In an early volume of the Philosophical Transactions are some observations made by Mr. Paschal on the motions of diseases, and on the births and deaths of men and other animals, in different parts of the day and night. Having suspected, he says, that the causes of the tides at sea exert their power elsewhere, though the effect may not be so sensibly perceived on the solid as on the fluid parts of the globe, he divided, for trial of this notion, the natural day into four senaries of hours; the first consisting of three hours before the moon's southing, and three after; the second, of the six hours following; and the third and fourth contained the two remaining quarters of the natural day. Observing then the times of birth and death, both in human and other subjects, as many as came within the circle of his knowledge, he found, he says, none that were born or died a natural death in the first and third senaries, (which he called first and second tides,) but every one either in the second or fourth senaries, (which he called the first and second ebbs). He then made observations upon the motions of diseases, other circumstances connected with the human frame, alterations of the weather, and such accounts as he could meet with of earthquakes and other things, and he met with nothing to prevent him from laying down this as a maxim:—that motion, vigour, action, strength, &c., appear most and do best, in the tiding senaries; and that rest, relaxation, decay, dissolution, belong to the ebbing ones. This theorist must have been strongly possessed with a favorite opinion, before he could imagine that the deep subterranean causes of earthquakes could in any degree be affected by the tides. But that the same influences which occasion the ebb and flow of the ocean have an effect upon certain diseases, is a conclusion to which Dr. Pinckard came in the West Indies, and Dr. Balfour in the East, from what they observed in the course of their own practice, and what they collected from the information of others. “In Bengal,” Dr. Balfour says, “there is no room to doubt that the human frame is affected by the influences connected with the relative situations of the sun and moon. In certain states of health and vigour, this influence has not power to show itself by any obvious effects, and in such cases its existence is often not acknowledged. But in certain states of debility and disease it is able to manifest itself by exciting febrile paroxysms. Such paroxysms shew themselves more frequently during the period of the spring tides, and as these advance become more violent and obstinate, and on the other hand tend no less invariably to subside and terminate during the recess.