New ycrfiy* Raccoon. 295 



among the EngKJh children, forgot their mother 

 tongue, fo that few of them underfhmd it at 

 prefent. Since that time, though the pleurify 

 has every year killed a few people at Perns neck, 

 yet it has not carried off any confiderable num- 

 bers. It refted as it were till the autumn of the 

 year 1748, but then it began to make dreadful 

 havock, and every week fix or ten of the old 

 people died. The difeafe was fo violent, that 

 \yhen it attacked a perfon, he feldom lived above 

 two or three days ; and of thofe who were taken 

 ill with it, very few recovered. When the pleu- 

 rify was got into a houfe, it killed moft of the 

 old people in it : it was a true pleurify, but it 

 had a peculiarity with it, for it commonly began 

 with a great fwelling under the throat and in the 

 neck, and with a difficulty of fwallowing. Some 

 people looked upon it as contagious, and others 

 ierioufly declared, that when it came into a fa- 

 mily, not only thofe who lived in the fame houfe 

 fuffered from it, but even fuch relations as lived 

 far off. There have been feveral people at Penn's 

 neck, who, without vifiting their fick friends, 

 have got the pleurify and died of it : I do not 

 difpute the truth of this, though I do not agree 

 to the conclufion. The pleurify was the moft 

 violent in November , yet fome old people died 

 of it even in the next winter ; but children were 

 pretty free from it. The phylicians did not 

 know what to make of it, nor how to remedy it. 

 IT is difficult to determine the caufes of fuch 

 violent difeafes. An old Englijh furgeon who 

 lived here gave the following reafon. The in- 

 habitants of this country drink great quantities 



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