332 DOCTOR COLDEN [1746-7. 



You may expect to see more from me, when I can obtain any- 

 thing that I can think will be entertaining to you ; and which may 

 better serve to show how much I value your correspondence, than 

 anything I can write at present. 



I am, very affectionately, 



Your humble servant, 



Cadwallader Colden. 



Coldengliam, January 27th, 1746-7. 



Dear Mr. Bartram : 



It is so long that I have lost the pleasure of my wonted corre- 

 spondence with you, that I am afraid of my having fallen under 

 your censure ; and which would give me more concern, than the 

 censure of some great men in the world. But if you knew the 

 true reason of my discontinuing to write, as usual, you would be so 

 far from blaming me, that you would pity me. 



I was unexpectedly engaged in the public business, and when I 

 entered upon it, I expected it would only have been for one single 

 piece of service ; but one drew on another, and I was kept more 

 months from my family, than I expected to have been weeks from 

 them. 



But at last I have got to my country retirement, and to those 

 amusements in which I place my delight ; but not to enjoy them 

 so fully as formerly, by reason of interruptions which unexpectedly 

 break in upon me. 



The distempers which you mention to have been epidemical 

 with you, seem, by what you wrote to me, of the same nature with 

 the malignant fever that was at Albany while I was there, and 

 carried off many. It was of the remittent kind, accompanied with 

 profuse sweating and prostration of appetite. Madeira wine 

 proved the most effectual specific ; which most people were sur- 

 prised at, when I advised it ; but I had so old an authority as 

 Hippocrates for the use of wine in some kind of fevers. This 

 was attended with so much success, that the use of it became 

 common. 



It gives me much pleasure to think that your name and mine 

 may continue together, in remembrance of our friendship. I do 

 not know the plant, of which you send me the description from 

 Gronovius. It is none of them I described to him ; and there- 



