lead

— ,

3

_

1

of blue vitriol

__

lO

— — of white vitriol

—

30

366

OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

IV. Metals.

Filings of steel
Filings of tin

V. Calcaueous earth.
Chalk.

VI. Narcotic substances.
Watery infusion of opium
' of Carolina pink-root
of tobacco

VII. Essential oils.
Oil of Wormwood

— of mint

— of caraway seed

— of amber

— of anniseed

— of turpentine

VIII. Arsenic.

A watery solution of white

IX. Fermented LiquoRs.
In Madeira wine
Claret

X. Distilled spirits.
Common rum

XI. The fresh juices of

KiPE fruits.
The juice of red cherries

• of black do.

of red currants

-—■ — of gooseberries

— — of woi'tleberries

•■ " of blackberries

- - of raspberries

___ of plums

of peaches

Hours

Minutes.
25|

near
2

1 11 convulsed,

33

14

3 convulsed.

3

3

U

41

convulsed.

10

1 convulsed.

5

12
7

Si-
13
25

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES.

367

The juice of water-melons, no Hours,
effect

XII. Saccharine substances.
Honey
Molasses
Brown sugar
Manna

XIII. In aromatic substances.
Camphor
Pimento
Black pepper

XIV. Foetid substances.
Juice of onions

Watery infusion of assafcetida
Santonicum, or worm

seed

XV. Miscellaneous substan-
ces.
Sulphur mixed with oil
.fithiops mineral
Sulphur
Solution of gunpowder

of soap

Oxymel of squills
Sweet oil

Minutes.

7

7
30

' 24

5
45

30

In the application of these experiments to the
human body, an allowance must always be made
for the alteration which the several anthelmintic
substances that have been mentioned may undergo,
from mixture and diffusion, in the stomach and
bowels.

In order to derive any benefit from these expe-

368 OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

riments, as well as from the observations that have
been made upon anthelmintic medicines, it will be
necessary to divide them into such as act,

1. Mechanically,

2. Chemically, upon worms; and,

3. Into those which possess a power composed
of chemical and mechanical qualities.

1. The mechanical medicines act indirectly and
directly upon the worms.

Those which act indirectly are, vomits, purges,
bitter and astringent substances, particularly aloes,
rhubarb, bark, bear's-foot, and worm seed. Sweet
oil acts indirectly and very feebly upon worms. It
was introduced into medicine from its efficacy in
destroying the botts in horses ; but the worms
which infest the human bowels are of a different
nature, and possess very different organs of life,
from those which are found in the stomach of a
horse.

Those mechanical medicines which act directly
upon the worms, are cowhuge* aiid powder of tin,

* Dolichos Pruiiens, of Linnaeus.

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 369

The last of these medicines has been supposed to
act chemically upon the worms, from the arsenic
which adheres to it ; but from the length of time
a worm lived in a solution of white arsenic, it is
probable the tin acts altogether mechanically upon
them.

2. The medicines which act chemically upon
worms appear, from our experiments, to be very
numerous.

Nature has wisely guarded children against the
morbid effects of worms, by implanting in them
an early appetite for common salt, ripe fruits, and
saccharine substances ; all of which appear to be
among the most speedy and effectual poisons for
worms.

Let it not be said, that nature here counteracts
her own purposes. Her conduct in tliis business
is conformable to many of her operations in the
human body, as well as throughout all her works.
The bile is a necessary part of the animal fluids,
and yet an appetite for ripe fruits seems to be im-
planted, chiefly to obviate the consequences of its
excess, or acrimony, in the summer and autumnal
months.

VOL. I. 5 a

370 OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

The use of common salt as an anthelmintic me-
dicine is both ancient and universal. Celsus re-
commends it. In Ireland it is a common practice
to feed children, who are afflicted by worms, for a
week or two upon a salt sea- weed, and when the
bowels are well charged with it, to give a purge of
wort in order to carry off the worms, after they are
debilitated by the salt diet.

I have administered many pounds of common
salt coloured with cochineal, in doses of half a
drachm, upon an empty stomach in the morning,
with great success in destroying worms.

Ever since I observed the eflfects of sugar and
other sweet substances upon worms, I have recom-
mended the liberal use of all of them in the diet of
children, with the happiest effects. The sweet sub-
stances probably act in preventing the diseases from
worms in the stomach only, into which they often
insinuate themselves, especially in the morning.
When we wish to dislodge worms from the bowels
by sugar or molasses, we must give these sub-
stiinces in large quantities, so that they may escape
in part the action of the stomach upon them.

I can say nothing from my own experience of
the efficacy of the mineral salts, composed of cop-

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 371

per, iron, and zinc, combined with vitriolic acid,
in destroying worms in the bowels. Nor have I
ever used the corrosive sublimate in small doses as
an anthelmintic.

I have heard of well- attested cases of the efficacy
of the oil of turpentine in destroying worms.

The expressed juices of onions and of garlic are
verj" common remedies for worms. From one of
the experiments, it appears that the onion juice
possesses strong anthelmintic virtues.

I have often prescribed a tea-spoonful of gun-
powder in the morning, upon an empty stomach,
with obvious advantage. The active medicine
here is probably the nitre.

I have found a syrup made of the bark of the
Jamaica cabbage-tree* to be a powerful, as well as
a most agreeable anthelmintic medicine. It some-
times purges and vomits, but its good effects may
be obtained, without giving it in such doses as to
produce these evacuations.

* Geoffrea, of Linnaeus.

37^ OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS

There is not a more certain anthelmintic than
Carolina pink-root.* But as there have been in-
stances of death having followed excessive doses of
it, imprudently administered, and as children are
often affected by giddiness, stupor, and a redness
and pain in the eyes, after taking it, I acknowledge
that I have generally preferred to it less certain,
but more safe, medicines for destroying worms.

3. Of the medicines whose action is compound-
ed of mechanical and chemical qualities, calomel,
jalap, and the powder of steel, are the principal.

Calomel, iii order to be effectual, must be given
in krge doses. It is a safe and powerful anthel-
mintic. Combined with jalap, it often brings
away worms when given for other purposes.

Of all the medicines that I have administered,
I know of none more safe and certain than the
simple preparations of iron, whether they be given
in the form of steel- filings, or of the rust of iron.
If ever they fail of success, it is because they are
given in too small doses. I generally prescribe
from five to thirty grains, every morning, to chil-
dren between one year and ten years old ; and I

* Spigelia Marylandica, of Linnaeus.

AND ANTHELMINTIC MEDICINES. 373

have been taught by- an old sea-captain, who was
cured of a taenia by this medicine, to give from
two drachms to half an ounce of it, every morning,
for three or four days, not only with safety, but
wdth success.

I shall conclude this essay with the following
remarks :

1. Where the action of medicines upon worms
in the bowels does not agree exactly with their
action upon the earth-worms, in the experiments
that have been related, it must be ascribed to the
medicines being more or less altered by the action
of the stomach upon them. I conceive that the
superior anthelmintic qualities of pink-root, steel-
filings, and calomel (all of which acted but slowly
upon the earth-worms compared with many other
substances) are in a great degree occasioned b)^
their escaping the digestive powers unchanged, and
acting in a concentrated state upon the wonns.

2. In fevers attended with anomalous symptoms,
which are supposed to arise from worms, I have
constantly refused to yield to the solicitations of
my patients, to abandon the indications of cure in
the fever, and to pursue worms as the principal
cause of the disease. While I have adhered stea-

374 OBSERVATIONS UPON WORMS, &C.

dily to the usual remedies for the different states of
fever, in all their stages, I have at the same time
blended those remedies occasionally with anthel-
mintic medicines. In this I have imitated the
practice of physicians in many other diseases, in
which troublesome and dangerous symptoms are
pursued, without seducing the attention from the
original disease. The anthelmintic medicines pre-
scribed in these cases should not be the rust of
iron, and common salt, which iire so very useful
in chronic diseases from worms, but calomel and
jalap, and such other medicines as aid in the cure
of fevers.

AN ACCOUNT ^^

EXTERNAL USE OF ARSENIC,

IN THE

CURE OF CANCERS.

AN ACCOUNT, &c.

A FEW years ago, a certain Doctor Hugh,
Martin, a surgeon of one of the Pennsylvania regi-
ments stationed at Pittsburg, during the latter part
of the late war, came to this city, and advertised
to cure cancers with a medicine which he said he
had discovered in the woods, in the neighbourhood
of the garrison. As Dr. Martin had once been
my pupil, I took the liberty of waiting upon him,
and asked him some questions respecting his dis-
covery. His answers were calculated to make me
beheve, that his medicine was of a vegetable na-
ture, and that it was originally an Indian remedy*
He showed me some of the medicine, which ap-
peared to be the powder of a well-dried root of
some kind. Anxious to see the success of this
medicine in cancerous sores, I prevailed upon the
Doctor to admit me to see him apply it in two er
* VOL. I, 3 b

378 ACCOUNT OF THE USE OF ARSENIC

three cases. I observed, in some instances, he
applied a powder to the parts affected, and in others
only touched them with a feather dipped in a liquid
which had a white sediment, and which he made
me believe was the vegetable root diffused in
water. It gave me great pleasure to witness the
efficacy of the Doctor's applications. In several
cancerous ulcers, the cures he performed were
complete. Where the cancers were much con-
nected with the lymphatic system, or accompanied
with a scrophulous habit of body, his medicine
always failed, and, in some instances, did evident
mischief.

Anxious to discover a medicine that promised
relief in even a few cases of cancers, and sup-
posing that all the caustic vegetables were nearly
alike, I applied the phytolacca or poke-root, the
stramonium, the arum, and one or two others, to
foul ulcers, in hopes of seeing the same effects
from them which I had seen from Doctor Mar-
tin's powder; but in these I was disappointed.
They gave some pain, but performed no cures.
At length I was furnished by a gentleman from
Pittsburg with a powder which I had no doubt,
from a variety of circumstances, was of the same
kind as that used by Dr. Martin. I applied it to
a fungous ulcer, but without producing the de-

IN THE. CURE OF CANCERS. 379

grees of pain, inflammation, or discharge, which
I had been accustomed to see from the application
of Dr. Martin's powder. After this, I should
have suspected that the powder was not a simple
root, had not the D octor continued upon all occa-
sions to assure me, that it was wholly a vegetable
preparation.

