402 Additional Notesk 



their features than in the land of our ancestors— or to what elift 

 are we to attribute this effect? 



It would exceed the limits of this note, and appear unbe-J 

 coming in the author, to enter into any discussion of the con- 

 flicting opinions of Americaa and European physicians. No- 

 thing more, therefore, than a rapid glance at the subject shall 

 be attempted. 



Medical science in America claims the merit of improve- 

 ments and discoveries on the following subjects. A more 

 simple and correct doctrine concerning the radical and univer- 

 sal relations of diseases^ a more rational and practical estimate 

 of nosology, the importance of which seems to have been 

 greatly overrated in Europe ; more just, accurate, and con* 

 sistent opinions concerning the origin and causes of epidemic 

 and pestilential diseases^ according to which the notions of their 

 importation and exportation from one country to another are 

 rejected, and the doctrine of their production from a vitiated 

 state of the atmosphere in the situations where they are found 

 to prevail, is satisfactorily established ; more correct principles 

 on the subject of quarantine, which might diminish the burdens 

 and restrictions of commerce, and render the intercourse of na- 

 tions more hospitable and humane j and a more extensive ac- 

 quaintance with the medicinal virtues and uses of many articles 

 of the vegetable kingdom. 



Among many partlfcular diseases and remedies, the manage- 

 ment of which has been improved in the United States, the fol- 

 lowing may be selected with great confidence. A more sim- 

 ple and efficacious treatment of pestilential diseases j a more 

 correct theory and practice In dropsy, particularly in that 6f 

 the brain j a more discriminating, decisive, and successful, em- 

 ployment of blood-letting in fevers, and more just indications, , 

 founded upon the appearances of the blood after being drawn ; 

 and a more extensive and efficacious use of mercury in a va- 

 riety of diseases. 



In effecting these and many other improvements the phy- 

 sicians of the United States have laboured with a laudable and 

 tenlightened diligence. In the first rank oi those who have 



