VOL. I.] NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1798. j NuMiiiiii ic6. Ar E IF- Y 0 R K. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. N umber of Burials in this city for 24 hours. ending yesterday evening, 11—40 qj. the le- ver. ONE HUNDRED and NINETY-FOUR new cases of the prevailing fever, were re- ported rd Philadelphia for 48 hours, ending Monday at noon, by 18 physicians. AT this time of distress and alarm, when a deadly pestilence is laying waste some of our most populous and wealthy cities, the in- habitants o* town and country are anxiously inquiring, what arc the causes ? What the means of prevention or of cure? Why has not this deadly fever raged before ? Are our cities to be afflicted with it every year? Astonishing as the fact may appear, there is not a history of the plague in existence. Of the most awful calamity that befals the human race; a calamity of v. Inch probably more persons have perished, since the Chris- tian era, than there are now on the globe, no regular account has ever been written ; and some of (lie most important phenomena of epidemic and pestilential diseases, are not known even to the most eminent medical men in Europe. For want of attending to these phenomena, even a Mead and a Cullen embraced the most egregious errors respect- ing the causes of pestilential diseases, and on those errors have been built systems of regu- lations, and laws of quarantine, for preserv- ing public health, that are almost entirely useless, and in many states and kingdoms, inhuman and barbarous. It has fallen to my lot to write a brief ac- count of pestilential diseases, from such ma- terials as can be found in this country ; and to discover a number of important principles respecting the origin and progress of epide- mics. To satisfy my fellow citizens, who are involved in distress, and seeking for consola- tion, as to some of their anxious enquiries, There offer to them a few observations, which are the results of my in vestigation. 1. Pestilential diseases of all kinds usually originate where they exist. A lew doubtful cases on a small scale may be exceptions ; but I nave demonstrative evidence that most diseases of a 'contagious nature are tiie fruit of the soil in which !!icy are found. I he means of prevention, therefore, are not to be found in Quarantine Laws. 2. Pestilential epidemics are progressive in their malignity, and several of them usually follow in a ser.es or order—such as Catarrh or influenza, ifieasels, anginas, or disorders of the throat, spotted fever, yellow fever or plague. The yellow fever or plague never appears as 'fur as I can discover, without some one or nd of the o h-r diseases for precursors. Some- thing like the order of the influenza, mea- sles and scarlet fever, in these states, from 1755 to 1795, is always observable before all the plagues that have infested tire old world. 3. In addition to malignant diseases, a« the dysentery and violent bilious remittents, from marsh effluvia, which may be local, and c< cu stoned bv peculiar seasons, there are cer- ts in period’, when pestilential diseases, in- vade whole quarters of the globe, nearly ar ike same time, and sometimes both hemis- pheres. A remarkable instance of this hap- pened from 1759 to 1765, when Egypt, Sy- ria, all Europe and A*’.erica, experienced •■nest increase of mortal:!v. Two or thre< iindances have occurred since, but the epi- demics were less fata!. 4, The duration '••"these pestilential peri- eds is variou-, from five to ten, fifteen. and even twenty years. Intervals of hereto art: rdso of very varroug duration. The bills of mortality in London from 17 18 to 1742, were, on an average more than twenty per cent, p-rrher than they haT,e ever been since ; ow- ii.sr to a continued scries of mortal epidemics. In America, no formidable pestilential disease appeared from 17( 2, to 1791, a period o; twenty nine years—ah jimisually long period of health. The dysentery of 1776 and 7 wa.- fA Vest destructive disease experienced i; that long interval—-The starlet fever spread in 1785 and Q but: was lighter than usual. From 1791 to the present time, we have felt severe sickness,' and how long this pestilen- tial period-will endure, God only knows.’ c. But ie. us.not despair; After the close of this sickly period, health will again revisit our elites, as if now does the country. IT hi ■scarlet fever spread from New-York in 17 92 to Maine in 1796, and has finished its course, leas in? the countrv in usual health. The dreadful -plague that now scourges our ci- ties is probably the effect of the great and all subduing 1 eat of the last, two Ae.uths,'and i is more thin orobablc that tire siVcceedi'iw vviqter and summer may be temperate and healthy. Such a winter and summer as the last, are uncommon. 6. To those who as!.', why. this pestilence ee\ • r -appeared'in former times, I answer, ■td:d. In certain periods, when great plague' have raged in the East, the yellow fever ha1- prevailed in America, from the first settle- ment of the country by the English. Na.