In the beginning of the year 1784, the Doctor
died, and it was generally believed that his medi-
cine had died with him. A few weeks after his
death I procured, from one of his administrators,
a few ounces of the Doctor's powder, partly with
a view of applying it to a cancerous sore which
then offered, and partly with a view of examining
it more minutely than I had been able to do dur-
ing the Doctor's life. Upon throwing the pow-
der, which was of a brown colour, upon a piece
of white paper, I perceived distinctly a number of
white particles scattered through it. I suspected
at first that they were corrosive sublimate, but the
usual tests of that metallic salt soon convinced me
that I was mistaken. Recollecting that arsenic
was the basis of most of the celebrated cancer
powders that have been used in the world, I had
recourse to the tests for detecting it. Upon sprink-
ling a small quantity of the powder upon some
coals of fire, it Emitted the garlick smell so per-

380 ACCOUNT OF THE USE OF ARSENIC

ceptibly as to be known by several persons whom
I called into the room where I made the experi-
ment, and who knew nothing of the object of my
inquiries. After this, with some difficulty, I picked
out about three or four grains of the white pow-
der, and bound them between two pieces of cop-
per, which I threw into the fire. After the cop^
per pieces became red hot, I took them out of
the fire, and when they had cooled, discovered an
evident whiteness imparted to both of them. One
of the pieces afterwards looked like dull silver.
These two tests have generally been thought suffi-
cient to distinguish the presence of arsenic in any
bodies ; but I made use of a third, which has
lately been communicated to the world by Mr.
Bergman, and which is supposed to be in all cases
infallible,

I infused a small quantity of the powder in a
solution of a vegetable alkali in water for a few
hours, and then poured it upon a solution of blue
vitriol in water. The colour of the vitriol was
immediately changed to a beautiful green, and af-
terwards precipitated.

I shall close this paper with a few remarks upon
this powder, and upon the cure of cancers and foul
•ijlcers of all kinds.

IN THE CURE OF CANCERS. 381

1. The use of caustics in cancers and foul ul-
cers is very ancient, and universal. But I believe
arsenic to be the most efficacious of any that has
ever been used. It is the basis of Plunket's and
probably of Guy's well-known cancer powders.
The great art of applying it successfully, is to di-
lute and mix it in such a manner as to mitigate the
violence of its action. Doctor Martin's composi-
tion was happily calculated for this purpose. It
gave less pain than the common or lunar caustic.
It excited a moderate inflammation, which sepa-
rated the morbid from the sound parts, and pro-
moted a plentiful afflux of humours to the sore
during its application. It seldom produced an
escar ; hence it insinuated itself into the deepest
recesses of the cancers, and frequently separated
those fibres in an unbroken state, which are gene-
rally called the roots of the cancer. Upon this
account, I think, in some ulcerated cancers it is to
be preferred to the knife. It has no action upon the
sound skin. This Doctor Hall proved, by confin-
ing a small quantity of it upon his arm for many
hours. In those cases where Doctor Martin used
it to extract cancerous or schirrous tumours that
were not ulcerated, I have reason to believe that
he always broke the skin with Spanish flies.

382 ACCOUNT 01 THE USE OF ARSENIC

2. The arsenic used by the Doctor was the pure
white arsenic. I should suppose from the exami-
nation I made of the powder with the eye, that
the proportion of arsenic to the vegetable powder,,
could not be more than one-fortieth part of the
whole compound. I have reason to think that the
Doctor employed different vegetable substances at
different times. The vegetable matter with which
the arsenic was combined in the powder which I
used in my experiments, was probably nothing
more than the powder of the root and berries of the
isolanum lethale, or deadly nightshade. As the
principal, and perhaps the only design of the vege-
table addition was to blunt the activity of the arse-
nic, I should suppose that the same proportion of
common wheat flour as the Doctor used of his
caustic vegetables, would answer nearly the same
purpose. In those cases where the Doctor applied
a feather dipped in a liquid to the sore of his pa-
tient, I have no doubt but his phial contained
nothing but a weak solution of arsenic in water.
This is no new method of applying arsenic to foul
ulcers. Doctor Way, of Wilmington, has spoken
in the highest terms to me of a wash for foulnesses
on the skin, as well as old ulcers, prepared by boil-
ing an ounce of white arsenic in two quarts of
water to three pints, and applying it once or twice
a day

IN THE CURE OF CANCERS. 383

3. I mentioned, formerly, that Doctor Martin
was often unsuccessful in the application of his
powder. This was occasioned by his using it in-
discriminately in all cases. In schirrous and can-
cerous tumours, the knife should always be pre-
ferred to the caustic. In cancerous ulcers attended
with a scrophulous or a bad habit of body, such
particularly as have their seat in the neck, in the
breasts of females, and in the axiliary glands, it
can only protract the patient's misery. Most of
the cancerous sores cured by Doctor Martin were
seated on the nose, or cheeks, or upon tlie surface
or extremities of the body. It remains yet to dis-
cover a cure for cancers that taint the fluids, or
infect the whole lymphatic system. This cure I
apprehend must be sought for in diet, or in the
long use of some internal medicine.

To pronounce a disease incurable, is often to
render it so. The intermitting fever, if left to
itself, would probably prove frequently, and per-
haps more speedily fatal than cancers. And as
cancerous tumours and sores are often neglected.
or treated improperly by injudicious people, from
an apprehension that they are incurable (to which
the frequent advice of physicians " to let them
alone," has no doubt contributed) perhaps the
inti^oduction of arsenic into regular practice as a

384 ACCOUNT OF THE USE OF ARSENIC.

remedy for cancers, may invite to a more early ap-
plication to physicians, and thereby prevent the
deplorable cases that have been mentioned, which
are often rendered so by delay or unskilful ma-
nagement.

4. It is not in cancerous sores only that Doctor
Martin's powder has been found to do service. In
sores of all kinds, and from a variety of causes,
^vhere they have been attended with fungous flesh
or callous edges, I have used the Doctor's powder
Avith advantage.

I flatter myself that I shall be excused in giving
this detail of a quack medicine, when we reflect
that it was from the inventions and temerity of
quacks, that physicians have derived some of their
most active and useful medicines.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

CAUSE AND CURE OF SORE LEGS.

VOL. I. 3 c

AN INQUIRY, &c.

HOWEVER trifling these complaints may
appear, they compose a large class of the diseases
of a numerous body of people. Hitherto, the per-
sons afflicted by them have been too generally aban-
doned to the care of empirics, either because the
disease was considered as beneath the notice of
physicians, or because they were unable to cure it.
I would rather ascribe it to the latter, than to the
former cause, for pride has no natural fellowship
with the profession of medicine.

The difficulty of curing sore legs has been con-
fessed by physicians in every country. As far as
my observations have extended, I am disposed to
ascribe this difficulty to the uniform and indiscri-
minate mode of treating them, occasioned by the
want of a theory which shall explain their proxi^

388 ON SORE LEGS.

mate cause. I shall attempt in a few pages to de-
liver one, which, however imperfect, will, I hope,
lay a foundation for more successful inquiries upon
this subject hereafter.

I shall begin my observations upon this disease,
by delivering and supporting the following propo-
sitions.

I. Sore legs are induced by general debility.
This I infer from the occupations and habits of the
persons who are most subject to them. They are
day-labourers, and sailors, who are in the habit of
lifting great weights ; also washer- women, and all
other persons, who pass the greatest part of their
time upon their feet. The blood-vessels and mus-
cular fibres of the legs are thus overstretched, by
which means either a rupture, or such a languid
action in the vessels, is induced, as that an acciden-
tal wound from any cause, even from the scratch
of a pin, or the bite of a mosquito, will not easily
heal. But labourers, sailors, and washer-women^
are not the only persons who are afflicted with
sore legs. Hard drinkers of every rank and de-
scription are likewise subject to them. Where
strong drink, labour, and standing long on the feet
are united, they more certainly dispose to sore legs,
than when they act separately. In China, where

ON SORE LEGS. 389

the labour which is performed by brutes in other
countries is performed by men, varices on the legs
are very common among the labouring people.
Perhaps, the reason why the debility induced in
the legs produces varices instead of ulcers in these
people, may be owing to their not adding the de-
bilitating stimulus of strong drink to that of exces-
sive labour.

It is not extraordinary that the debility produced
by intemperance in drinking ardent spirits should
appear first "in the lower extremities. The debi-
lity produced by intemperance in the use of wine
makes its first appearance in the form of gout, in *
the same part of the body. The gout, it is true,
discovers itself most frequently in pain only, but
there are cases in which it has terminated in ulcers,
and even mortifications on the legs.

II. Sore legs are connected with a morbid state
of the whole system. This I infer,

1. From the causes which induce them, all of
which act more or less upon every part of the body.

2. From their following or preceding diseases,
which obviously belong to the whole system: Fe-
vers and dysenteries often terminate critically in

390 ON SORE LEGS.

this disease ; and the pulmonary consumption and
apoplexy have often been preceded by the sup-
pression of a habitual discharge from a sore leg.
The two latter diseases have been ascribed to the
translation of a morbific matter to the lungs or
brain : but it is more rational to ascribe them to
a previous debility in those organs by w^hich
means their vessels were more easily excited into
action and effusion by the stimulus of the plethora,
induced upon the system in consequence of the
confinement of the fluids formerly discharged from
the leg, in the form of pus. This plethora can do
harm only where there is previous debility; for I
maintain tliat the system (when the solids are ex-
actly toned) will always relieve itself of a sudden
preternatural accumulation of fluids by means of
some natural emunctory. This has been often ob-
served in the menorrhagia, which accompanies
plentiful living in women, and in the copious dis-
charges from the bowels and kidneys, wluch follow
a suppression of the perspiration.

3. I infer it, from their appearing almost uni-
versally in one disease, which is evidently a disease
of the whole system, viz. the scurvy.

4. From their becoming in some cases the out-
lets of menstrual blood, which is discharged in con-

\

ON SORE LEGS. 391

sequence of a plethora, which affects more or less
every part of the female system.

5. I infer it from the symptoms of sore legs,
which are in some cases febrile, and affect the pulse
in every part of the body with preternatural fre-
quency or force. These symptoms were witnessed,
in an eminent degree, in two of the patients who
furnished subjects for clinical remarks in the Penn-
sylvania hospital some years ago.

6. I infer that sore legs are a disease of the
whole system, from the manner in which they are
sometimes cured by nature and art. They often
prove the outlets of many general diseases, and all
the remedies which cure them act more or less
upon the whole system.

