It was owing to the almost universal use of purging and bleeding, that the mortality of the disease diminished, in proportion as the number of persons who were affected by it increased, about the middle of October. It was scarcely double of what it was in the middle of September, and yet six times the number of persons were probably at that time confined by it. The success of copious purging and bleeding was not confined to the city of Philadelphia. Several persons, who were infected in town, and sickened in the country, were cured by them. Could a comparison be made of the number of patients who died of the yellow fever in 1793, after having been plentifully bled and purged, with those who died of the same disease in the years 1699, 1741, 1747, and 1762, I am persuaded that the proportion would be very small in the year 1793, compared with the former years[95]. Including all who died under every mode of treatment, I suspect the mortality to be less, in proportion to the population of the city, and the number of persons who were affected, than it was in any of the other years that have been mentioned. [95] It appears from one of Mr. Norris's letters, dated the 9th of November, O. S. that there died 220 persons, in the year 1699, with the yellow fever. Between 80 and 90 of them, he says, belonged to the society of friends. The city, at this time, probably, did not contain more than 2 or 3000 people, many of whom, it is probable, fled from the disease. Not less than 6000 of the inhabitants of Philadelphia probably owe their lives to purging and bleeding, during the autumn.