ri ee 
[March ty 
REPORT OF DI SEASES, 
mer the Care of the late Senior Physician of the Bud tosh Dispensary, Pion the 
20th of January, to the 20th of February, 1810. 
rh ee 
HE last month has not heen less pro- 
digal than that which preceded it, 
in the production of disease. The 
season has been found remarkably sickly 
by the medical faculty in general, in Lon- 
don at least, and in its more immediate 
vicinity. 
Several cases of the Walcheren fever 
have lately been attended by the Repor- 
ter, each of which was a relapse of the 
malady, after a distinct and considerable 
imterval. . This modification of morbid 
action seems to have shown a peculiar 
propensity to recur, after it had once been 
expelled, and apparently eradicated, from 
the system; and although it, for the 
Most part, assume the intermittent type 
and. character, it is far from being so 
obedient, as the ordinary intermittents of 
our domestic growth, to the influence of 
the appropriate remedies. Agues, which 
are the natives of this soil, are, perhaps, as 
much as any disorder whatever, under 
the controul and management of medi- 
eine. The Peruvian Bark, and where 
that fails, which is not often the case, 
arsenic, that most powerful and salutary 
- drug, has_an almost infallible power in 
subduing, and that in no dilatory manner, 
the operation of the'intermittent fever to 
which we are exposed, more particularly 
in the marshy regions of our Island. 
- But these medicines, though, in a longer 
eye 
impression, seem by no means so expe- 
‘ditious or certain in dispossessing the 
frame of the effects arising from the Wal- 
cheren contagion. 
The Reporter has lately questioned 
several dyspeptic patients, with regard to 
the origin of their complaints, which, by 
their ingenuous confession, appeared 
to arise from an habitual excess in eating. 
Their dinners, were the source of their 
diseases.. ‘This species of indulgence, 
ig, amongst the substantial classes of 
society, by no means an_ infrequent 
occasion of indisposition. ‘The more 
indigent orders of the community for- 
tunatély cannot afford to -ruin their 
constitution by the inordinate quantity 
and luxery of their ingesta. It is one 
of the unenviable privileges of the com- 
paratively wealthy, to be able to gorman- 
dise to their own destruction. The ap- 
petite may be, and often is, iucreased 
much beyoud what is natural, by the 
shorter time, they produce some 
gressive staves of life, attack, 
artificial excitement of various and high- 
ly-seasoned dishes. . Fasts ought from 
time to time to be observed, if not from 
piety, at least from .prudence ;. though 
not regarded as religious . institutions, 
they ought to be kept with a kind of re-— 
ligious punctuality, as wholesome i intervals 
of abstinence, which give the stomach an 
occasional holiday, and afford a tempo- 
rary respite from the daily drudgery of 
digestion. We are not in general aware 
of the degree of intestinal > labor, 
which is necessary to exonerate the 
body of the load which gluttony im- 
poses. -The inordinate devoufer of food 
cuts out.more work for his internal ma-~ 
chinery, than it can either with ease or 
impunity perform. 
fall a.sacrifice-to toils of supererogation. 
Convulsive affections, or fils, as they 
are called, of different kinds and titles, 
although they all exhibit a certain com- 
munity. of symptoms, prevail more in 
the present age than in earlier and less 
effeminate periods of our history. There 
can be no doubt that we are more liable 
to tremors, twitches, and spasms, than. 
our more robust ancestors. In conse- 
quence of the enervating influence of 
excessive civilization and refinement, we. 
acquire an additional susceptibility to 
convulsive, more perhaps than to any 
other class of diseases. 
us, only that in passing over us it does 
“not awaken such agreeable and harmo- 
nious vibrations. ; 
The distinction is not radical or essen- 
tial between the various species belong- 
ing to the genus of spasmodic. affections. 
Hystexia, epilepsy, chorea, and apoplexy, 
are all members of the same family : 
for the most part they. arise from 
similar causes, and often, in the pro- 
v ae dif. 
ferent periods, ‘the- same individual. 
One mixed case, partly of the hysterical, 
and partly of the epileptie description, is 
at. present under the Reporter’s care. 
The repeated invasion of the paroxysms 
has made an evident inroad upon the 
mind. The intellectual faculties of the 
patient have unequivocally suffered from 
his corporeal disorder. This, m every 
nervous concussion, may. almost invaria- 
bly be observed. Of the Archbishop of 
Grenada’s 
It must at length, 
' 
. 
| We become 
hike Eolian harps, in being acted upon- 
by the gentlest breeze that passes over” 
: 
j 
