; oy 
by emaciation and difeafe. This the nurfes confider as a fecond 
fpecies, and call it the white fits. 
Boru thefe fuppofed fpecies, which may, perhaps, be more: 
juftly confidered as varieties of the fame difeafe, agree in con-_ 
ftanily attacking within mzne days from birth, and moft frequently 
about the falling off of the umbilical chord. This is an event 
which generally takes place from the fourth to the fixth or feventh. 
day. Diarrhoea is a conftant concomitant of both fpecies. Long 
and fad experience have found them alfo to be both equally fatal, 
infomuch, that the memory of the oldeft perfon does not furnifh: 
an inftance of one being cured. 
In order to place my ideas of the caufe of this fatal difeafe 
in the cleareft point of view, I find it neceffary to have recourfe 
to extracts from a letter written by me in the year 1783 to the 
late DoCtor Hutchefon, who was then confulting phyfician to the- 
hofpital in queftion, 
In this letter, which was written after having feen fome of the 
beft regulated Lying-in Hofpitals in London, I ftated to Doétor 
Hutchefon, 
Tuat in an old hofpital, which preceded the prefent, but 
inftituted by and under the care of the fame gentleman, and 
in a lefs airy part of Dublin, of three thoufand feven hundred 
and forty-fix children therein born, only two hundred and 
forty- 