\ more it affected and wasted the Indian tribe aefore the settlement of New England by tht English. At least 30,000 Indians perished 3y the yellow fever in the year 1 0 18 of this act I have authentic testimony. It is there- fore the natural jtlagui of our climate. instead ot being a new disease, or import- ed from the West Indies, it appeared on this continent before the islands were settled b\ lie English, and as frequent!}’ before any trade was opened between this continent ami the islands, as it has since. Only thirteen vears after Massachusetts was settled, a pes- tilential autumnal fever carried off one fid >1 the Plymouth planters. This was in 1033. In 1645 a similar fever raged among live In- dians at Martha’s Vineyard. In 1647, a si- milar fever prevailed in Connecticut. In 165 ! and 166S similar diseases swept away mam people. In 1668, a pestilential disease pre- vailed in New-York. In 1699 the yellow- levet was as malignant in Philadelphia, as it is this season ; this was but seventeen vear- alter the place was settled, and when it con- tained few people; In the same summer, the disease was so fatal in Charleston, that most of the principal people died, and the survi- vors almost abandoned the place. In 1702 the Yellow Fever raged in New- York, and an eruptive fever was nearly as fatal in Boston, in 1698. The Yellow Fever raged in Charleston in 1728 and in 1732; and again in 1739. In 1741 the same diseas ■ raged hi Philadelphia and in Virginia.' In 1743, in New-York—in 1745, again at Char- leston. In 1746 in Albany. In 1747, again in Philadelphia—and also in 1762. The same disease swept away almost all the In- dians on Nantucket and Maltha’s Viriefarc in 1763. The same disease, in its milder ferny appeared in Philadelphia in 1778. These Acts may ratis-y inquiries on this head. From authentic histories of plague for two thousand two hundred years, I can as- sure my fellow citizens, that it is rare for cities between the latitudes of 32 and 45 ; to escape malignant pestilential diseases for 30 years, at any one time. Generally, once in twelve or fifteen years, a scries of epidemics spread over the whole world. In healthy positions, this pistilential state of air is limi- ted in malignity to measles, and searletina— in other positions, it extends to small pox and peteehiel fever—in large cities and less healthy situations, it often runs into the plague.—This has been the fact uniformly from tire days of Hippocrates. This pestilential state 61 air is evinced by the catarrh,or influenza, which during the pe- riod eficontagion, appears in a whole hem- isphere, at once and sometimes over the whole globe, siezing people on this in the West. Indies and on the ocean at the same time. This epidemic is usually follow- ed by great mortality in the succeeding years. To this fact, there is hardly an ex- ception in th.e three last ’centuries,' before which period our accounts of that disease are few and imperfect. This general pestilence is rf various de- grees of violence. Sometimes it appears in a milder form and is confined to a few places, as .n New-York in 1795 and 6—at Others, it be- comes universal, and mows down mankind, with undistinguishing severity, is in the pre- sent year. In two or three siivce ihe Christian era, it has been so violent, as to ittaek men in scattered cottages on the heaithieH hills a ho. mountains, without any communieatiohs with the diseased. It has raged sometimes through the winter, and wo or three time has invaded the inhabi- . .u 1 s of Iceland and Greenland. From these few facts,/ which stand on /un- questionable authority, and which I am pre- paring in detail for the press, the people of the United States, will judge how fur they ire to expect repetitions of this distressing malady. For their consolation, it appear: :hat our cities will not be continually harras- -ed with (his autumnal fevbr, Periods of, ncaith will occur-*—sometimes of longer and sometimes of shorter duration. Then will occur a series of epidemics and our cities ,vf!i belaid waste with pestilence. This has men the case from the date of our earliest Histories'to tiiis day, and we have no right to ■expect thelawsofthe Universe are to be now changed. Great good effects however may .be brot by introducing different modes of construct- ing our houses—be changes in diet and ha*, hits of Lathing, and by the use of fresh run- ning water in cities. The water beneath a city should never be used for drink. It is probable that such changes in Europe have very much mitigated the severity of mortal liseases in the larg'e cities, within the pre- sent century. Yet they are all occasionally visited with rha!igna.it .fevers, that fait but one grade below the plague. Our present node or building cities, and our present ha- bits of living, will not suffer its to escape pestilence. W e are precisely in the latitude most obnoxious to autumnal pestilence ; and if New-York, Philadelphia, Poston and Bal- in'ore continue to increase.bn tl)ft present mode of constructions till they equal ci ies pi the first or second rate in Europe, it s their inevitable doom to be ravaged with he plague, as often as Gaira or Constantino- ple. It is to be observed, however, that with a very few