26 On the Te/loiv- Fetjer of Charleston. 



observed, nor do I recollect ever to have heard then 

 of, the yellow-fever. 



We have now demonstrated, that, from the earliest 

 settlement of this town, at which time the modern 

 doctrine of certain causes of yellow-fever could scarcely 

 exist, that disease did, on various occasions, appear : 

 we have seen that, from 1780 to 1782, the three years 

 in which this place was a British garrison, every cause, 

 supposed to produce yellow-fever, existed, with even 

 aggravated circumstances : it has also been ascer- 

 tained, that, for the space of forty-four years, viz., 

 from 1748 to 1792, no vestige of it was observed, 

 excepting in the year 1761, and, perhaps, in 1770, 

 and excepting some sporadic solitary cases in the 

 autumn of some other years : we shall also find, from 

 the table alluded to in the beginning of this letter, 

 that, since the first appearance of the disease, in Au- 

 gust, 1792, to the present time, it did not occur in 

 the years 1793, 1798, and 1803, in which years it 

 will be in vain to pretend that a more strict attention 

 was paid, than on other occasions, to the quarantine 

 orders, or that part of the police of the city which re- 

 lates to cleanliness. 



After all these facts are impartially and attentively 

 considered, I am humbly of opinion, that the causes 

 commonly supposed to produce yellow-fever are not 

 well founded. I believe they have been rather hastily 

 adopted, probably from too implicit confidence in the 

 standing and character of those physicians who have 

 promulgated and supported them, without sufficiently 