In all cases of sore legs there is a tonic and atonic
state of the whole system. The same state of ex-
cessive or weak morbid action takes place in the
parts which are affected by the sores. The reme-
(^es to cure them, therefore, should be general and
locaL

In cases where the arterial system is affected by
too much tone, the general remedies should be,

392 ON SORE LEGS.

I. Blood-letting. Of the efficacy of this're-
medy in disposing ulcers suddenly to heal, the two
clinical patients before-mentioned exhibited remark-
able proofs, in the presence of all the students of
medicine in the university. The blood drawn was
sizy in both cases. I have not the merit of having
introduced this remedy into practice in the cure of
ulcers. I learned it from Sir John Pringle. I have
known it to be used with equal success in a sore
breast, attended by pain and inflammation, after all
the usual remedies in that disease had been used to
no purpose.

II. Gentle purges.

III. Nitre. From fifteen to twenty grains of
this medicine should be given three times a-day.

IV. A TEMPERATE DIET, and a total absti-
nence from fermented and distilled liquors.

V. Cool and pure air.

VI. Rest, in a recumbent posture of the body.

The local remedies in this state of the system
should be,

ON SORE LEGS. 390

I. Cold water. Dr. Rigby has written largely
in favour of this remedy, when applied to local in-
flammations. From its good effects in allaying the
inflammation, which sometimes follows ,the punc-
ture which is made in the arm in communicating
the small-pox, and from the sudden relief it affords
in the inflammatory state of the ophthalmia and in
the piles, no one can doubt of its efficacy in sore
legs, accompanied by inflammation in those vessels
which are the immediate seat of the disease.

II. Soft poultices of bread and milk, or of bread
moistened with, lead water. Dr. Underwood's
method of making a poultice of bread and milk
should be preferred in this case. He directs us first
to boil the milk, then to powder the bread, and
throw it into the milk, and after they have been
intimately mixed, by being well stirred and boiled
together, they should be poured out and spread
upon a rag, and a knife dipped in sweet oil or lard
should be run over them. The solidity and con-
sistence of the poultice is hereby better preserved,
than when the oil or lard is mixed with the bread
and milk over the fire.

m. When the inflammation subsides, adhesive
plaisters so applied as to draw the sound edges of
the sores together. This remedy has been used

VOL. I. 3d

394 ON SORE LEGS.

with great success by Dr. Physic, in the Penn-
sylvania hospital, and in his private practice,

IV. Above all, rest, and a horizontal posture
of the leg. Too much cannot be said in favour
of this remedy in this species of sore legs. Nan-
noni, the famous Italian surgeon, sums up the cure
of sore legs in three words, viz. " Tempo, riposo,
e pazienza ;" that is, in time, rest, and patience.
A friend of mine, who was cured by this surgeon
of a sore leg, many years ago, informed me, that
he confined him to his bed during the greatest part
of the time that he was under his care.

In sore legs, attended by too little general and
local action, the following remedies are proper.

I. Bark. It should be used plentiflilly, but
with a constant reference to the state of the system ;
for the changes in the weather, and other acciden-
tal circumstances, often produce such changes in
the system, as to render its disuse for a short time
frequently necessary,

II. Mercury. This remedy has been suppos-
ed to act by altering the fluids, or by discharging a
morbid matter from them, in curing sore legs. But
this is by no means the case. It appears to act as

ON SORE LEGS. 395

ii universal stimulant ; and if it prove most useful
when it excites a salivation, it is only because in
this way it excites the most general action in the
system.

III. Mineral tonics, such as the different
preparations of iron, copper, and zinc.

IV. Gentle exercise. Rest, and a recum-
bent posture of the body, so proper in the tonic,
are both hurtful in this species of sore legs. The
efficacy of exercise, even of the active kind, in the
cure of sore legs, accompanied by deficient ac-
tion in the vessels, may easily be conceived from
its good effects after igun-shot wouncjs, which are
mentioned by Dr. Jackson. *^ He tells us, that
those British soldiers who had been wounded at
the battle of Guilford, in North Carolina, who
were turned out of the military hospitals and fol-
lowed the army, soonest recovered of their wounds.
It was remarkable, that if they delayed only a few
days on the road, their wounds grew worse, or
ceased to heal.

In the use of the different species of exercise,
the same regard should be had to the state of

* Medical Journal, 1790.

396 ON SOllE LEGS.

the system, which has been recommended in other
diseases.

V. A nutritious and moderately stimulating diet,
consisting of milk, saccarhine vegetables, animal
food, malt liquors, and wine.

Wort has done great service in sore legs. The
manner in which 1 have directed it to be prepared
and taken is as follows : To three or four heaped
table-spoonsful of the malt, finely powdered and
sifted, add two table-spoonsful of brown sugar, and
three or four of Madeira, sherry, or Lisbon wine,
and a quart of boiling water. After they have stood
a few hours, k may be drunken liberally by the pa-
tient, stirring it each time before he takes it, so that
the whole substance of the malt may be conveyed
into the stomach. A little lime-juice may be add-
ed, if the patient requires it, to make it more plea-
sant. The above quantity may be taken once,
twice, or three times a-day, at the pleasure of the
patient, or according to tlie indication of his dis-
ease.

VI. Opium. This remedy is not only useful
in easing the pain of a sore leg, but co-operates
with other cordial medicines in invigorating the
whole system.

ON SORE LEGS. 397

VII. Baglivi says that in Rome, and Dr. Clcg-
hom tells us that in Minorca, ulcers of the legs
are *' almost incurable." It is probable there
are many parts of the world in which the air has the
same unfriendly influence upon this disease. In
such cases it will be proper to advise a change of
climate.

The local applications should consist of such
substances as are gently escarotic, and which excite
an action in the torpid vessels of the affected part.
Arsenic, precipitate, and blue vitriol, have all been
employed with success for this purpose. Dr. Grif-
fitts informed me, that he has frequently accom-
plished the same thing in the dispensary by ap-
plications of tartar emetic. They should all be
used, if necessary, in succession to each other ; for
there is often the same idiosyncrasy in a sore lep- to
certain topical applications, that there is in the sto-
mach to certain aliments. After the use of these
remedies, astringents and tonics should be applied,
such as an infusion of Peruvian, or white-oak bark,
the water in which the smiths extinguish their irons,
lime-water, bread dipped in a weak solution of green
vitriol (so much commended by Dr. Underwood)
compresses wetted with brandy, or ardent spirits
of any kind, and, above all, the adhesive plaisters-
formerly mentioned.

398 ON SORE LEGS.

Tight bandages are likewise highly proper here.
The laced stocking has been much used. It is
made of strong coaise linen. Dr. Underwood gives
several good reasons for preferring a flannel rol-
ler to the linen stocking. It sets easier on the
leg, and yields to the swelling of the muscles in
walking.

In scorbutic sores on the legs, navy surgeons
have spoken in high terms of an application of a
mixture of lime-juice and molasses. Mr. Gillespie
commends the use of lime or lemon-juice alone, and
ascribes many cures to it in the British navy during
the late war, after every common application had
been used to no purpose.*

It is of the utmost consequence, in the treatment
of sore legs, to keep them clean, by frequent dress-
ings and washings. The success of old women is
oftener derived from their great attention to cleanli-
ness, in the management of sore legs, than to any
specifics they possess which are unknown to physi-
t:ians.

When sore legs are kept from healing by aifec-
tions of the bone, the treatment should be such as
is recommended by practical writers on surgery.

* Medical Journal, vol. vi.

ON SORE LEGS. 399

I shall conclude this inquiry by four observa-
tions, which are naturally suggested by what has
been delivered upon this disease.

1. If it has been proved that sore legs are con-
nected with a morbid state of the whole system, is
it not proper to inquire, whether many other dis-
eases, supposed to be local, are not in like manner
connected with the whole system ; and if sore legs
have been cured by general remedies, is it not pro-
per to use them more frequently in local diseases ?

2. If there be two states of action in the arteries
in sore legs, it becomes us to inquire, whether the
same opposite states of action do not take place in
many diseases, in which they are not suspected. It
would be easy to prove, that they exist in several
other local diseases.

3. If the efficacy of the remedies for sore legs,
which have been mentioned, depend upon their
being accommodated exactly to the state of the ar-
terial system, and if this system be liable to fre-
quent changes, does it not become us to be more
attentive to the state of the pulse in this disease,
than is commonly supposed to be necessary by phy-
sicians ?

400 ON SORE LEGS.

4. It has been a misfortune in medicine, as well
as in other sciences, for men to ascribe effects to
one cause, which should be ascribed to many.
Hence diseases have been attributed exclusively to
morbid affections of the fluids by some, and of the
muscles and nerves by others. Unfortunately, the
morbid states of the arterial system, and the influ-
ence of those states upon the brain, the nerves, the
muscles, the lymphatics, the glands, the viscera, the
alimentary canal, and the skin, as well as the reci-
procal influence of the morbid states of each of
those parts of the body upon the arteries, and upon
each other, have been too much neglected in most
of our systems of physic. I consider the pathology
of the arterial system as a mine. It was first dis-
covered by Dr. CuUen. The man who attempts to
explore it will probably impoverish himself by his
researches ; but the men who come after him will
certainly obtain from it a treasure, which cannot fail
of adding greatly to the riches of medicine. ^

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE

STATE OF THE BODY AND MIND
IN OLD AGE ;

WITH

OBSERVATIO^rS OJV ITS DISEASES,

AND THEIR REMEDIES.

VOL. I. 3 E

AN ACCOUNT, &c.

MOST of the facts which I shall deliver
upon this subject are the result of observations,
made during the term of five years, upon persons of
both sexes, who had passed the 80th year of their
lives. I intended to have given a detail of the
names, manner of life, occupations, and other cir-
cumstances of each of them ; but, upon a review
of my notes, I found so great a sameness in the
history of most of them, that I despaired, by de-
tailing them, of answering the intention which I
have purposed in the following essay. I shall,
therefore, only deliver the facts and principles,
which are the result of the inquiries and observa-
tions I have made upon this subject.

