the French West-India Islands. 133 



The diseases that the most commonly attack the new 

 corned especially, from the month of May to the month 

 of October, are simple intermittent fevers that turn into 

 continual, or rather, according to Morthon, into conti- 

 nentes, which, by their increase, show the affinity they 

 have with the intermittent. They are usually attended 

 with a bilious lax, which increases in the paroxysm, and 

 causes the patient to experience a very great weakness. 

 The hypochondria are painful and swelled ; the mouth 

 bitter, sometimes moist, sometimes dry ; the tongue some- 

 times loaded, and more or less hot, according to the vio- 

 lence of the fever, and the state of the constitution ; the 

 pulse hard and quick, otherwise pretty uneven, some- 

 times small and close, above all, in those subjects that 

 are bound in their bowels. 



Pleurisies are also to be met with ; but they are 

 for the greatest part symptomatic, that is to say, bi- 

 lious. We ought to study well the characteristic 

 state of the air, and the constitution of the subject 

 that is attacked with them, to conform ourselves to the 

 above-mentioned principles, and, according to the exam- 

 ple of Sydenham, view the different diseases that hap- 

 pen during an epidemy, only as symptoms dependent on 

 the general cause, which attacks one part only because., 

 being naturally weaker, it becomes more susceptible of 

 the impression of the ill quality of the air. Still, at the 

 instance of this famous practitioner, it is necessary to ap- 

 ply ourselves precisely to destroy the effects which ap- 

 pear the most visible, and which, according to the 

 system above-mentioned, are to thicken the blood, and 

 occasion obstructions in the weakest of the viscera, 

 suppl. s 