exceptions, since the days of Mos- es, the plague is exclusively the scourge of cities or populous towns. It is, in ordinary case-;, er.sh el. in ham •; bower to avoid this dreadful Calamity—every commercial city might ba so laid out a 1 constructed, r.s to be even mere healthy than the country. But ignorance and interest forbid us to indulge the expectation of ever realizing such a pro- ject. i; y There is nothing hew in the horrors cf the oresent plague. The same scenes have hap- pened in every period of a few years, from he days of Homer. Armies and cities are con- tinually exposed to pestilence, and always have been. The present sickness will sub- due and soon be forgotten, and men will pro need in the same round of folly and vice All our habits will continue—and the same prac- tice of piling together buildings, accumu- lating filth, and destroying fresh air, and '.reparing new and more abundant materials dor pestilence, which will continue to assume greater virulence and to prove more des- ructive to human life, in proportion to the oagnitilde of our cities. If more wisdom hould be exerted in America, it will be a glorious but an unexpected event. N. WEBSTER; w*- >—nw *•••'■, jumtiiniwM THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. Number of deaths in this city for 2 f hours ending yesterday evening, 00—58 of the fe- ver. Number of Burials in .Philadelphia for ,24 hours ending Tuesday boon, Adults, 74— Children, 6. EIGH TY FIVE new cases of the pre- vail! ng fever were reported for the 2A hours ending Tuesday at noon, by 14 physicians. New-london, Sdtt. 24. Eight new cast's of the prevailing lever dnce our last, 32 now sick, 5 only dangerous. TFIE causes and the remedies for mortal epidemics are subjects of solicitous inquiry among all descriptions of citizens. The re- medies belong to professional men—the causes ire proper objects of investigation, among the learned and curious of all professions. Epidemic diseases, properly so called, de- pend not On local or visible causes. Such are measles, catarrh, whooping cough, scarlet fever—They invade mankind in every situa- tion—and ilio contagious:, yet .they spread also without contagion, and independent or human control. Why one of these diseases jshould originate and spread over a country ! this year and not the next, is a mystery that is not yet unfolded. Efforts have been made j to resolve them into the peculiarities of sea- jsp« ; but the history of such epidemics will |:oon convince a candid inquirer, that they i carrot be ascribed to any visible changes of j weather.or seasons. They prevail in all sea- isops—in winter and in summer—in cold or wrarn— in wet or dry weather. The causes however must be as extensive as the effects and the Universality of an epi- demic in One country or in more, proves that it rniist originate in some unknown properties i of the atmosphere above or of the water be- jneath us, Vfjjen we observe the measles or |angina break forth in America and in Eng | land, about the same time, or when we see eats in England, France and America, per- iishing with a pestilence, nearly at one and the seme time, we are driven from the un- j (enable ground of propagation by contagion, j to seek for a general Cause existing in the elements. Such is the fact with many epi- demics. _ Had this fact been attended j medical men, we should have had fewer vo- • lumen to prove a disease contagious, which no man denies to be so. and prescribe mode ‘ of preventing the introduction of disease-, from foreign countries, which are generated at hbmc» > i But, in strictness of speech, the plague oi yellow fever, is not an epidemic. It has as- sumed that form in a few instances an; spread over ail connlrie*., visiting villages a well as cities. But, in its useful form, it is ai endemic—a disease altogether local, being li mited to populous cities and towns, Thi circumstance is important, in treating of tin causes of this disease. Epidemics that spreai over the world without contagion for even ' ‘ . O j case, must have a general cause. But tin plague, being usually confined to particulai places, must have local causes. (To be Continued.) We wart most anxiously for the Arrival from Europe\vidch shall develope the view; of the French government in the operation of the present summer. Should no attempt be made to invade England, the nation will find hem selves again duped by their lordly Di- rector), who solicited and obtained a heavy loan and contributions for that express pur- pose. If the Directory have availed them- selves of such a popular pretext to get money, and then divert it to some less popular use, die lenders of the money will complain ; bin all in vain—their necks are under the yoke, and they may as well submit as to grumble. The taking of Malta is another instance of perfidy of which the present government has furnished more instances, than all th< Kings in Europe for half' a century. The conduct of France is even worse than.perfi- dious—it is mean and cowardly. It does not even give a people a chance to dfefend themselves. The French troops steal ink the territories intended to we conquered, b\ lying