duct of those who may, under such circumstances, have swerved from their duty." This, we insist, is strictly a parallel case to the one in which the question of slaves was debated. The British enticed away the American slaves, and the Americans enticed away the British soldiers. The former could not, by any fair construction, have been regarded as deserters; the latter could have been considered in no other light. The British commander refuses to return the slaves, because he conceives that the faith of his government stands pledged for their protection; the Ameri of high respect, to receive the satisfaction I feel in || all the prisoners are now returned to you. But reflecting, that our correspondence, begun as com- as improper allurements may have been held out manders of hostile armies, should terminate as offi- to these men, it will be gratifying to my feelings cers of nations in amity." General Lambert anto learn, that no investigation will be made, or swers major Woodruff, deputed by general Jack-punishment inflicted in consequence of the conson to receive the prisoners, "I have to request that you will inform his excellency (Jackson) that immediately as soon as I receive the intelligence from the person, charged by the British government to transmit it to all its military and naval commanders serving in America, I will give immediate notice of it, and be prepared to fulfil the treaty in every respect." To gen. Jackson, in a strain of equally elevated courtesy, he writes thus, when he receives the intelligence of the ratification of the treaty: "As I may not have another opportunity of addressing you, permit me to avail myself of the present, to wish you health and happiness, and to express my regret, that circum-can commander, with a lofty and chivalric courstances will not allow me to assure you personally of the same." When gen. Jackson received official intelligence of the ratification of the treaty, he writes to general Lambert, announcing the fact, and concludes with these words: "Any facility er accommodation that may be required for your supplies, or the comforts of your sick or wounded, will be given with the highest pleasure." tesy, does return the real deserters, because he does not think that the honor of his government is bound to surrender them up. He does all this, and only intimates his private wish that no investigation might be made, or punishment inflicted. PECULIARITIES AND ANOMALIES OF THE We hope to be excused if we state one more fact to the honor of the American general. ItWe hold it to be one of the first duties of a public may be remembered, that we have already stated, journalist, to give publicity to those medical lucu that gen. Lambert declined the surrender of the brations which may serve to mark the character slaves who had joined the British standard, on the or the cure of those epidemics with which this ground that they were not captured, as he con- country has been so often afflicted. The reader strued the words "fallen into the hands of the must not expect from such discussions to find officers of either party." General Jackson here amusement. The subject is too awful for levity; closes with his respectable opponent, (and the it involves the health of perhaps many reader will do us flagrant injustice, if he believes thousands of his fellow beings. If it pleases the word respectable, sarcastically applied. We Divine Providence in the course of his inscrutamean as we say, and nothing more.) It seems ble dispensations to afflict one of the patrons of that some officer of the American army, without the Rorister With this distressing maladuif his the privity of general Jackson, had seduced some of the English soldiers to quit the service of their physician ponders and hesitates, and knows not king. Here these two cases are exactly parallel what course to adopt to save him from the grave -the British seduced the slaves from the service-if he should by the perusal of the following esof their masters, and the Americans had seduced says be able successfully to apply a remedy, he will the British soldiers to join our standard. Gen. then acknowledge his obligation to the writer Jackson acts in a character worthy of him; he for having been thus instrumental in prolongthus addresses the British general: "Some of ing the term of his existence. We often amuse our readers with accounts of bloody battles, or my officers, under a mistaken idea that deserters were confined with the prisoners, have, as I have of civil commotions, the progress of agriculture, of manufactures or of the arts; and yet health, understood, made improper applications to some of the latter to quit your service. It is possible that first of earthly blessings, has been supercithat they may, in some instances, have succeeded liously neglected, or regarded as a thing of triin procuring either a feigned, or a real consent fling concern. While we are upon this subject, to this effect; the whole of the transaction, how-it may not be improper to notice, that the shores ever, met with my marked reprehension; and of the Mediterranean are now visited by that hor affords but too ample an opportunity to industry and attentive remark to make accurate observations