Thus have I briefly pointed out the customs which influence the diseases of civilized nations. It remains now that we take notice of their diseases. Without naming the many new fevers, fluxes, hemorrhages, swellings from water, wind, flesh, fat, pus, and blood; foulnesses on the skin, from cancers, leprosy, yawes, poxes, and itch; and, lastly, the gout, the hysteria, and the hypochondriasis, in all their variety of known and unknown shapes; I shall sum up all that is necessary upon this subject, by adding, that the number of diseases which belong to civilized nations, according to Doctor Cullen's nosology, amounts to 1387; the single class of nervous diseases form 612 of this number. Before we proceed to speak of the remedies of civilized nations, we shall examine into the abilities of NATURE in curing their diseases. We found her active and successful in curing the diseases of the Indians. Are her strength, wisdom, or benignity, equal to the increase of those dangers which threaten her dissolution among civilized nations? In order to answer this question, it will be necessary to explain the meaning of the term nature. By nature, in the present case, I understand nothing but _physical necessity_. This at once excludes every thing like intelligence from her operations: these are all performed in obedience to the same laws which govern vegetation in plants, and the intestine motions of fossils. They are as truly mechanical as the laws of gravitation, electricity, or magnetism. A ship when laid on her broadside by a wave, or a sudden blast of wind, rises by the simple laws of her mechanism; but suppose this ship to be attacked by fire, or a water-spout, we are not to call in question the skill of the ship-builder, if she be consumed by the one, or sunk by the other. In like manner, the Author of nature hath furnished the body with powers to preserve itself from its natural enemies; but when it is attacked by those civil foes which are bred by the peculiar customs of civilization, it resembles a company of Indians, armed with bows and arrows, against the complicated and deadly machinery of fire-arms. To place this subject in a proper light, I shall deliver a history of the operations of nature in a few of the diseases of civilized nations. I. There are cases in which nature is still successful in curing diseases. In fevers she still deprives us of our appetite for animal food, and imparts to us a desire for cool air and cold water. In hemorrhages she produces a faintness, which occasions a coagulum in the open vessels; so that the further passage of blood through them is obstructed. In wounds of the flesh and bones she discharges foreign matter by exciting an inflammation, and supplies the waste of both with new flesh and bone. II. There are cases where the efforts of nature are too feeble to do service, as in malignant and chronic fevers.