I. I shall mention the circumstances which fa-
vour the attainment of longevity.

404 ON OLD AGE.

II. I shall mention the phenomena of body and
mind which attend it ; and,

III. I shall enumerate its peculiar diseases, and
the remedies which are most proper to remove, or
moderate them.

I. The circumstances which favour longevity
are,

1. Descent Jrom long-lived ancestors. 1 have
not found a single instance of a person who has
lived to be 80 years old, in whom this was not the
case. In some instances I found the descent was
only from one, but, in general, it was from both
parents. The knowledge of this fact may serve,
not only to assist in calculating what are called the
chances of lives, but it may be made useful to a
physician. He may learn from it to cherish hopes
of his patients in clironic, and in some acute dis-
eases, in proportion to the capacity of life they
have derived from their ancestors*.

* Dr. Franklin, who died in his 84th year, was descend-
ed from long-Uved parents. His father died at 89, and his
mother at 87. His father had 17 children by two wivest
The doctor informed me, that he once sat down as one of 1 1
adult sons and daughters at his father's table. In an excur*
sion he once made to that part of England from whence his

ON OLD AGE. 405

2. Temperance in eating and drinking. To
this remark I found several exceptions. I met
with one man of 84 years of age, who had been in-
tempemte in eating ; and four or five persons, who
had been intemperate in drinking ardent spirits.
They had all been day-labourers, or had deferred
drinking until they began to feel the languor of old
age. I did not meet with a single person, who had
not, for the last forty or fifty years of their lives,
used tea, coffee, and bread and butter, twice a day
as part of their diet. I am disposed to believe that
those articles of diet do not materially affect the
duration of human life, although they evidently
impair the strength of the system. The duration
of life does not appear to depend so much upon the
strength of the body, or upon the quantity of its
excitability, as upon an exact accommodation of
stimuli to each of them. A watch spring will last
as long as an anchor, provided the forces which
are capable of destroying both are always in an
exact ratio to their strength. The use of tea and
coffee in diet seems to be happily suited to the
change which has taken place in the human bod}
by sedentar}'^ occupations, by which means less

family migrated to America, he discovered, in a grave-yard>
the tomb-stones of several persons of his name, who had liv-
ed to be very old. These persons he supposed to have been
his ancestors.

405 ON OLD AGE.

nourishment and stimulus are required than for-
merly, to support animal life.

3. The moderate exercise of the understanding.
It has long been an established truth, that literary
men (other circumstances being equal) are longer
lived than other people. But it is not necessary
that the understanding should be employed upon
philosophical subjects, to produce this influence up-
on human life. Business, politics, and religion,
which are the objects of attention of men of all
classes, impart a vigour to the understanding,
which, by being conveyed to every part of the body,
tends to produce health and long life.

4. Equanimity of temper. The violent and ir-
regular action of the passions tends to wear away
the springs of life.

Persons who live upon annuities in Europe have
been observed to be longer lived, in equal circum-
stances, than other people. This is probably occa-
sioned by their being exempted, by the certainty of
their subsistence, from those fears of want, which
so frequently distract the minds, and thereby
weaken the bodies, of old people. Liferents have
been supposed to have the same influence in pro-
longing life. Perhaps the desire of life, in order to

ON OLD AGE. 407

enjoy for as long a time as possible that property,
which cannot be enjoyed a second time by a child
or relation, may be another cause of the longevity
of persons who live upon certain incomes. It is a
fact, that the desire of life is a very powerful stimu-
lus in prolonging it, especially when that desire is
supported by hope. This is obvious to physicians
every day. Despair of recovery is the beginning
of death in all diseases.

But obvious and reasonable as the effects of
equanimity of temper are upon human life, there
are some exceptions in favour of passionate men
and women having attained to a great age. The
morbid stimulus of anger, in these cases, was pro-
bably obviated by less degrees, or less active exer-
cises, of the understanding, or by the defect or
weakness of some of the other stimuli which keep
up the motions of life.

5. Matrimony. In the course of my inquiries,
I met with only one person beyond eighty years
of age who had never been married. I met with
several women who had borne from ten to twenty
children, and suckled them all, I met with one
woman, a native of Herefordshire, in England, who
was in the 100th year of her age, who had borne
a child at 60, menstruated till 80, and frequently

408 ON OLD AGE.

suckled two of her children (though born in succes-
sion to each other) at the same time. She had
passed the greatest part of her life over a washing-
tub. Of forty persons who died in different parts
of the world, above 80 years of age, in the year
1806, there was but one of them that had not
been married. A majority of them were women.

6. Emigration. I have observed many instances
of Europeans who have arrived in America in the
decline of life, who have acquired fresh vigour
from the impression of our climate, and of new ob-
jects, upon their bodies and minds; and whose lives,
in consequence thereof, appeared to have been pro-
longed for many years. This influence of climate
upon longevity is not confined to the United States.
Of 100 European Spaniards, who emigrate to
South- America in early life, 18 live to be above
50, whereas but 8 or 9 native Spaniards, and but
7 Indians, of the same number, exceed the 50th
year of human life.

7. I have not found sedentary employments to
prevent long life, where they are not accompanied
by intemperance in eating or drinking. This ob-
servation is not confined to literary men, nor to
women only, in whom longevity, without much
exercise of body, has been frequently observed. I

ON OLD AGE. 409

met with one instance of a weaver ; a second of a
silver-smith ; and a third of a shoe-maker; among
the number of old people, whose histories have
suggested these observations.

8. I have not found that acute^ nor that all ch-o-
nic diseases shorten human life. Dr. Franklin had
two successive vomicas in his lungs before he was
40 years old. I met with one man be}'ond 80,
■who had survived a most violent attack of the yel-
low fever ; a second, who had had several of his
bones fractured by falls, and in frays : and many,
who had been frequently affected by intermittents.
I met with one man of 86, who had all his life been
subject to syncope ; another, who had for 50 yeai's
been occasionally affected by a cough;* and two
instances of men, who had been afflicted for forty
years with obstinate head-aches, f I met with only
one person beyond 80, who had ever been affected
by a disease in the stomach ; and in him it arose
from an occasional rupture. Mr. John Strange-

» This man's only remedy for his cough was the fine
powder of dry Indian turnip and honey.

t Dr.' Thiery says, that he did not find the itch, or slight
degrees of the leprosy, to prevent longevity. Observations
de Physique, et de Medecine faites en differens lieux de
L'Espagne. Vol. ii. p. 171.

VOL. I. 3 F

410 ON OLD AGE.

ways Hutton, of this city, who died in 1793> in
the 109th year of his age, informed me, tnat he
had never puked in his hfe. This circumstance is
the more remarkable, as he passed several years at
sea when a young man.* These facts may serve
to extend our ideas of the importance of a healthy
state of the stomach in the animal economy ; and
thereby to add to our knowledge in the prognosis
of diseases, and in the chances of human life.

* The venerable old man, whose history first suggested
this remark, was born in New York in the year 1684. His
grandfather lived to be 101, but was unable to walk for thirty
years before he died, from an excessive quantity of fat. His
mother died at 91. His constant drinks were water, beer,
and cyder. He had a fixed dislike to spirits of all kinds.
His appetite was good ; and he ate plentifully during the last
years of his life. He seldom drank any thing between his
meals. He was never intoxicated but twice in his life, and
that was when a boy, and at sea, where he remembers per-
fectly well to have celebrated, by a feu de joye, the birth-day
of queen Anne. He was formerly afflicted with the head-
ache and giddiness, but never had a fever, except from the
small-pox, in the course of his life. His pulse was slow, but
regular. He had been twice married. By his first wife he
had eight, and by his second seventeen children One of
them lived to be 83 years of age. He was about five feet
nine inches in height, of a slender make, and carried an
erect head, to the last year of his life.

ON OLD AGE. 411

9. I have not found the loss of teeth to affect the
duration of human hfe, so much as might be ex
pected. Edward Drinker, who lived to be 103
years old, lost his teeth thirty years befoic he died,
from dra^ving the hot smoke of tobacco into his
mouth through a short pipe.

Dr. Sayre, of New-Jersey, to whom I am in-
debted for several very valuable histories of old
persons, mentions one man, aged 81, whose teeth
began to decay at 16, and another of 90, who lost
his teeth thirty years before he saw him. The
gums, by becoming hard, perform, in part, the
office of teeth. But may not the gastric juice of
the stomach, like the tears and urine, become acrid
by age, and thereby supply, by a more dissolving
power, the defect of mastication from the loss of
teeth? Analogies might easily be adduced from
several operations of nature, which go forwai'd in
the animal economy, which render this supposition
highly probable.

10. I have not observed baldness^ or gray hairs,
occurring in early or middle life, to prevent old
age. In one of the histories furnished me by Dr.
Sayre, I find an account of a man of 81, whose
hair began to assume a silver colour ^^'hen he was
but one and twenty years of age.

$

412 ON OLD AGE.

11. More women live to be old than men, but
more men live to be very old than women.

I shall conclude this head by the following re-
mark:

Notwithstanding there appears in the human
body a certain capacity of long life, which seems
to dispose it to preserve its existence in every situa-
tion ; yet this capacity does not always protect it
from premature destruction ; for among the old
people whom I examined, I scarcely met \vith one
who had not lost brothers or sisters in early and
middle life, and who were born under circum-
stances equally favourable to longevity with them-
selves.

II. I now come to mention some of the pheno-
mena of the body and mind which occur in old age.

1. There is a great sensibility to cold in all old
people. I met with an old woman of 84, who slept
constantly under three blankets and a coverlet du-
ring the hottest summer months. The servant of
prince de Beaufremont, who came from Mount
Jura to Paris, at the age of 121, to pay his respects
to the first national assembly of France, shivered
with cold in the middle of the dog-days, when he-

ON OLD AGE. "' 415

was not near a good a fire. The national assembly
directed him to sit with his hat on, in order to de-
fend his head from the cold.

2. Impressions made upon the ears of old peo-
ple excite sensation and reflection much quicker
than when they are made upon their eyes. Mr.
Hutton informed me, that he had frequently met
his sons in the street without knowing them, until
they had spoken to him. Dr. Franklin informed
me, that he recognized his friends, after a long ab-
sence from them, first by their voices. This fact
does not contradict the common opinion upon the
subject of memory, for the recollection, in these in-
stances, is the effect of what is called reminiscence,
which differs from memory, in being excited only
by the renewal of the impression which at first pro-
duced the idea which is revived.