and useful distinctions. Dr. Rush remarks that "the influenza passes with the utmost rapidity through a country, and affects the greatest number of people, in a given time, of any discase in the world," in which he is corroborated by many other writers. But our rible malady, the Plague. Our commerce in those parts is wide and extensive. We may well entertain serious apprehensions. It is known that nothing retains the seeds of this malady more than rags, which are often imported into this country from that place, for the benefit ofour paper-makers. We would seriously inquire whe-late epidemic was peculiarly slow in its progress ther the prevention of this malady is not a subject of sufficient magnitude to awaken us from our lethargy-whether the rigid enforcement of our quarantine laws on vessels arriving from thatter of 1813 it was in Philadelphia; in the winter quarter, is not a duty, the performance of which is imperiously demanded. [BY REQUEST.] FROM THE TELESCOPE. in pervading the country. In its march from the northward to the southward its progress appears to have been only from about one hundred to two hundred and fifty miles per annum. In the win of 1815 it had advanced as far southwardly as Salisbury, N. C. and in this winter it has visited most parts of S. Carolina. Since its invasion of this State, its progress from place to place has been equally peculiar; appearing in spots or neighborhoods only thirty or forty miles distant from each other, at periods of four, five, six or eight weeks This subject would appear at first view to be apart. It was also peculiarly capricious in the more curious than useful; but when it is consi- circumscribed locality of its prevalence, attackdered how far the peculiarities and anomaliesing one particular community, raging for eight or concomitant on a disease may tend to establish the identity of its character, it will be found not to be destitute of utility. It may also be of importance to the practitioner upon any new recurrence of the disease, to be apprised of its anomalies and the consequences to which they lead, and thereby saved from those perplexing embarrassments which new and singular appearances sometimes impose upon him. treatment very ten weeks, and then passing over a large intermediate tract of country and seizing on another circumscribed community. In this way it has been meandering through the State ever since early in last November, and at this time it is still raging in some neighborhoods adjacent to others where it prevailed early in the winter, and from which it had long since passed off. the state, the most swampy situations, margins of rivers and places most subject to the endemial autumnal bilious fevers, have suffered most se It has been peculiar in raging with the greatIt has been the practice of medical writers to est severity in the interior of the country, whilst denominate all catarrhs which have prevailed the sea coast has been exempted or suffered comepidemically by one common appellation imply-paratively but little. And yet in the interior of ing an identity of character. From Sydenham upwards to Hippocrates it was known and is mentioned by the name of catarrhalis febris epidemica. Since Sydenham's time it has been vari-verely from the epidemic. ously named, but is now generally known by the name of influenza." How far this may be correct and proper requires investigation.-In examining the history of epidemic catarrhs we find great diversity both in the symptoms and in the methods of cure; scarcely any two of them in immediate succession presenting a sameness of character. If nosological terms are to be continued in use, it is important that they should be applied with the utmost discrimination and strictest precision; otherwise unwary practitioners and Wa&isease under the usual name by which it is known, will take it for their guide, right or wrong, and perhaps not discover their error until after the loss of several valuable lives. A great source of this want of precision in former times was doubtless the seldom recurrence of these epidemics, as according to Dr. Fothergill they had appeared at uncertain intervals in England during the two hundred and fifty years last preceding the year 64, on an average of only once in thirty one years; but unfortunately for us in modern times this excuse does not apply, for since the year 1768, they have returned in England upon an average of one in only about every six years, and This disease was peculiar in its universal tenderin this country since the year 1757 the average cy to determine on the chest in the form of pneuhas been once in only about every seven years. It monia. For although a small proportion of cases prevailed in America in the years 1757, 61, 72, determined to the head, blood vessels only, or 381, '89, '90, 1807 and '16, so that in this ratio it throat, yet the tendency to the chest was so gemay return under the observation of one man, dur-neral as almost to warrant the denomination of ing an ordinary lifetime, six or eight times, which an epidemic pleurisy or peripneumony rather It was likewise peculiar in its manifest predilection for male subjects in preference to females. The proportion of females attacked did