SOUTH CAROLINA 217 



Few of them therefore reach a great age. On the list 

 of banished royalists was an ancient of 70 years, who 

 had lived 40 years in Carolina. This was generally 

 allowed to be so rare a phenomenon that for his grey 

 age alone he was permitted to return, although there 

 were many complaints and complainants against him. 

 The numerous fevers which every summer and 

 autumn so generally prevail, sparing but few, are 

 enough in themselves to ruin by their repetition the 

 strongest constitutions ; besides it is likely that the 

 rather free use of strong drinks, especially among 

 the working class, is greatly contributory to the short- 

 ening of life. Many of the residents here are attacked 

 almost every year by intermittent fevers, and others 

 escape them only by the quantity of China-bark which 

 they take as preventive. It has become almost the 

 mode to be always chewing China-bark during the 

 fever months, or at least to swallow daily several doses 

 of it. On the other hand contagious diseases are rare ; 

 a pest or pest-like disease is as yet unknown in 

 America.* " We Americans, says Franklin some- 

 " where, are all healthy and preserved from corrupting 

 " maladies because our houses stand separate and are 



* Hydrophobia, as a consequence of the bite of mad dogs, 

 seems likewise to be unknown as yet in Carolina ; at least it 

 had been observed by none of the physicians with whom I 

 talked ; however it is stated by others that there have been 

 one or two cases in the country. According to Condamine this 

 grievous malady is also unknown in South America, and in 

 the other parts of North America it is extremely rare. More 

 circumstantial accounts of the diseases of this region are to 

 be found in Chalmers and in another publication, A short de- 

 scription of South Carolina, with an Account of the Air, 

 Weather & Diseases in Chariest own. London 1763. 8. 



15 