3. The appetite for food is generally increased in
old age. The famous Parr, who died at 152, ate
heartily in the last week of his life. The kindness
of nature, in providing this last portion of earthly
enjoyments for old people, deserves to be noticed.
It is remarkable, that they have, like children, a
fi^quent recurrence of appetite, and sustain with
great uneasiness the intervals of regular meals.
The observation, therefore, made by Hippocrates,

4^

414 f^, ON OLD AGE.

that middle-aged people are more affected by ab-
stinence than those who are old, is not true. This
might eaily be proved by many appeals to the re-
cords of medicine ; but old people differ from
children, in preferring solid to liquid aliment.
From inattention to this fact, Dr. Mead has done
gi'cat mischief by advising old people, as their teeth
decayed or perished, to lessen the quantity of
their solid, and to increase the quantity of their
liquid food. This advice is contrary to nature
and experience, and I have heard of two old per-
sons who destroyed themselves by following it.
The circulation of the blood is supported in old
people chiefly by the stimulus of aliment. The
action of liquids of all kinds upon the system is
weak and of short continuance, compared with the
durable stimulus of solid food. There is a grada-
tion in the action of this food upon the body.
Animal matters are preferred to vegetable, the
fat of meat to the lean, and salted meat to fresh,
by most old people. I have met with but few old
people who retained an appetite for milk. It is
remarkable, that a less quantity of strong drink
produces intoxication in old people than in persons
in the middle of life. This depends upon the re-
currence of the same state of the system, with
respect to excitability, which takes place in child-
hood. Many old people, from an ignorance of

0>f OLD AGE. ,,*. 41-5

this fact, have made shipwreck of characters, which
have commanded respect in every previous stage
of their lives. From the same recurrence of the
excitability of childhood in their systems, they
commonly drink their tea and coffee much weaker
than in early or middle life.

4. The pulse is generally full, and frequently
affected by pauses in its pulsations, when felt in the
wrists of old people. A regular pulse in such per-
sons indicates a disease, as it shows the system to
be under the impression of a preternatural stimulus
of some kind. This observation was suggested to
me above thirty years ago by Morgagni, and I
have often profited by it in attending old people.
The pulse in such patients is an uncertain mark of
the nature, or degree, of an acute disease. It sel-
dom partakes of the quickness or convulsive action
of the arterial system, which attends fever in young
or middle-aged people. I once attended a man of
77 in a fever of the bilious kind^ which confined
him for eight days to his bed, in whom I could not
perceive the least quickness or morbid action in his
pulse until four and twenty hours before he died.

5. The marks of old age appear earlier, and are
more numerous, in persons who have combined
with hard labour a vegetable or scanty diet, than

416 jf^^ ON OLD" ACE.

in persons who have lived under opposite circum«.
stances. I think I have observed these marks of
old age to occur sooner, and to be more numerous,
in the German, than in the English or Irish citi-
zens of Pennsylvania., They are likewise more
common among the inhabitants of country places,
than of cities, and still more so among the Indians
of North America, than among the inhabitants of
civilized countries.

6. Old men tread upon the whole base of their
feet at once in xvalking. This is perhaps one rea-
son why they wear out fewer shoes, under the same
circumstances of constant use, than young people,
who, by treading on the posterior, and rising on
the anterior part of their feet, expose their shoes
to more unequal pressure and friction. The ad-
vantage derived to old people from this mode of
walking is very obvious. It lessens that disposi-
tion to totter, which is always connected with weak-
ness : hence we find the same mode of walking is
adopted by habitual drunlcards, and is sometimes

|from habit practised by them, when they are not
under the influence of strong drink.

7. The breath and perspiration of old people
have a peculiar acrimony, and their urine, in some
instances, emits a fcetor of an offensive nature.

ON OLD AGE. 417

8. The eyes of very old people sometimes change
from a dark and blue to a light colour.

9. The memory is the first faculty of the mind
which fails in the decline of life. While recent
events pass through the mind without leaving an.
impression upon it, it is remarkable that the long
forgotten events of childhood and youth are recalled
and distinctly remembered.

I met with a singular instance of a German wo-
man, who had learned to speak the language of our
country after she was forty years of age, who had
forgotten every word of it after she had passed her
80th year, but spoke the German language as flu-
ently as ever she had done. The memory decays
soonest in hard drinkers. I have observed some
studious men to suffer a decay of their memories,
but never of their understandings. Among these
was the late Anthony Benezet, of this city. But
even this infirmity did not abate the cheerfulness,
near lessen the happiness of this pious philosopher,
for he once told me, when I was a young man,
that he had a consolation in the decay of his me-
mory, which gave him a great advantage over me.
" You can read a good book (said he) with plea-
sure but oncCy but when I read a good book, I
so soon forget the contents of it, that I have the

vol.. I. 3 G

418 ON OLD AGE.

pleasure of reading it over and over; and every
time I read it, it is alike new and delightful to
me." The celebrated Dr. Swift was one of
those few studious men, who have exhibited marks
of a decay of understanding in old age ; but it is
judiciously ascribed by Dr. Johnson to two causes,
which rescue books, and the exercise of the think-
ing faculties, from having had any share in inducing
that disease upon his mind. These causes were,
a rash vow which he made when a young man,
never to use spectacles, and a sordid seclusion of
himself from company, by wliich means he was cut
off from the use of books, and the benefits of con-
versation, the absence of which left his mind with-
out its usual stimulus : hence it collapsed into a
state of fatuity. It is probably owing to the con-
stant exercise of the understanding, that literary
men possess that faculty of the mind in a vigorous
state in extreme old age. The same cause accounts
for old people preserving their intellects longer in
cities than in country places. They enjoy society
upon such easy terms in the former situation, that
their minds are kept more constantly in an excited
state, by the acquisition of new, or the renovation
of old ideas, by means of conversation.

10. I did not meet with a single instance, in
which the moral or religious faculties were impair-

ON OLD AGE. 419

ed in old people. I do not believe that these fa-
culties of the mind are preserved by any supernatu-
ral power, but wholly by the constant and increasing
exercise of them in the evening of life. In the
course of my inquiries, I heard of a man of 101
years of age, who declared that he had forgotten
every thing he had ever known, except his God.
I found the moral faculty, or a disposition to do
kind offices, to be exquisitely sensible in several old
people, in whom there was scarcely a trace left of
memory or understanding.

11. Dreaming is universal among old people.
It appears to be brought on by their imperfect sleej),
of which I shall say more hereafter.

12. I mentioned formerly the sign of a second
childhood, in the increase of the appetite in old peo-
ple. It appears further, 1. In a recurrence of the
appetite for those articles of food which were most
grateful in childhood, particulai-ly sweet substan-
ces. The late Dr. Redman, who died in Maixh,
1808, in the 86th year of his age, became so fond
of sweet cake, for several years before his death,
that he seldom passed a day without eating more
or less of it. 2. In the marks which slight con-

usions or impressions leave upon their skins.
3. In theu- being soon fatigued by walking or ex-

420 ON OLD AGS.

ercise, and in being as soon refreshed by rest. 4.
In their loss of the command over their limbs, so as
to be unable to protect themselves from the conse-
quences of a fall by protruding their arms. 5. In the
loss of their command over the spincters of the rec-
tum and bladder, in consequence of which they dis-
charge their fasces in an involuntary manner, and
with the same frequency which we observe in in-
fancy and childhood. I took notice in the lectures
upon animal life, of this return of involuntary mo-
tions in parts that had become voluntary from the
influence of habit. 6. In their inability to rest,
except in a recumbent posture. 7. In the ab-
sence of teeth. 8. In a disposition to nearly con-
stant sleep. Dr. Haller mentions an instance of a
very old man, who slept twenty out of every twenty-
four hours of the last years of his life. 9. In their dis-
position, like children, to detail immediately every
thing they see and hear. 10. In their aptitude to
shed tears ; hence they are unable to tell a story,
that is in any degree distressing, without weeping.
Dr. Moore takes notice of this peculiarity in Vol-
t^re, after he had passed his 80th year. He wept
constantly at the recital of his own tragedies.
This feature in old age did not escape Homer.
Old Menelaus wept ten years after he returned from
the destruction of Troy, when he spoke of the
death of the heroes who perished before that city.

ON OLD ACE. 421

The famous duke of Malborough discovered the
same disposition to weep in the close of his life.
11. In the absence of memory, and finally, in the ex-
tinction of every other faculty of the mind. The
reader will perceive here, that not only the marks
of a second childhood, but of a second infancy, are
exhibited in old age, when it is protracted to its ex-
treme point.

13. The disposition in the system to renexv cer-
tain parts in extreme old age has been mentioned
by several authors. Many instances are to be met
with in the records of medicine of the sight* and

* There is a remarkable instance of the sight having been
restored, after it had been totally destroyed, in an old man
near Reading, in Pennsylvania. My brotherj Judge Rush,
furnished me with the following account of him , in a' letter
from Reading, dated June 23, 1792.

" An old man, of 84 years of age, 'of the name of Adam
Riffle, near this town, gradually lost his sight in the 68th
year of his age, and continued entirely blind for the space of
twelve years. About four years ago his sight returned, with-
out making use of any means for the purpose, and without
any visible change in the appearance of the eyes, and he now
sees as well as ever he did. I have seen the man, and have
no doubt of the fact. He is at this time so hearty, as to be
able to walk from his house to Reading (about three miles)
which he frequently does in order to attend church . I should

422 ON OLD AGE.

hearing having been restored, and even of the teeth
having been renewed in old people a few years be-
fore death. These phenomena have led me to sus-
pect that the antediluvian age was attained by the
frequent renovation of different parts of the body,
and that when they occur, they are an effort of the
causes which support animal life to produce ante-
diluvian longevity, by acting upon the revived ex-
citability of the system.

14. The fear of death appears to be much less
in old age, than in early or middle life. I met
\vith many old people who spoke of their dissolu-
tion with composure, and with some who expres-
sed earnest desires to lie down in the grave. This
indifference to life, and desire for death (whether
they arise from a satiety in worldly pursuits and
pleasures, or from a desire of being relieved from
pain) appear to be a wise law in the animal econo-
my, and worthy of being classed with those laws
which accommodate the body and mind of man to
all the natural evils, to which, in the common or-
der of tilings, they are necessarily exposed.

observe, that, during both the gradual loss and recovery of
his sight, he was no ways affected by sickness, but, on the
contrary, enjoyed his usual health. I have this account from
his daughter and son-in-law, who live within a few doors
«fme."

