2. The variable nature of the climate of Pennsylvania does not render it _necessarily_ unhealthy. Doctor Huxham has taught us, that the healthiest seasons in Great-Britain have often been accompanied by the most variable weather. His words upon this subject convey a reason for the fact. "When the constitutions of the year are frequently changing, so that by the _contrast_ a sort of _equilibrium_ is kept up, and health with it; and that especially if persons are careful to guard themselves well against these sudden changes[36]." Perhaps no climate or country is unhealthy, where men acquire from experience, or tradition, the arts of accommodating themselves to it. The history of all the nations of the world, whether savage, barbarous, or civilized, previously to a mixture of their manners by an intercourse with strangers, seems to favour this opinion. The climate of China appears, in many particulars, to resemble that of Pennsylvania. The Chinese wear loose garments of different lengths, and increase or diminish the number of them, according to the frequent and sudden changes of their weather; hence they have very few acute diseases among them. Those inhabitants of Pennsylvania who have acquired the arts of conforming to the changes and extremes of our weather in dress, diet, and manners, escape most of those acute diseases which are occasioned by the sensible qualities of the air; and faithful inquiries and observations have proved, that they attain to as great ages as the same number of people in any part of the world. [36] Observations on the Air and Epidemic Diseases, vol. I. p. 5. AN ACCOUNT OF THE BILIOUS REMITTING FEVER, AS IT APPEARED _IN PHILADELPHIA_, IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF THE YEAR 1780. Before I proceed to describe this fever, it will be necessary to give a short account of the weather, and of the diseases which preceded its appearance. The spring of 1780 was dry and cool. A catarrh appeared among children between one year, and seven years of age. It was accompanied by a defluxion from the eyes and nose, and by a cough and dyspn[oe]a, resembling, in some instances, the cynanche trachealis, and in others a peripneumony. In some cases it was complicated with the symptoms of a bilious remitting, and intermitting fever. The exacerbations of this fever were always attended with dyspn[oe]a and cough. A few patients expectorated blood. Some had swellings behind their ears, and others were affected with small ulcers in the throat. I met with only one case of this fever in which the pulse indicated bleeding. The rest yielded in a few days to emetics, blisters, and the bark, assisted by the usual more simple remedies in such diseases. An intermittent prevailed among adults in the month of May.