The Newcastle Dispensary was opened in October, 1777, by the exertions of Dr John Clark, who was in correspondence with Lettsom in London[253]. Dr Clark had been in the East India Company’s service, and had seen much of ship-fever and of the fevers of the East. During a visit to his home in Roxburghshire in the summer of 1770, between his voyages, he attended several persons in continued fever. When he settled at Newcastle he saw the worst kinds of contagious fever, in workhouses and “in the sordid and crowded habitations of the indigent.” Putrid fever, or typhus, was by far the most common disease attended from the new dispensary, although less than at Liverpool, the operations of the charity being on a much smaller scale. It was seldom out of Newcastle a whole year; and in some years, as 1778, 1779, 1783, 1786 and 1787 it was unusually rife in particular districts, often attacking whole families. Scarlet fever was epidemic and very fatal in 1778 and 1779, while dysentery attacked great numbers of the poor in the autumns of 1783 and 1785. The following Table shows the principal diseases attended from the Dispensary during the first twenty-three months of its working, 1 Oct. 1777, to 1 Sept. 1779: _Newcastle Dispensary 1777-79._ Cases Too far visited Cured advanced Dead Putrid fever 391 357 9 16 Ulcerated sore-throat 146 125 11 9 Dysentery 72 55 5 4 Smallpox 45 29 5 6 From 1 Oct. 1777, to 1 Sept. 1789, the cases of typhus visited were 1920, of which 121 were fatal. During the winter of 1790 and the spring and summer of 1791 it was prevalent amongst the poor, and was frequently introduced into genteel families and sometimes even into those of the first distinction. That outbreak was supposed to have been generated in the Gateshead poorhouse. For some time its ravages were confined chiefly to the low, ill-aired, narrow street called Pipewell Gate. In September it made its appearance in Newcastle; at first the contagion was easily traced from Pipewell Gate, and afterwards from one house to another. In that outbreak, 188 poor persons were visited from the Newcastle Dispensary, the Gateshead poor having been attended by the parochial surgeon. Clark’s ten cases recorded of the epidemic were all of people in good circumstances. The Dispensary Tables show cases of typhus every year down to 1850, the largest totals being in 1793 (374, 18 deaths), 1801 (435, 20 deaths), and 1819 (368, 14 deaths); and these, we may take it, were but a small fraction of all the cases in Newcastle.