AN Inaugural Dissertation ON PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. BY EDWARD DELAFIELD, A. B. ----For want of timely care, Millions have died of medicable wounds. ARMSTRONG. _NEW-YORK_: PRINTED BY JOHN FORBES & CO. 78 WALL-STREET. 1816. TO SAMUEL BORROWE, M. D. ONE OF THE SURGEONS OF THE NEW-YORK HOSPITAL, THIS DISSERTATION IS DEDICATED, AS A TESTIMONY OF GRATITUDE FOR THE MANY VALUABLE PRACTICAL LESSONS RECEIVED FROM HIM BY HIS FRIEND AND PUPIL, EDWARD DELAFIELD. INTRODUCTION. The attention of Physicians has for several years past been excited to the consideration of that inveterate enemy of the human race, the CONSUMPTION. Several works have been published, new remedies proposed, and the practice of former physicians revived with modifications and amendments, in the treatment of this disease. At one period, Consumption had been so long considered without the reach of remedies, that it had almost ceased to excite the enquiries of the learned in medicine. Fortunately, however, the spirit of enquiry has revived; and it is believed that the treatment of this dreadful malady has been so far improved, that many are rescued from its grasp, and the sufferings of those who are still its victims, are materially mitigated. Notwithstanding, it appears that in this city the mortality from Consumption has increased rapidly of late years. Formerly, its climate was considered remarkably salubrious, and diseases of the lungs were rare. Lieutenant Governor Colden, in a series of remarks on the climate and diseases of New-York, made seventy years ago, has the following observations: “The air of the country being almost always clear, and its spring strong, we have few consumptions or diseases of the lungs. People inclined to be consumptive in England, are often perfectly cured by our fine air; but if there be ulcers formed, they die. The climate grows every day better, as the country is cleared of the woods; and more healthy, as all the people that have lived long here testify. This has even been sensible to me, though I have lived but about twelve years in this country; I therefore doubt not but it will in time, become one of the most agreeable and healthy climates on the face of the earth.”[1]