ON OLD ACE. 423

III. I come now briefly to enumerate the dis-
eases of old age, and the remedies which are most
proper to remove, or to mitigate them.

The diseases are chronic and acute. The chro-
nic are,

1. Weakness of the knees and ancles,, a lessened
ability to walk, and tremors in the head and limbs.

2. Pains in the bones^ known among nosologi-
cal writers by the name of rheumatalgia.

3. Involuntary floxv of tears, and of mucus from
the nose.

4. Difficulty of breathing, and a short cough,
with copious expectoration. A weak or hoarse
voice generally attends this cough.

5. Costweness,

6. An inability to retain the uri?ie as long as in
early or middle life. Few persons beyond 60 pass
a whole night, without being obliged to discharg-e
their urine.* Perliaps the stimulus of this liquor

* I met with an old nian, who informed me, that if fi'om
any accident he retained his urine after he felt an inclination

424 ON OLD AGiE.

in the bladder may be one cause of the universalitj
of dreaming among old people. It is certainly a
frequent cause of dreaming in persons in early and
middle life : this I infer, from its occuring chiefly
in the morning, when the bladder is most distended
with urine. There is likewise an inability in old
people to discharge their urine as quickly as in
early life. I think 1 have observed this to be among
the first symptoms of the declension of the strength
of the body by age.

7. Wakefulness. This is probably produced in
part by the action of the urine upon the bladder ;
but such is the excitability of the system in the
first stages of old age, that there is no pain so light,
no anxiety so trifling, and no sound so small, as not
to produce wakefulness in old people. It is owing
to their imperfect sleep, that they are sometimes as
unconscious of the moment of their passing from a
sleeping to a waking state, as young and middle-
aged people are of the moment in which they pass
from the w^aking to a sleeping state. Hence we so
©ften hear them complain of passing sleepless nights.
This is no doubt frequently the case, but I am sa-
tisfied, from the result of an inquiry made upon this
subject, that they often sleep without knowing it,

to discharge it, he was affected by a numbness, accompanied
by an uneasy sensation in the palms of his hands.

ON OLD AGE. 425

and that their complaints in the morning, of the
want of sleep, arise from ignorance, without the
least intention to deceive.

8. Criddiness.

9. Deafness,

10. Imperfect vision.

The acute diseases most common among old
people are,

1. Injlammation of the eyes.

2. The pneumonia notha, or bastard peripneii-
monjr.

3. The colic.

4. Palsy and apoplexy.

5. The piles.

6. A difficulty in making water.

7. Quartan fever.

VOL. I. 3 H

4^6f ON OLD AGE.

AH the diseases of old people, both chronic and
acute, originate in predisposing debilit)^. The re-
medies for the former, where a feeble morbid ac-
tion takes place in the system, are stimulants. The
first of these is,

I. Heat. The ancient Romans prolonged life
by retiring to Naples, as soon as they felt the infir-
mities of age coming upon them. The aged
Portuguese imitate them, by approaching the warm
sun of Brazil, in South America. But heat may
be applied to the torpid bodies of old people artifii-
cially. 1. By means of the warm hatK Dr.
Franklin owed much of the cheerfulness said gene-
ral vigour of body and mind, which characterised
his old age, to his regular use of this remedy. It
disposed him to sleep, and even produced a respite
firom the pain of the stone, with which he was
afflicted during the last years of his life.

2. Heat may be applied to the bodies of old peo-
ple by means of stove rooms. The late Dr. Dewit,
of Germantown, who lived to be near 100 years of
age, seldom breathed an air below 72**, after he
became an old man. He lived constantly in «
stove -room.

ON OLD AGE. 427

3. Warm clothing, more especially warm
bed clothes, are proper to preserve or increase the
heat of old people. From the neglect of the latter,
they are often found dead in their beds in the morn-
ing, after a cold night, in all cold countries. The
late Dr. Chovet, of this city, who.lived to be 85,
slept in a baizfe night gown, under eight blankets
and a coverlet, in a stove-room, many years before
he died. The head should be defended in old peo-
ple, by means of woollen or fur caps, in the night,
and by wigs and hats during the day, in cold wea-
ther. These artificial coverings will be the more ne-
cessary, where the head has been deprived of its
natural covering. Great pains should be taken like-
wise to keep the feet dry and warm, by means of
thick shoes.* To these modes of applying and
confining heat to the bodies of old people, a young
bed-fellow has been added ; but I conceive the
three artificial modes which have been recommend-
ed will be sufficient, without the use of one, which
cannot be successfully employed without a breach
of delicacy or humanity.

* I met with one man above 80, who defended his feet
from moisture by covering his shoes in wet weather with
melted wax ; and another, who, for the same purpose, co-
vered his shoes every morning with a mixture composed of
the following ingredients melted together : lintseed oil a

428 ON OLD AGE.

II. To keep up the action of the system, gene-
rous DIET and DRINKS should be given to old
people. Their food should partake largely of the
fire, and it should be so cooked as to retain all its
juices. By this means it is more easily divided by
their gums, and more easily digested. Broiled fish,
and what are commonly called stews of butchers
meat, form excellent articles of diet for old people.
For a reason mentioned formerly, they should be
indulged in eating between the ordinary meals of
families. Wine should be given to them in mode-
ration. It has been emphatically called the milk
of old age.

III. Young company should be preferred by-
old people to the company of persons of their own
age. I think I have observed old people to enjoy
better health and spirits, when they have passed

pound, mutton suet eight ounces, bees-wax six ounces, and
rosin four ounces. This mixture should be moderately
warmed, and then applied not only to the upper leather,
but to the soles of the shoes. This composition, the old
gentleman informed me, was extracted from a book, entitled
" The Complete Fisherman," published in England, in the
reign of queen Elizabeth. He had used it for twenty years
in cold ajtid wet weathfer, with great benefit, and several of
his friends, who had tried it, spoke of its efficacy in keeping
the feet dry in high terms.

ON OLD AGE. 429

the evening of their lives in the families of their
children, where they have been surrounded by
grand-children, than when they lived by them-
selves. Even the solicitude they feel for the wel-
fare of their descendant^ contributes to invigorate
the circulation of the blood, and thereby to add fuel
to the lamp of life.

IV. Gentle exercise. This is of great
consequence in promoting the health of old people.
It should be moderate, regular, and always in fair
weather.

V. Cleanliness. This should by no means
be neglected. The dress of old people should not
only be clean, but more elegant than in youth, or
middle life. It serves to divert the eye of specta-
tors from observing the decay and deformity of the
body, to view and admire that which is always
agreeable to it.

VI. To abate the pains of the chronic rheuma.-
tism, and the uneasiness of the old man's cough (as
it is called;) also to remove wakefulness, and to
restrain, during the night, a ti-oublesome inclina-
tion to make water, opium may be given with
great advantage. Chardin infonns us, that this
medicine is frequently used in the eastern countries;

430 ON OLD AGE.

to abate the pains and weaknesses of old age, by
those people who are debarred the use of wine by
the religion of Mahomet,

I have nothing to say upon the acute diseases of
old people, but what is to be found in most of our
books of medicine, except to recommend bleed-
ing in those of them which are attended with ple-
thora, and an inflammatory action in the pulse.
The degrees of appetite which belong to old age,
the quality of the food taken, and the sedentaiy^
life which is generally connected with it, all con-
cur to produce that state of the system, which re-
quires the above evacuation. I am sure that I have
seen many of the chronic complaints of old people
mitigated by it, and I have more than once seen it
used with obvious advantage in their inflammatory
diseases. These affections I have observed to be
more fatal among old people than is generaly sup-
posed. An inflammation of the lungs, which ter-
minated in an abscess, deprived the world of Dr.
Franklin. Dr. Chovet died of an inflammation in
.bis liver. The blood drawn from him a few days
before his death was sizy, and such was the heat
of his body, produced by his fever, that he could
not bear more covering (notwithstanding his for-
mer habits of warm clothing) than a sheet, in the
month of January.

ON OLD AGE. 431

Death from old age is the effect of a gradual
palsy. It shows itself first in the eyes and ears, in
the decay of sight and hearing ; it appears next in
the urinary bladder, in the limbs and trunk of the
body ; then in the sphincters of the bladder and
rectum ; and finally in the nerves and brain, de-
stroying, in the last, the exercise of all the faculties
of the mind.

Few persons appear to die of old age. Some
one of the diseases which have been mentioned
generally cuts the last thread of life.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN/

AND THE

METHODS OF IMPROVING MEDICINE.

ACCOMMODATED TO THE PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNEHS
IN THE UNITED STATES.

Delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, February 7, 1789, at the conchiaon of »
course of lectures upon chemistry and the practice of physic.

PUBLISHED AT TUE SEQ^UESr OF fHE CLASS.

VOL. I. 3 I

OBSERVATIONS, &c.

GENTLEMEN,

I SHALL conclude our course of lectures,
by delivering to you a few directions for the regu-
lation d" your future conduct and studies, in the
line of your profession.

I shall, ^r*?, suggest the most probable means
of establishing yourselves in busmess, and of be-
corsMig acceptable to your patients, and respectable
in life.

''Sec&ndly, I shall mention a few thoughts which
have occurred to me on the mode to be pursued,
in the further prosecution of your studies, and for
the improvement of medicine.

436 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

I. Permit me, in the first place, to recommend
to such of you as intend to settle in the country,
to establish yourselves as early as possible upon
farms. My reasons for this advice are as follow :

1. It will reconcile the country people to the
liberality and dignity of your profession, by show-
ing them that you assume no superiority over them
from your education, and that you intend to share
with them in those toils, which were imposed upon
man in consequence of the loss of his innocence.
This will prevent envy, and render you acceptable
to your patients as men, as well as physicians.

2. By living on a farm you may serve your
country, by promoting improvements in agricul-
ture. Chemistry (which is now an important
branch of medical education) and agriculture are
closely allied to each other. Hence some of the
most useful books upon agriculture have been
written by physicians. Witness the essays of Dr.
Home of Edinburgh, and of Dr. Hunter of York-
shire, in England.

3. The business of a farm will furnish you with
employment in the healthy seasons of the year, and
thereby deliver you from the taedium vitae, or, what
is worse, from retreating to low or improper com-

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 437

pany. Perhaps one cause of the prevalence of dram
or grog drinking, with which country practitioners
are sometimes charged, is owing to their having
no regular or profitable business to employ them,
in the intervals of their attendance upon their pa-
tients.

