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fuller's earth, and yellow earth. Beds of bituminous 

 shale are frequent, and petroleum or mineral oil, 

 and asphaltum are more or less abundant. The 

 mineral oil exudes from the base of clay hills, and 

 is collected on the surface of natural or artificial 

 reservoirs of water j or it is found penetrating the 

 substance of sandy rocks. In the island it is gene- 

 rally known by the appellation of Green Tar, and 



in England by that of Barbados Tar.* 



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^= It may be proper to add a few words relative to llie general 

 application of this tar in Barbados. It is principally there used 

 instead of other oils, for biirning*, and painting- the roofs of out- 

 building's; and it is freely and beneficially employed as a 

 medicine internally, and externally for horses, and horned 

 cattle. As a remedy against tlic diseases of man its reputation 

 has g-reatly fluctuated, which is readily accounted for by the 

 fact, that at different times it has had the character of beinir 

 efficacious in the cure of such diseases as cancer, pulmonary 

 consumption, the lepra Arabum or elephantiasis, and tetanus. 

 It is in this lattermost dreadful, and frequently fatal afFoction, 

 that, during- a long- practice, I have had most opportunity of 

 seeing- it employed. It may seem foreign to my present purpose 

 to state that tetanus is decidedly epidemic in Barbados; yet I 

 am so fully convinced that this is the fact, and that a knowledge 

 of it will materially affect the result of surgical operations 

 in the West-Indies, that I will not omit to remark it in this 

 place: the more particularly as I have not seen it mentioned 

 in any books, although I cannot suppose that it has escaped 

 the observation of those practitioners, who have had exten- 

 sive opportunities of seeing the disease. In the cure of tetanus 

 Iho mineral oil, externally employed, is at least equal to 



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