344, 
thoidal veins. By again encouraging the 
fecretion of faliva, the hemorrhoids ceafe, 
and he regains his ufual health. He has 
confulted a variety of phyficians and me- 
dicai praftitioners, and has undergone re- 
peated courfes of medicine for the allevia- 
tion of his complaint.— Purgatives, fudo-~ 
rifics, tonics, diuretics, mercurials, iffues, 
and a vegetable diet, have ail been tricd in 
vain. Biood-letting to the amount of ten 
ounces puts a ftop to the difcharge for fix 
weeks or two months, without his expe- 
riencing the above mentioned morbid 
fymptoms. But as the repeated lofs of 
blood muft neveflarily weaken him much 
more thaw the increased fecretion of faliva, 
it is furely a remedy more to be dreaded 
than the difeate. 
Although thecontinued fevers in the laft 
month have excreded thofe in the preceding 
by a {mall number only, we are concerned 
to ftate that the proportion of mortal cafes 
has very confiderabiy increafed. There 
has not appeared, however, any additional 
violence or maligoity in the fymptoms ; in 
almoft all the initances of fztal termination, 
the patients died at a very extended period 
of the diteafe, their itrength being rather 
eradually exnaufted by its duration than 
overpowered by its force. One young 
perion expired at the end of the axih 
week in fuch an extreme itate of emacia- 
tion, that, on an infpegticn of the corpfe, 
one would have fuppofed her to have been 
the victim of the moft lingering confump- 
tion. About the erd cf the third 
week, a complete jaundice took place, but 
At had almott entirely diiappeared before 
her death. The febrile heat fubfitted at 
the beginsing of the fourth week; the 
pulfe alfo became lefs quick, and did not 
regain its former rapidity till a day or two 
before fhe died. It happens perhaps more 
commonly than is imagined, that in thefe 
fevers the heat of the fkia is not raifed 
above the natural flandard. In one in- 
ftance of this kind, which eccurred to the 
writer of this article, the pulle beat enly 
feventy-two flrokes in a minute: thus the 
two circumftances which have been gene- 
rally regarded as the moit effentially cha- 
ratteriftic of the prefence of fever were 
entirely wanting. 
The contagion from which thefe fevers 
originate is conttantly gene:ated and pre- 
ferved in the dirty crowded dwellings of 
the poor. Several circumftances, but prin- 
cipaily certain tates of the air, favour its 
formation‘and extenfion, and influeyce iis 
activity and virulence. During the lait 
twelve months, indeed, there has unfortu- 
nately exifted a caufe much more powerful 
Account of Difeafes in London. 
[ Nov. 1; 
in promoting the operation of contagion on 
the lower clafs, than any properties of the 
atmofphere—a lamentable deficjency of the 
common articles of nourifhment. To this, 
which of itfelf is well known to be a 
principal pre-difpofing caule of the typhus 
tever, may be added the gloomy and de- 
preffcd ftate of mind, which parents at leaft 
mult experience when, furrounded by a 
hungry offspring, they &nd themfelves un- 
able to fatisfy their urgent demands for 
bread. Hence alfo the recovery- of con- 
valefcents is unufually flow ; they are more 
liable to relapfes, and of:en fink into many 
lingering diforders, of which debility is the 
principal caufe and fymptom. 
The loathfome circumftances attending 
the crowded habitations of the poor in 
large cities, and their abfurd and defiruc- 
tive methods of domeftic economy, which 
prove a never failing fource of febrile con- 
tagion; their extreme mifery and ‘uffer- 
ing when once a fever has taken pofle 
fion of their families, and the dreadful 
ravages it occafions among them, have 
lateiy been very accurately and patherical- 
ly defcribed by three phyficians, whofe 
profeffiona) ay ucations have, fora number 
of years, led them to be extenlively ac- 
quainted with the condition and difeates of 
the poor in the metropolis, and in the po- 
pulous towns of Mancheiter and Liver- 
pool, and whofe humanity and benevolence 
render them not lefs an honour to their 
race than their learning and medical {kul 
to their proteffion*. 
In confequence of the forcible reprefen- 
tations of Dr. Ferriar of Manchefier, fe- 
veral refpectable gentlemen of that town 
formed themfelves into a board of health, 
and opened a iubfcription for the fitting 
up an hofpital, or houfe of recovery, for 
the reception of the poor ill of contagious 
fever. Intothis houfe the patients are re- 
moved asearly as poflinle. ‘Their infected 
garments are taken off, to be purified and 
refered to them on their difmiffal ; their 
petfons are made clean by lukewarm wa- 
ter; they are put into ventilated wards, 
where they have the advantage of medical 
attendance, medicines, and nuriing. In 
the mean time meafures are taken to de- 
ftroy the contagion in the habitations they 
have left. By white-wafhing, ventilation, 
foap and water, flaked lime, and the va- 
pour of the nitric acid, their tainted apart- 

* See Dr. Ferriar’s Med. Hiftories and Re- 
fleftions, vols. 1, 2, aad 3; Dr. Currie’s 
Med. Report on Fever, &c. and Dr. Willan’s. 
Account of Difeafes in London, in the Medie 
cal and Phyfical Journal for April, 1800. 
ments 