not perhaps exceed one tenth or one fifteenth part; but some few who were attacked seemed to have the disease equally as violent as the males. Children under four or five years of age were remarkably exempted, and amongst children above that age the males most generally suffered. It was not peculiarly fatal to the aged nor to such as had a prior tendency to pulmonic affections, but on the tray over very old people recovered who had the disease severely; and, indeed, it fell with its greatest severity and mortality on the robust, and on such as were in the prime of life.Corpulent persons appeared to enjoy an exemption;-and it was thought that Europeans and the natives of the Eastern States were much more exempted than the natives of more southern latitudes. Females in a state of pregnancy were not more liable to abortions in this disease than in others of equal violence, which unhappily is not the case in epidemical catarrhs generally. To drunkards, as might have been expected, it was generally fatal. than that of influenza. It may also be remarked that relapes were more seldom than in ordinary influenzas. It was peculiarly under the influence of temperature and humidity. Upon the recurrence of cold damp weather, of which we have had an unusual share this winter, the cases immediately multiplied, and those who had been previously ill never failed to become worse. It was perhaps from this circumstance that it proved || in many places peculiarly fatal to negroes, as they were more exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, and their lodging generally cold and uncomfortable.-Exposure to the external atmostphere and cold, seemed constantly to predispose || to the disease, and hence, perhaps, is the reason why females, children and corpulent people were || more exempted from it than others, as corpulence serves as a defence against the influence of cold. || at the same minute in every twenty-four hours, for four or five times. The matter of this secretion.had an intermediate appearance between pus and mucus, of a white colour with a taste not easily described, but more nearly resembling the taste of a raw egg than any thing else. This secretion was followed by evident and immediate relief to the chest. The respiration became more free, the lungs more easily expanded, the remaining pains and uneasiness about the chest were mitigated, and the convalescence was visibly more rapid. These discharges gave an impression that they proceeded from the rupture of vomica or abscesses which had formed in the lungs. But that this opinion was erroneous is obvious from the following circumstances. The matter was obviously different from the matter of common abscesses, as an experienced eye would readily perceive. In two anomalous cases in this town the local If, however, it had been real pus, yet this alone determination to the brain was so sudden and would fall very far short of being proof that it proviolent in two robust men as to occasion convul- ceeded from an abscess; for it is a fact long since sions, without any premonitory symptoms.-Both established that pus may be, and very often is these cases proved fatal, one within 48 hours and formed from inflamed secreting surfaces, and the the other within a few days. In a lad of 14 or 15 secreting surfaces of the bronchia most especialyears of age, the disease was ushered in by a ly are liable to take on this kind of secretion. sudden attack of stupor. He was travelling on The expectoration of this matter was moreover the road in company with some others and com- regularly periodical after certain intervals, It plained of nothing before he fell down in a state continued at each period about the same length of of insensibility. This case recovered. A pneu- time, and then gradually but rather abruptly monic case occurred, of a typhus nature accom- ceased; after which not a single particle of it, panied with a cough in every respect resembling could be expectorated by any effort of coughing, the hooping-cough, except that the matter of ex- either spontaneous or intentional, until the next pectoration was uncommonly copious and puru. regular period of its recurrence. Now it is oblent from the beginning. This is a recent case,vious that if this matter had proceeded from a and after a tedious illness seems likely to recover. ruptured abscess, however rapid and copious the In three pneumonic cases towards the period of first discharge might have been, yet a supply of the crisis the disease precipitated itself upon the more or less matter must have been constantly extremities, producing an alarming state of formed in it until the abscess was healed; and phlegmonic inflammation, which terminated the must necessarily have been brought up, from constitutional disease by establishing copious time to time, during the intervals, by coughing. suppurations. In two of these cases it fell upon To suppose the contrary, we must believe each the arms, and the inflamations and enormous discharge to have been the consequence of the rupswellings extended from the fingers to the shoul- ture of a distinct abscess, and the more especialders. The suppurations took place around the ly as each succeeding discharge, and even the