and deceit. They pretend friendship, while they are secretly betraying the unsus- pecting people. Never have dissimulation, perfidy, treachery, and meanness, been car- ried to such a length, and never practised with such unblushing effrontery, as by Re- publican I ranee. The crimes of despotic governments are east into the back grount; of tlie picture by the yhameless crimes of the Directory. It is a most gratifying circumstance to'all true friends of their rquy.try, to hear of Bit great and decided revolution of opinions in the Southern States. Tlie choice.of Repre- sentatives to Congress in North Carolina is evidence of such a rovohitinn, and we believe other proofs will soon appear. The people o! the Southern States, freup -their remote situation from the scat of government, anc! their scattered position, have fewer means of information, than the nothern people. Few newspapers circulate among them, and • hose few, are mostly small, apd ,cannot contain the more, ample discussions of great political questions, which appear in daily papers in the middle and northern states. The people at the Southward de- pend greatly for information on the commu- nications from their representatives; during the sessions ol Congress; and most of them .have been in opposition to government, it is :easy to believe, their communications w'ould favor that opposition. We trust-that facts at last have opened the eyes of a great majority of the Southern peo- ple, and we are confident no men in Ameri- ca, will be found more steady, firm and brave defenders of their country’s rights and inde- pendence. It appears b"y a communication tinder fhe Norfolk head, dated, the 18th inst. that the ship Niger, taken by the U. S. frigate Con- stitution, CapL Nicholson, lately, and most probably now belongs to a gentleman, who, previous to the evacuation of Port-uu-ih ince by the English, resided, and was a partner to a mercantile house in Norfolk.—Captain N’s intentions certainly were praise-worthy ; but it is conjectured that the capturing of this vessel may prove somewhat disagreeable. An Address of the Grand Lodge of 1'rf.s and A.c- cfi'ted Masons of tlie Commonwealth of Mates- fchusetls, in ample form assembled, at a Quarterly Communication, in Boston, June 11, A. D. ’98. To the President of tin li Kited States. Sir., I lattery, and a discussion of political opi- nions, arc inconistcnt with the principles oi this aniient fraternity; but while we are bound td.cultivate benevolence, and extend the arm,of charity to our brethren of everv clime; we led the strongest obligations, tc support the civil authority which protects us. And when the illiberal attacks of a foreign enthusiast,' aided by the unfounded prejudi- ces of his followers, are tending to embarrass the public mind, with respect to the real views of our society, vve think it our duty to join in full concert with our fellow citizens, in expressions of gratitude to the supreme architect of the universe, lor endowing you witn tnat wisdom, patriotic h mi ness, and in- tegrity, which has characterised your pubic, conduct. While the independence of our country and the operation ol’just and equal laws, hav< contributed to enlarge, the sphere of soda: happiness, we rejoice that our Masonic bre thren, throughout the United States, .have discovered by their conduct, a-seal io pro- mote the public welfare, aid that many oi 'them have been cotispicuose for their talents, ind unwearied exertions; Amer.g tho-e, yW >redeces$or is the* map! illutdricus *■**,.k?-— .nd the memory of our Lelbvua Warren, vho from the chair oi this. Gram! j.< ! ; >ften urgyd the members, to the exoieise oi patriotism anti philanthropy,-and" who sealed tis principles with his biooti; shall ever'ani- nate us to a laudable ir itation of’his virtue-;. Sincerely we deprecate the cam mi lies of war, and have fervently wished success to every effort for the preservation of peace.— dut, Sir, ii we disregard the blessing1 of line;- ')'» we are unworthy to enjoy them. In v,;u nive our statesmen labored in their pub a assemblies, and by their midnight taper, in rain have our mountains and vailia.; been stained with the blood oi' our heroes, if wo vant firmness to repel the assaults of cn. erv presumptuous invader. And while, as citi- zens of a-tree republic, we engage our utmost exertions in the cause of our .country, ar.cl oi- ler our services'to protect the iairitdierifam- > of our ancestors; as Masons, we will cub i- vate the precepts of our institution, and alle- viate the miseries of-all who by the fortune of var, or the ordinary occurrences of life, are the proper objects of our attention. Long may you Continue a patron of the useful arts and an ornament of the present generation.—May you finish your public la- bors with an approving conscience, end be gathered to the sepulchre of jour copatriots with the benedictions of vour countrymen ; and finally may you be admitted to that ce- lestial temple, where ail national distinctions are. lost in undissemblecl friendship and uni- versal peace.. JOSEPH BARTLETT, Grand Master. SAMUEL DUNN, D. O. Master. JOS.LAUGHTON,? f . WM LITTLE, } G- "ar