S6'2 Medicine, [Chax*. IV. 



tlie sick labouring under the disease, and successively 

 j)ropagated from one person to another. The lat- 

 ter opinion seems to be fast losing ground among 

 the better informed part of the medical profession^ 

 and of the public; while the evidence in support of 

 tlie former is accumulated, and rendered more lu- 

 minous and irresistible, by the occurrences of every 

 epidemic season. Much light has been thrown on 

 the origin, course, precursors, and concomitant 

 circumstances of this, and of other pestilential dis- 

 eases, by Mr. Noah Webster, in his History of 

 Epidemics i an ingenious and learned work, in which 

 a rich and curious amount of information On this 

 subject is brought together and exhibited in a very 

 impressive manner. Though the author is no pfiy- 

 .sician, he has made a very valuable present to the 

 medical world, and has entered and pursued with 

 much ability a path of inquiry, which will proba- 

 bly conduct to very interesting and instructive con- 

 clusions. In the mean time, the modes of treating 

 yellow iii\QY have received great improvement dur- 

 ing the period under consideration. Those who 

 liave written on this disease with most reputation, 

 arc Dr. Rush of the United States, who has had 

 ample experience in the treatment of it*, and Drs, 

 Jackson and Chisholm, of Great Britain. 



* The intrepidity and benevolence displayed by Dr. Rush, dur- 

 ing the several seasons in which pestilence has prevailed in Phila- 

 delphia, deserve the highest eulogium. This remark applies with 

 peculiar force to the season of 1793, when tlie yellow fever ap- 

 peared in that city, arra}x^d in greater terrour than ever before or 

 since in any part of the United States ; when the metliods of treat- 

 ment were comparatively little understood; when it was univer- 

 sally considered as a highly contagious disease; and when the. 

 fortitude and services of this distinguished physician, through the 



