VOL. LXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 715 



fill tanned leather bags with it, and hang them up in the sun ; the water oozes 

 more or less through the leather, so as to keep the outer surface wet, which, by 

 its quick and continued evaporation, occasions the water within the bag to be- 

 come considerably cooler. 



This wind is in general not reckoned unwholesome, either by the inhabitants 

 or Europeans, though it feels very disagreeable, and by depriving the body of 

 its thinner fluids, may be considereil as the immediate cause of some diseases, 

 and the pre-disposing one to others. When it sets in sooner or later in the 

 month of October, it is considered by the inhabitants as producing a cessation 

 of the sickly weather, and the beginning of healthier. In the months of De- 

 cember and January, when the sun is at his greatest distance, it makes the wea- 

 ther feel very cold in the nights and the mornings. 



The putrid disorder, which proved so fatal to the garrison and the inhabitants 

 of Senegal, made its appearance in the beginning of August. The preceding 

 month of July had been remarkably healthy ; though the weather was very hot 

 and sultry, there were only 3 soldiers in the hospital for slight venerea! disorders ; 

 but he learnt by some black messengers, who came from Goree, that there was 

 a fever raging there, which had carried off numbers of the French garrison and 

 inhabitants of the island. On the id of August one of the soldiers, who was in 

 the hospital for a gonon-hea, was discharged as cured. The 4th of August he 

 was again reported as very sick in the barracks. Dr. S. found him in a high 

 fever with the worst symptoms. He ordered him to be carried to the hospital, 

 where he died the 3d day, with all the symptoms of the greatest putridity. The 

 orderly man of the hospital was seized on the 6th of August with the same 

 disease, and died the Qth. One of the venereal patients, who remained still in 

 the hospital, was taken with the same fever, and died a few days after. Some of 

 the soldiers of the fort, having access to the hospital to visit their sick comrades, 

 took the contagion, and spread it through the whole garrison. Dr. S. believed 

 that the disorder was brought to Senegal by the black messengers from Goree ; 

 for he understood that one of them had died soon after his arrival in Senegal, and 

 it may be that the soldier who died first of it got the infection from them ; for 

 it is probable, that being discharged the hospital on the 2d of August, and 

 having leave to take a walk on the island on the 3d, he had been in company 

 with some of these black messengers, or in the huts where they resorted, for 

 the sake of hearing some news from Goree, where he was acquainted. It may 

 perhaps be observed, that the soldier taking the contagion on the 3d of August, 

 it could not make so rapid a progress as to manifest itself the next morning in 

 the highest degree ; but this Dr. S. supjjorts by the following cases. One of 

 the surgeon's mates dressed a blister on the back of a soldier, ill of the disorder, 

 with a digestive softened with oil of turpentine : having done, he came into the 



4 Y 2 



