PENSYLVANIA 79 



Vice-President is Dr. Bond, a meritorious Hippocratic, 

 in his 7Oth year of great cheerfulness and activity of 

 mind, who has for many years practiced his art at 

 Philadelphia with much success. I had several times 

 the pleasure of enjoying his society. He was at one 

 time the appointed Health-Physician at Philadelphia. 

 The duty of this officer was to inspect all ships bringing 

 in servants and adventurers from Europe. For the 

 greed of skippers often tempted them to stopple too 

 many passengers together, thus giving cause for dan- 

 gerous maladies whereby very many of these poor 

 people were done for without ever seeing the land for 

 which, in the hope of better fortune, they had given up 

 home. Dr. Bond assured me that on several occasions 

 ships had come to port with so much malignant tinder 

 stowed in that no one could have stayed on board 24 

 hours without falling a sacrifice. But by precautionary 

 measures the spread of such poisons was prevented. 

 No person was allowed on land until he had first been 

 cleansed and all his old clothes thrown away ; and then 

 those landing were sent to an isolated spot on shore 

 for a short quarantaine. Contagious diseases are ex- 

 tremely rare in America, almost entirely unknown in- 

 deed, not reckoning the small-pox and what follows the 

 gallantries of armies and fleets. In the country the 

 people live scattered, among shade trees ; in the towns 

 there is no crowding, almost every family living in its 

 own house, and everything very clean. However, Dr. 

 Bond once observed a contagious fever in Philadelphia, 

 which had its origin in a space between Water-street 

 and the Market where some dead sturgeons and other 

 filth had been left neglected by the inefficient police of 

 that time. This fever, although extremely contagious, 



