1823.] 



Medical 



SCHEDULE (c). 



Dulitfs payable on Articles imported into his 

 JMajesli/'s Posxissions in America and the 

 IVest lndies,frum other I'laces in America 

 and the fVcst Indies. 



Barrel of Wheat Flour, not 

 weighing more than 196 lb8. net 

 weight ^0 5 



Barrel of Biscuit, not weighing 

 , more than 19611)8. net weight 2 6 



For every cwf. of Biscuit 1 6 



For every lOOlbs. of Bread, made 

 from wiicat or other grain, im- 

 ported in bags or packages ••02 6 



For every barrel of Flour, not 

 wcigliing more tiian 196 lbs. 

 made from Rye, Peas, or Beans 2 6 



For every bushel of Peas, Beans, 



Rye, or (;alavances 7 



Rice, for every lOolbs. net weight 2 6 



For every 1,000 shingUs, called 



Report. 367 



Boston Cliips, not more than 



12 inches in length 7 



For every 1,000 shingles, being 

 more than 12 inches in length 14 



For every 1,000 Red Oak Staves 110 



Forevery 1,000 White Oak Staves 



or Headings 15 



For every 1,000 feet of White or 

 Yellow Pine Lumber, of one 

 inch thick 1 1 



For every 1,000 feet of Pitch 



Pine Lumber 1 1 



Other kinds of Wood and Lum- 

 ber, per 1,000 feet 18 



Forevery 1,000 Wood Hoops ••053 



Horses, for every \QQl. of the va- 

 lue thereof to 



Neat Cattle, for every 100/. of the 

 value thereof 10 



All other Live Stock, for every 



100/. of the value thereof .... 10 



MEDICAL REPORT. 



Report of Diseases and Casualties occurring- in the public and private Practice 

 of the Physician who has the care of the Western District of the City Dispensary. 



" VT/'ILL the present complaint turn to 

 ' ' hooping-congh ?" is an enquiry fre- 

 quently made by anxious mothers, dm-ing 

 the existence of those infantile ailments 

 that seem disposed to fasten upon the 

 chest. For the most part, this question 

 (which implies the belief of the conversion 

 from a common into a specific complaint,) 

 is met and replied to by medical men, un- 

 der a feehng that such change is not only 

 improbable, but impossible. " The dis- 

 ease (they would say,) must have been 

 hooping-cough in its onset, or it never can 

 become so." But the spontaneous origin 

 of the specific disorder in question has ne- 

 ver been positively disproved ; and, under 

 tlie circumstances of its being (as it is at 

 this moment,) epidemic or general, it is 

 probable that an atmospheric poison, inde- 

 pendent on contagion, may possess a sort 

 of half-creative power, and thus prove 

 instrumental to the transmutation sup- 

 posed. 



That all disease must necessarily be 

 either one thing or the other, —either con- 

 tagious or not contagious, — is, in the wri- 

 ter's opinion, a fallacious doctrine ; and tlic 

 petiliu principii, to which the assinnption 

 has given rise, has been the means of en- 

 gendering volumes of futile and fruitless 

 controversy: nor is the distinction so easily 

 made out between what are assumed to be 

 specific, and what merely infectious, dis- 

 tempers. One thing appears certain, that 

 the air and soil of regions and districts 

 exert a far wider range of influence upon 

 the origin and niodilication of disordered 

 states, tli;in can be expliiined by the most 

 intnnate knowledge we have hitherto ac- 

 quired respecting atuio'-phciical composi- 



tion, as a chemical material, or mere pliy- 

 sical agent. 



In the management of hooping-congh, 

 the power of medicine is unequivocally 

 manifest. Since the Reporter last met his 

 readers, he has seen several children under 

 the grasp of death, from the violence of the 

 disease ; and whom it has only been impos- 

 sible to save, from the measures of safety 

 being too long neglected : not that the 

 malady is susceptible of being artualiy 

 cured ; but the disordered conditions it has 

 a tendency to induce, may for the most part 

 be kept successfully at bay, by the due exer- 

 cise of domestic care and professional skill. 

 Hemlock and alkalies are among the most 

 valuable of remedial articles employed in 

 hooping-cough; but the requirements and 

 suspcptibilities of the subject are so various 

 and varied, by circumstance and incident, 

 that it is not possible to lay down any 

 abstract rule of undeviating appliration. 



The disorder, when neglected or mal- 

 treated, not seldom terminates in effusion 

 upon the brain ; and allusion to this fact 

 reminds the Reporter, that he has again to 

 speak of the virtues of cantharides, when 

 internally administered in seeming cases 

 of water in the head ; seeming he says, 

 — since recoveries fioni states which have 

 been characterised by tokens of hydroce- 

 phalus always leave tiie practitioner in 

 some doubt as to the actual existence of 

 the disorder; and the dogmatism of posi- 

 tive predication, with the assumption of 

 btuig able to cure eoniplaints that are in- 

 curable by otheis, constitutes tlic most re- 

 prehensible kind of quickery. It is always 

 desirable, if possible, to piocnre iiropUr hoc 

 falisfactiou; but it is not seldom ni medi- 



• .,ie 