4. The resources of a farm will create such an
independence, as will enable you to practice with
more dignity, and at the same time screen you from
the trouble of performing unnecessary services to
your patients. It will change the nature of the
obligation between you and them. While money
is the only means of your subsistence, your pa-
tients will feel that they are the channels of your
daily bread ; but while your fai'm furnishes you
with the necessaries of life, your patients will feel,
more sensibly, that the obligation is on their side,
for health and life.

5. The exigencies and wants of a farm, in stock
and labour of all kinds, will enable you to obtain
from your patients a compensation for your ser-
vices in those articles. They all possess them,
and men part with that of which money is only
the sign much more readily than they do with
money itself.

,f

438 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

6. The resources of a farm will prevent your
cherishing, for a moment, an impious wish for the
prevalence of sickness in your neighbourhood. A
healthy season will enable you to add to the pro-
duce of your farm, while the rewards of an un-
healthy season will enable you to repair the incon-
venience of your necessary absence from it. By
these means your pursuits will be marked by that
variety and integrity, in which true happiness is
said to consist.

7. Let your farms be small, and let your j&r?w-
cijba/ attention be directed to grass and horticulture.
These afford most amusement, require only mode-
rate labour, and will interfere least with your du-
ties to your profession,

II. Avoid singularities of every kind in your
manners, dress, and general conduct. Sir Isaac
Newton, it is said, could not be distinguished in
company, by any peculiarity, from a common well-
bred gentleman. Singularity, in any thing, is a
substitute for such great or useful qualities as com-
mand respect ; and hence we find it chiefly in little
minds. The profane and indelicate combination
of extravagant ideas, improperly called wit, and
the formal and pompous manner, whether accom-
panied by a wig, a cane, or a ring, should be all

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 439

avoided, as incompatible with the simplicity of sci-
ence, and the real dignity of physic. There is
more than one way of playing the quack. It is
not necessary, for this purpose, that a man should
advertise his skill, or his cures, or that he should
mount a phaeton, and display his dexterity in ope-
rating to an ignorant and gaping multitude. A
physician acts the same part in a different way,
who assumes the character of a madman or a brute
in his manners, or who conceals his fallibility by
an affected gravity and taciturnity in his intercourse
with his patients. Both characters, like the quack,
impose upon the public. It is true, they deceive
different ranks of people ; but we must remember
that there are two kinds of vulgar, viz. the rich
and the poor ; and that the rich vulgar are offen
upon a footing with the poor, in ignorance and cre-
dulity.

III. It has been objected to our profession, that
many eminent physicians have been unfriendly to
Christianity. If this be true, I cannot help ascrib-
ing it in part to that neglect of public worship,
with which the duties of our profession are often
incompatible ; for it has been justly observed, that
the neglect of this religious and social duty gene-
rally produces a relaxation, either in principles or
morals. Let this fact lead you, in setting out in

i^

440 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

business, to acquire such habits of punctuality in
visiting your patients, as shall not interfere with
acts of public homage to the Supreme Being. Dr,
Gregory has iDbserved, that a cold heart is the
most frequent cause of deism. Where this occurs
in a physician, it affords a presumption that he is
deficient in humanity. But I cannot admit that
infidelity is peculiar to our profession. On the
contrary, I believe Christianity places among its
friends more men of extensive abilities and learning
in medicine, than in any other secular employment.
Stahl, Hoffman, Boerhaave, Sydenham, Haller,
and Fothergill, were all christians. These enlight-
ened physicians were considered as the ornaments
of the ages in which they lived, and posterity has
justly ranked them among the greatest benefactors
of mankind.

IV. Permit me to recommend to you a regard
to all the interests of your country. The educa-
tion of a physician gives him a peculiar insight
in the principles of many useful arts, and the prac-
tice of physic favours his opportunities of doing
good, by diffusing knowledge of all kinds. It
was in Rome, when medicine was practised only
by slaves, that physicians were condemned by their
profession " mutam exercere artem." But in mo-
dern times, and in free goverments, they should

DTTTIES OF A PHYSICIA?f- 441

disdain an ignoble silence upon pul^lic subjects.
The American revolution has rescued physic from
its former slavish rank in society. For the honour
of our profession it should be recorded, that some
of the most intelligent and useful characters, both
in the cabinet and the field, during the late war,
have been physicians. The illustrious Dr. Fo-
thergill opposed faction and tyranny, and took the
lead in all public improvements in his native court-
try, without suffering thereby the least diminution
of that reputation, or business, in which, for forty
years, he flourished almost without a rival in the
city of London.

V. Let me advise you, in your visits to the
sick, never to appear in a hurry, nor to talk of
indifferent matters, before you have made the ne-
cessary inquiries into the symptoms of your pa-
tient's disease.

VL Avoid making light of any case. '' Respice
finem" should be the motto of every indisposition.
There is scarcely a disease so trifling, that has not,
directly or indirectly, proved an outlet to human
life. This consideration should make you anxious
and punctual in your attendance upon every acute
disease, and keep you from risking your reputation
by an improper or hasty prognosis.

VOL I. 3 k

442 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

VII. Do not condemn, or oppose, unnecessarily,
the simple prescriptions of your patients. Yield
to them in matters of little consequence, but main-
tain an inflexible authority over them in matters
that are essential to life.

VIII. Preserve, upon all occasions, a composed
or cheerful countenance in the room of your pa-
tients, and inspire as much hope of a recovery as
you can, consistent with truth, especially in acute
diseases. The extent of the influence of the will
over the human body has not yet been fully ascer-
tained. I reject the futile pretensions of Mr. Mes-
mer to the cure of diseases, by what he has ab-
surdly called animal magnetism. But I am willing
to derive the same advantages from his deceptions,
which the chemists have derived from the delusions
of the alchemists. The facts which he has estab-
lished clearly prove the influence of the imagina-
tion, and will, upon diseases. Let us avail our-
selves of the handle which those faculties of the
mind present to us, in the strife between life and
death. I have frequently prescribed remedies of
doubtful efficacy in the critical stage of acute dis-
eases, but never till I had v*^orked up my patients
into a confidence, bordering upon certainty, of
their pro(3able good effects. The success of this
measure has much oftener answered, than disap-

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 443

pointed my expectations ; and while my patients
have commended the vomit, the purge, or the blis-
ter, which was prescribed, I have been disposed to
attribute their recovery to the vigorous concur-
rence of the will in the action of the medicine.
Does the will beget insensibility to cold, heat, hun-
ger, and danger ? Does it suspend pain, and raise
the body above feeling the pangs of Indian tor
tures ? Let us not then be surprised that it should
enable the system to resolve a spasm, to open an
obstruction, or to discharge an offending humour.
I have only time to hint at this subject. Perhaps
it would lead us, if we could trace it fully, to
some very important discoveries in the cure of
diseases.

IX. Permit me to advise you, in your intercourse
with your patients, to attend to that principle in
the human mind, which constitutes the association
of ideas. A chamber, a chair, a curtain, or even
a cup, all belong to the means of life or death,
accordingly as they are associated with cheerful or
distressing ideas, in the mind of a patient. But
this principle is of more immediate application in
those chronic diseases which affect the mind.
Nothing can be accomplished here, till we pro-
duce a new association of ideas. For this purpose
a change of place and company are absolutely ne-

444 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

cessary. But we must sometimes proceed much
further. I have heard of a gentleman in South
Carohna, who cured his fits of low spirits by chang-
ing his clothes. The remedy was a rational one.
It produced at once a new train of ideas, and thus
removed the paroxysm of his disease.

X. Make it a rule never to be angry at any
thing a sick man says or does to you. Sickness
often adds to the natural irritability of the temper.
We are, therefore, to bear the reproaches of our
patients with meekness and silence. It is folly to
resent injuries at any time, but it is cowardice to
resent an injury from a sick man, since, from his
weakness and dependence upon us, he is unable to
contend with us upon equal terms. You will find
it difficult to attach your patients to you by the ob-
ligations of friendship or gratitude. You will
sometimes have the mortification of being deserted
by those patients, who owe most to your skill and
humanity. This led Dr. Turner to advise physi-
cians never to choose their friends from among
their patients. But this advice can never be fol-
lowed by a heart that has been taught to love true
excellency, wherever it finds it. I would rather
advise you to give the benevolent feelings of your
hearts full scope, and to forget the unkind returns

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 445

they will often meet with, by giving to human na-
ture a tear.

XI. Avoid giving a patient over in an acute dis-
ease. It is impossible to tell in such cases Avhere
life ends, and where death begins. Hundreds of
patients have recovered, who have been pro-
nounced incurable, to the great disgrace of our
profession. I know that the practice of predicting
danger and death, upon every occasion, is some-
times made use of by physicians, in order to
enhance the credit of their prescriptions, if their
patients recover, and to secure a retreat from
blame, if they should die. But this mode of act-
ing is mean and illiberal. It is not necessary that
we should decide with confidence, at any time, up-
on the issue of a disease.

XII. A physician in sickness is always a wel-
come visitor in a family ; hence he is often solicited
to partake of the usual sign of hospitality in this
country, by taking a draught of some strong li-
quor, every time he enters into the house of a pa-
tient. Let me charge you to lay an early restraint
upon yourselves, by refusing to yield to this
practice, especially in the forenoon. Many phy-
sicians have been innocently led by it into habits
of drunkenness. You will be in the more danger

446 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

of falling into this vice, from the great fatigue and
inclemency of the weather to which you will be
exposed in country practice. But you have been
taught that strong drink affords only a temporary
relief from those evils, and that it afterwards ren-
ders the body more sensible of them.

XIII» I shall now give some directions mth
respect to the method of charging for your services
to your patients.

When we consider the expence of a medical
education, and the sacrifices a physician is obliged
to make of ease, society, and even health, to his
profession ; and when we add to these, the con-
stant and painful anxiety which is connected with
the important charge of the lives of our fellow-
creatures, and, above all, the inestimable value of
that blessing which is the object of his services, I
hardly know how it is possible for a patient suffi'
ciently and justly to reward his physician. But
when we consider, on the other hand, that sick-
ness deprives men of the means of acquiring
money ; that it increases all the expences of living ;
and that high charges often drive patients from
regular-bred physicians to quacks; I say, when
we attend to these considerations, we should make

DUTIES OF A THYSICIAN. 447

our charges as moderate as possible, and conform
them to the following state of things.

