Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
Science
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
2. COUNTRY AIR. The higher and drier the situation which is chosen
for the purpose of enjoying the benefit of this remedy, the better.
Situations exposed to the sea, should be carefully avoided; for it is
a singular fact, that while consumptive persons are benefited by the
sea-air, when they breathe it on the ocean, they are always injured by
that portion of it which they breathe on the sea-shore. To show its
influence, not only in aggravating consumptions, but in disposing to
them, and in adding to the mortality of another disease of the lungs, I
shall subjoin the following facts. From one fourth to one half of all
the adults who die in Great Britain, Dr. Willan says, perish with this
disease. In Salem, in the state of Massachusetts, which is situated
near the sea, and exposed, during many months in the year, to a moist
east wind, there died, in the year 1799, one hundred and sixty persons;
fifty-three died of the consumption, making in all nearly one third of
all the inhabitants of the town. Eight more died of what is called a
lung fever, probably of what is called in Pennsylvania the galloping
grade of that disease. Consumptions are more frequent in Boston,
Rhode-Island, and New-York, from their damp winds, and vicinity to
the sea-shore, than they are in Philadelphia. In the neighbourhood of
Cape May, which lies near the sea-shore of New-Jersey, there are three
religious societies, among whom the influenza prevailed in the year
1790. Its mortality, under equal circumstances, was in the exact ratio
to their vicinity to the sea. The deaths were most numerous in that
society which was nearest to it, and least so in that which was most
remote from it. These unfriendly effects of the sea air, in the above
pulmonary diseases, do not appear to be produced simply by its moisture.
Consumptions are scarcely known in the moist atmosphere which so
generally prevails in Lincolnshire, in England, and in the inland parts
of Holland and Ireland.
I shall not pause to inquire, why a mixture of land and sea air is so
hurtful in the consumption, and at the same time so agreeable to persons
in health, and so medicinal in many other diseases, but shall dismiss
this head by adding a fact which was communicated to me by Dr. Matthew
Irvine, of South-Carolina, and that is, That those situations which
are in the neighbourhood of bays or rivers, where the salt and fresh
waters mix their streams together, are more unfavourable to consumptive
patients than the sea-shore, and therefore should be more carefully
avoided by them in exchanging city for country air.
3. A CHANGE OF CLIMATE. It is remarkable that climates uniformly cold
or warm, which seldom produce consumptions, are generally fatal to
persons who visit them in that disease. Countries between the 30th and
40th degrees of latitude are most friendly to consumptive people.
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