elbow, in both cases, forming extensive sinuses last, was equally as copious as the first; and then from which the discharge kept up for many we must admit the first preposterous conclusion weeks. These are both recovering, but threaten that each abscess was instantly healed upon being an anchylosis. The other case fell upon the leg, emptied. A conclusion, unfortunately for the suppurated copiously and is doing well. subjects of pulmonary abscesses, contrary to all experience. I was informed by the physicians of this place of three cases in which hemorrhages from one or Upon the whole I conclude that these dischar both ears occurred, in which the patients lost ges were the erect or bronchial and panor from ten to sixteen ounces of blood. One of these secretion; and that it was a mode of evacuation cases recovered. Three or four cases occurred attending the protracted crisis of the disease by in which the eruption of a rash on the 2d or 3d which the lungs were unloaded of infractions, and day, put an end to the disease; and in one it ap- possibly the whole system relieved of offending peared as late as the 4th or 5th week, in conjunc-matter; for it ought to be remarked that both tion with the other usual symptoms attending the crisis, and seemed to be beneficial. crisis. these cases had long passed the usual period of termination of the disease without the usual Two pneumonic cases occurred in which un-symptoms of expectoration, &c. attending the common copious bronchial or pulmonary secretions took place at a late stage of the disease, and after the condition of the patients had given hopes for several days of convalescence. This secretion occurred suddenly, and the matter of it was expectorated by an exhausting paroxysm of coughing. The quantity expectorated at one time was from about four ounces to two pounds in the space of from fifteen minutes to two hours. In one of these cases, it recurred periodically with nice precision, at the same hour and almost In very many pneumonic cases a pain remained on the seat of the inflammation during the whole time of convalescence. This pain, from the cir cumstance of its being so suddenly variable, sometimes better and sometimes worse in the course of a few minutes, and seldom giving any uneasiness. except by an expansion of the thorax or some exertion of the muscles about the part, was most probably of a rheumatic nature. In one case they seemed to occupy every intercostal muscle, giving considerable pain upon every expansion of the chest, as by deep inspirations, &c. but occasioning little or none of uneasiness when these muscles were relaxed or only in their ordinary state of exertion. Although these pains were evidently seated in the intercostal muscles, yet there was an evident connexion between them and the state of the lungs, insomuch that a few coughs and even small expectorations would occasion a mitigation of them for some time. found nothing in it of that precise and determinature, which alone, in this day of severe test for || medical disquisitions, can give them the slightest currency. I was in hopes, that we were now to learn something more, than what popular rumor wafted to us; as I make no doubt, that our epidemic is of the same nature with that which raged in Virginia last year. I was in hopes that some light would be thrown on the nature of the disease; and that, at least, its general mode of treatment would be fixed on some solid foundation; but I must acknowledge my disappoint||ment. I have given the principal peculiarities and anomalies that have attracted my attention, and beg leave to close this communication with a notice of some popular notions with regard to the prevention of this formidable disease. I am inform- The first thing that I did expect was such a ed that the inhabitants of Williamsburgh district, description of the disease, as would shew us where it has made great ravages, believe that the whether it be of the typhoid, or inflammatory progress of the disease has been completely stop-kind; whether we should look to the antiphloped by burning their woods, and it is said that gistic or tonic plan, for a successful issue; or, several circumstances afford considerable grounds shortly, whether we were to expect it from the for their opinion. I am also informed that a gen- use of the lancet, and other evacuants, or from tleman in the town of Granby, where the morta-the bark, and a cordial regimen. Our essayist, lity has been almost unparalleled, had an early it is true, pronounces the disease to be of an inrecourse to burning tar in his yard and about his flammatory nature; but gives us no criterion to doors. His family escaped the disease. Another judge by; for if we test his opiniou by the mode gentleman of Camden, whose negroes were situ-of treatment which he pursued, he leaves us perated on his plantation nor far from another where|fectly bewildered. He says, that "the type of the negroes had experienced uncommon morta- the fever was inflammatory, or mixed;" that is, lity, upon perceiving that the disease had made that it was either purely inflammatory, or half its appearance in one of his kitchens, had recourse inflammatory; synocha, or synochus. He says, to the same