Avoid measuring your services to your patients
by scruples, drachms, and ounces. It is an illiberal
mode of charging. On the contrary, let the num-
ber and time of your visits, the nature of your
patient's disease, and his rank in his family or so-
ciety, determine the figures in your accounts. It
is certainly just, to charge more for curing an apo-
plexy, than an intermitting fever. It is equally
just, to demand more for risking your life by visit-
ing a patient in a contagious fever, than for curing
a pleurisy. You have likewise a right to be paid
for your anxiety. Charge the same services, there-
fore, higher, to the master or mistress of a family,
or to an only son or daughter, who call forth all
your feelings and industry, than to less important
members of a family and of society. If a rich
man demand more frequent visits than are neces-
sary, and if he impose the restraints of keeping to
hours, by calling in other physicians to consult with
you upon every trifling occasion, it will be just to
make him pay accordingly for it. As this mode
of charging is strictly agreeable to reason and equi-
ty, it seldom fails of according \vith the reason and
sense of equity of our patients. Accounts made
out upon these principles are seldom complainec

448 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

of by them. I shall only remai'k further upon this
subject, that the sooner you send in your accounts
after your patients recover, the better. It is the
duty of a physician to inform his patient of the
amount of his obligation to him at least once a
year. But there are times when a departure from
this rule may be necessary. An unexpected mis-
fortune in business, and a variety of other acci-
dents, may deprive a patient of the money he had
allotted to pay his physician. In this case, delica-
cy and humanity require, that he should not know
the amount of his debt to his physician, till time
had bettered his circumstances.

I shall only add, under this head, that the poor
of every description should be the objects of your
peculiar care. Dr. Boerhaave used to say, " they
were his best patients, because God was their
paymaster." The first physicians that I have
known have found the poor the steps, by which
they have ascended to business and reputation.
Diseases among the lower class of people are gene-
rally simple, and exhibit to a physician the best
cases of all epidemics, which cannot fail of adding
to his ability of curing the complicated diseases of
the rich and intemperate. There is an inseparable
connection between a man's duty and his interest.
Whenever you are called, therefore, to visit a poor

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 449

patient, imagine you hear the voice of the good
Samaritan sounding in your ears, " Take care of
him, and I will repay thee."

I come now to the second part of this address,
which was to point out the best mode to be pur-
sued, in the further prosecution of your studies,
and the improvement of medicine.

I. Give me leave to recommend to you, to open
all the dead bodies you can, without doing violence
to the feelings of your patients, or the prejudices
of the common people. Preserve a register of the
weather, and of its influence upon the vegetable
productions of the year. Above all, record the
epidemics of every season ; their times of appear-
ing and disappearing, and the connection of the
weather with each of them. Such records, if
published, will be useful to foreigners, and a trea-
sure to posterity. Preserve, likewise, an account
of chronic cases. Record the name, age, and oc-
cupation of your patient ; describe his disease ac-
curately, and the changes produced in it by your
remedies ; mention the doses of every medicine
you administer to him. It is impossible to tell how
much improvement and facility in practice yo\^
will find from following these directions. It has
been remarked, that physicians seldom remember

VOL. I. 3 L

450 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

more than the two or three last years of their prac-
tice. The records which have been mentioned
will supply this deficiency of memory, especially
in that advanced stage of life, when the advice of
physicians is supposed to be most valuable.

11. Permit me to recommend to you further,
the study of the anatomy (if I may be allowed the
expression) of the human mind, commonly called
metaphysics. The reciprocal influence of the body
and mind upon each other can only be ascer-
tained by an accurate knowledge of the faculties of
the mind, and of their various modes of combina-
tion and action. It is the duty of physicians to
assert their prerogative, and to rescue the mental
science from the usurpations of schoolmen and
divines. It can only be perfected by the aid and
discoveries of medicine. The authors I would
recommend to you upon metaphysics are, Butler,
Locke, Hartley, Reid, and Beattie. These inge-
nious Avriters have cleared this sublime science of
its technical rubbish, and rendered it both intelli-
gible and useful.

III. Let me remind you, that improvement in
medicine is not to be derived only from colleges
and universities. Systems of physic are the pro-
ductions of men of genius and learning ; but those
facts which constitute real knowledge are to be

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 451

met with in every walk of life. Remember ho^v
many of our most useful remedies have been dis-
covered by quacks. Dp not be afraid, therefore,
of conversing with them, and of profiting by their
ignorance and temerity in the practice of physic.
Medicine has its Pharisees, as well as religion.
But the spirit of this sect is as unfriendly to the
advancement of medicine, as it is to christian cha-
rity. By conversing with quacks, we may conve}'
instruction to them, and thereby lessen the mis-
chief they might otherwise do to society. But
further. In the pursuit of medical knowledge,
let me advise you to converse with nurses and old
women. They will often suggest facts in the his-
tory and cure of diseases, which have escaped the
most sagacious observers of nature. Even Ne-
groes and Indians have sometimes stumbled upon
discoveries in medicine. Be not ashamed to in-
quire into them. There is yet one more means
of information in medicine which should not be
neglected, and that is, to converse with persons
who have recovered from indispositions without
the aid of physicians. Examine the strength and
exertions of nature in these cases, and mark the
; plain and home-made remedy to which they ascribe
t^eir recovery. I have found this to be a fruitful
source of instruction, and have been led to con-
clude, that if every man in a city, or a district, could

452 OBSERVATIONS ON THE

be called upon to relate, to persons appointed to re-
ceive and publish his narrative, an exact account of
the effects of those remedies which accident or
whim has suggested to him, it would furnish a very-
useful •book in medicine. To preserve the facts
thus obtained, let me advise you to record them in
a-book to be kept for that purpose. There is one
more advantage that will probably attend the in-
quiries that have been mentioned; you may dis-
cover diseases, or symptoms of diseases, or even
laws of the animal economy, which have no place
in our systems of nosology, or in our theories of
physic.

IV. Study simplicity in the preparation of your
medicines, My reasons for this advice are as
follow :

1. Active medicines produce the most certain
effects in a simple state.

2. Medicines when mixed frequentiy destroy
the efficacy of each other. I do not include che-
mical medicines alone in this remark. It applies
likewise to Galenical medicines. I do not say that
all these medicines are impaired by mixture, but
we can only determine when they are not, by actual
experiments and observations.

DUTIES OF A PHYSICIAN. 453

3. When medicines of the same class, or even
of different classes, are given together, the strong-
est only produces an effect. But what are we to say
to a compound of two medicines, which give ex-
actly the same impression to the system ? Probably,
if we are to judge from analogy, the effect of them
will be such, as would have:been produced by nei-
ther in a simple state.

4. By observing simplicity in your prescriptions,
you will always have the command of a greater
number of medicines of the same class, which may
be used in succession to each other, in proportion
as habit renders the system insensible of their action.

5. By using medicines in a simple state, you ^vllI
obtain an exact knowledge of their virtues and
doses, and thereby be able to decide upon the nu-
merous and contradictory accounts which exist in
our books, of the character of the same medicines.

Under this head, I cannot help adding two more
directions.

1. Avoid sacrifijcing too "much to the taste of
your patients in the preparation of your medicines.
The nature of a medicine may be wholly changedy
by being mixed with sweet substances. The Au-

454 - OBSERVATIONS ON THE

thor df Nature seems to have had a design, in ren-
dering medicines unpalatable. Had they been
more argreeable to the taste, they would probably
have yielded long ago to the unbounded appetite
of man, and by becoming articles of diet, or con-
diments, have lost their efficacy in diseases.

2. Give as few medicines as possible in tinctures
made with distilled spirits. Perhaps fhere are few
cases, in which it is safe to exhibit medicines pre-
pared in spirits in any other form than in drops.
Many people have been innocently seduced into a
love of strong drink, from taking large or frequent
doses of bitters infused in spirits. Let not our
profession be reproached, in a single instance, with
adding to the calamities that have been entailed
upon mankind by this dreadful species of intempe-
rance,

V. Let me recommend to your particular at-
tention the indigenous medicines of our country.
Cultivate or prepare as many of them as possible,
and endeavour to enlarge the materia medica, by
exploring the untrodden fields and forests of the
United States. The ipecacuanha, the Seneka and
Virginia snake-roots, the Carolina pink-root, the
spice-wood, the sassafras, the butter-nut, the tho-
roughwort, the poke, and the stramonium, are

DUTIES OF PHYSICIAN. 455

but a small part of the medical productions of
America. I have no doubt but there are many
hundred other plants, which now exhale invaluable
medicinal virtues in the desert air. Examine,
likewise, the mineral waters, which are so various
in their impregnation, and so common in all parts
of our country. Let not the properties of the
insects of America escape your investigation. We
have already discovered among some of them a fly,
equal in its blistering qualities to the famous fly
of Spain. Who knows but it may be reserved for
America to furnish the world, from her produc-
tions, with cures for some of those diseases which
now elude the power of medicine ? Who knows
but that, at the foot of the Allegany mountain,
there blooms a flower, that is an infalliable cure for
the epilepsy? Perhaps on the Monongahela, or
the Potowmac, there may grow a root, that shall
supply, by its tonic powers, the invigorating eflects
of die savage or military life in the cure of con-
sumptions. Human misery of every kind is evi-
dently on the decline. Happiness, like truth, is
a unit. While the world, from the progress of
intellectual, moral, and political truth, is becoming
a more safe and agreeable abode for man, the vo-
taries of medicine should not be idle. All the
doors and windows of the temple of nature have
been thrown open, by the con\'ulsions of the late

456 OBSERVATIONS, &C.

American revolution. This is the time, therefore,
to press upon her altars. We have already drawn
from them discoveries in morals, philosophy, and
government ; all of which have human happiness
for their object. Let us preserve the unity of
truth and happiness, by drawing from the same
source, in the present critical moment, a know-
ledge of antidotes to those diseases which are sup-
posed to be incurable.

I have now, gentlemen, only to thank you for
the attention, with which you have honoured the
course of lectures which has been delivered to you,
and to assure you, that I shall be happy in render-
ing you all the services that lie in my power, in
any way you are pleased to command me. Accept
of my best wishes for your happiness, and may
the blessings of hundreds and thousands, that were
ready to perish, be your portion in life, your com-
fort in death, and your reward in the world to
come.

THE END OF VOLUME I.

BROWN AND MERRITT, PRiNTiiRS.

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