318 ON THE DISEASES OF THE CREW. 



The naval physician, whose patients rapidly 

 traverse with him extensive tracts of space, is 

 therefore frequently deprived of the resource 

 which is of so much use to the physician settled 

 on shore, an acquaintance with the permanent 

 character of the present disorders, to be able to 

 understand the nature of new ones. Nobody 

 will doubt, that I was not at all sorry when the 

 cases of disease were so few, or so unimportant, 

 that no general conclusion could be drawn from 

 them : but I must own that, in the neighbourhood 

 of Chili, I wished to have a patient slightly in- 

 disposed, that I might be able to investigate the 

 cause of the changes that had taken place in one 

 who was seriously attacked. 