expedient, and the disease progress-that "his treatment of the epidemic was regulated no farther. ́In Fairfield district a notion hased by the type of the fever which attended, prevailed that those who were employed in clear-which in that place, in a large proportion of the ing lands where great quantities of brush and cases, was inflammatory, or mixed. I saw not wood have been necessarily burned, have been (he says) a case of typhus, and yet it was called exempted from the disease. Is it impossible so generally; but was made so by the stimulating that these notions should have some founda-practice, which occasioned that prostration of tion in truth? The products of the combus-the system, consequent to (on) a state of indirect tion of various kinds of vegetable matter, may debility." A most serious charge this, by the by, contain some active and potent agents. It is against his fellow practitioners of Richmond; known to chymists that the combustion of several amounting in fact to this, that they had stimulatsubstances, and especially the resinous wood of ed or inflamed their patients, already laboring pine, produces carburetted hydrogen-gass in very under an inflammatory disease, into the jaws of great abundance. This gass from its affinities death; for indirect debility is the next step to it, with some other species of matter is capable by and so far, it seems, did his fears extend, of pacombinations of totally changing their proper-tients in this epidemic being wound up to this ties-Is it then impossible that this substance should combine with the latent remote cause of the epidemic in the atmosphere and destroy its virulence? Or is it impossible that carburetted hy-well drogen gas should so influence the animal system as to destroy its susceptibilities to the impressi neve te fc cause! inese ideas are altogether hypothetical, but perhaps not too absurd to demand some attention; nor to forbid a further inquiry into the effects of combustion in arresting or destroying this all devouring monster. JAMES DAVIS. Columbia, S. C. April 5, 1816. FROM THE CHARLESTON EVENING POST. Mr. Editor,-On taking up your paper of Saturday evening last, I was highly gratified to find, as I fondly anticipated from the manner the essay was ushered in, that some light was to be thrown on the nature of the wide devastating malady, that swept off so many of our citizens, in certain sections of this and our neighbouring states; but I assure you, that this gratification did not outlast the reading of the piece; for I point, that he takes upon him to instruct his cor- The Doctor says, that "he pursued the antiphlogistic course of practice throughout the fever. Blood-letting was used, at the beginning, according to the state of the pulse, and the preceding health of the patient. In a majority of cases (he says) I did not bleed at all; and yet I bled in this disease more copiously than I ever had done before." The Doctor appears to me, here, obscure, or rather unintelligible. To pursue the antiphlogistic plan in the general treatment of an epidemic, and yet not to bleed at all, in a majo||rity of its cases, as here avowed, is to me an absurdity: it involves a direct contradiction; nor is this remedied by his saying, "yet I bled in this disease more copiously than I had ever done before;" for, if he means any thing by this, after what he has previously said, it can only be, that, in the few cases he did bleed in, he bled copi ously; for, from many, whose brain or lungs were threatened, he took, with the most happy effect, tor 167 He tells us that "in the month of Nov. 1745, from 25 to 50 ounces of blood at once, and somea catarrhal fever, affecting the head and breast, times repeated the detraction (the Doctor's phrase) to nearly the same quantity. The Doc-made its appearance: that in the next month, says further, that "the most common form of this was succeeded by very dangerous and morthe disease, was a congestion of the lungs; that tal epidemic peripneumonia fevers: in these, he where the brain or lungs were threatened with found great oppression, and weight at the breast, with only a slight and obtuse sense of pain, to decongestion, he bled copiously;" but that, in a manote greater danger, than where the pain was very jority of cases, which confessedly constituted the common form of the disease, and which he express-acute; and he also found, that though bleeding had a good effect in the latter cases, that a repetition ly says, was a congestion of the lungs, he did not bleed at all. Here again, Edipo conjectore opus of it was exceedingly detrimental in the former; He fur- (which appears to have been the epidemic)-it est, our essayist has left us in the lurch. ther informs his friend, that a cold skin, and con- brought on, he says, great debility, a suppression of expectoration, the greatest anxiety, want of tracted pulse, were generally treated by potations sleep, delirium, tremor, cold sweats, and death: of warm brandy or wine, which powerfully aided the blood first drawn, in these cases, appeared the disease in disorganizing the brain, throat, or lungs. This is another instance of the loose and lax in its texture, though florid; and continued incorrect manner of the Doctor's