[23] The first regular practitioners of physic in Rome, were women and slaves. The profession was confined to them above six hundred years. The Romans, during this period, lived chiefly upon vegetables, particularly upon PULSE; and hence they were called, by their neighbours, PULTIFAGI. They were likewise early inured to the healthy employments of war and husbandry. Their diseases, of course, were too few and simple to render the cure of them an object of liberal profession. When their diseases became more numerous and complicated, their investigation and cure required the aids of philosophy. The profession from this time became liberal; and maintained a rank with the other professions which are founded upon the imperfection and depravity of human institutions. Physicians are as necessary in the advanced stages of society as surgeons, although their office is less ancient and certain. There are many artificial diseases, in which they give certain relief; and even where their art fails, their prescriptions are still necessary, in order to smooth the avenues of death. I am sorry to add, in this place, that the number of patients in the HOSPITAL, and incurables in the ALMSHOUSE of this city, show that we are treading in the enervated steps of our fellow subjects in Britain. Our bills of mortality likewise show the encroachments of British diseases upon us. The NERVOUS FEVER has become so familiar to us, that we look upon it as a natural disease. Dr. Sydenham, so faithful in his history of fevers, takes no notice of it. Dr. Cadwallader informed me, that it made its first appearance in this city about five and twenty years ago. It will be impossible to name the CONSUMPTION without recalling to our minds the memory of some friend or relation, who has perished within these few years by that disease. Its rapid progress among us has been unjustly attributed to the growing resemblance of our climate to that of Great-Britain. The HYSTERIC and HYPOCHONDRIAC DISEASES, once peculiar to the chambers of the great, are now to be found in our kitchens and workshops. All these diseases have been produced by our having deserted the simple diet and manners of our ancestors.