expressing him-long without a separation of its serum; the crasself-for my part, I am yet to learn what can be||samentum, or island of the second blood, which was drawn, was livid, and slightly coherent, swimmeant by a disorganization of these parts, while Iming in a large quantity of yellow, turbid, and life yet remains. Having no experience in this particular Epide-greenish serum: the 3d was almost black, sanious, mic, I am entitled to offer nothing from myself, and scarce coagulating, while the blood of those on the subject, farther than what the established laboring under the sporadic genuine pneumonia, was of its usual thick, coherent, and tuffy appear. principles of art, can bear me out in: I believe, ance; and was taken from them, with manifest that every professional man, will admit it, as a canon of his art, that few or no Epidemics occur, || advantage." Our author says, that "it is of the utmost consequence to rightly distinguish these which are not of the typhoid type, or have an immediate tendency thereto: To this, then, in the two species of pneumonia, from each other, in the present doubtful state of the question, I appeal, onset, as the epidemic did not admit one-fourth of for the propriety of the tonic, and cordial plan, in the bleeding found necessary, in the genuinely inflammatory species, though a great oppression the treatment of this disease, till it be fixed on a better foundation. As far as my own experience at the breast, difficulty of breathing, high fever, and violent cough, equally accompanied both, and Our saga goes, I can say, that I have seen more than one instance, of pneumonic epidemics; and that I seemed equally to indicate blood-letting." have always found repeated blood-letting, pro- cious author then gives the following distinctive cure in them, the most fatal effects; and that a marks, as a guide in these cases: "If the pulse be single false step, with respect to this, in the very quick, small, contracted, or soft, unequal and onset, was never to be recovered: a fatal effusion unsteady, if the breathing be laborious, with frein the lungs, being the consequence. Far be itquent sighing, rather than with a fervid panting; from me, to say, that bleeding, at this early period of the disease, may not be advantageous, in many instances: I have so great faith in the disturbance this Herculean remedy gives to the morbid intestion, just conceived by the system, in vigorous habits; and in the relaxation; or, as the French physicians call it, detante, that it produces instantaneously, that, at this stage of an acute disease, be its future character what it may, I would not hesitate in bleeding my patient, if I know him to be, previously, of a vigorous habit; but, unfortunately, the physician is seldom called sufficiently early, to fulfil this intention; and in organic affections, not till the fluxion be fairly fixed; and a state of debility at hand, It is at that moment, in such circumstances, that the mind of the practitioner is suspended in doubtful balance; and that his sagacity is put to the test: he finds himself in the situation of a General, in that moment of a battle, in which a single rapid glance, or coup d'auil, is to decide the fate of the day. As this Epidemic has excited so general an interest; and as nothing definite, and satisfactory, has been yet offered on the subject; and that, perhaps, we, unfortunately, may have a nearer acquaintance with it; I presume, that it would not be unacceptable, to re-publish the opinion and practice of Dr. HUXHAM, one of the best physicians England ever produced, respecting an epidemic, of a similar nature. In the Diary which he published, of the air and epidemics of his time; and which I never met translated from the Latin. if there should be rather a sense of weight, than of pain, at the breast; if cold, partial sweats should break out; if there should be a great lan-guor and trembling of the hands, he advises the greatest caution in bleeding; nay, seems doubtful if it be allowable at all in such cases;" but, if ventured on, and that the blood should exhibit, on cooling, the characteristic appearances which he has described it to have had, in the epidemic, he desires to immediately forbear, unless you would kill the patient. "Ne jugulare vis agre tantem." That this epidemic casts lus influence or other organs than the lungs, I am aware; though I firmly believe, that the latter are never entirely free in it: this, however, cannot vary the caution necessary in bleeding; nay, when it happens, I think it an additional motive for it; for, if bleeding can ever be necessary in this epidemic, it must be, principally, when it assumes the form of pneumonia. As one of its most dangerous determinations is said to be on the larinx, I am astonished that the Seneka snake root has not been resorted to in that form of the disease, after the evidence furnished us by Dr. ARCHER, of Maryland, of its specific influence on that organ; and after Bonaparte's prize question, seeking the best remedy for the cynanche trachealis, being determined in favor, principally, of the candidate who proposed the Seneka, to say nothing of its antiperipneumonic virtues, and of the high estimation it was held in |