to the smell must not necessarily be the | cause of endemic fever. Putrescent animal food, it is well known, is eaten, and yet not habitually, by many of the nations of the earth-the Greenlander and Kamtschadale devour half putrid flesh with as keen a relish as the European finds in his greatest dainties. The southern Asiatic revels in putridity, and, even amongst some of the more civilized nations, game is preferred in a state of incipient putrefaction, and when the odour is disgustingly offensive, yet no bad effects are induced. The manufacture of catguts is so disagreeable, in this point of view, that the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry' of Paris, a few years ago, of fered a prize to any person, who could render the process less disgusting; and an ingenious Pharmacien, M. Labarraque, rendered an important service to the community, by the discovery and promulgation of the disinfecting power of the chlorides, of which, advantage has since been taken in medicine and in the arts (see L'Art du Boyaudier &c. or "Art of the Gut Spinner," &c. by A. G. Labarraque, Paris, 1822); yet this offensive process did not occasion endemic disease. The author of this article has practised extensively in the vicinity of individuals, called "Knackers," whose occupation it is to convert the body of the dead horse to some of the useful purposes referred to by Dr. Cooper, and especially into cat's and dog's meat yet he never discovered the neighbourhood particularly subject to endemic disease. The tainted air of the dissecting room is breathed, month after month, and for many months, by hundreds of students, in different parts of the globe, yet no endemic fever is generated. Doubtless it is important, for purposes of general comfort and salubrity, that a pure air should always be respired, and in an unhealthy condition of atmosphere, whether of an endemic or epidemic character, disease would cæteris paribus, be more liable to be induced. All that is meant to be maintained is-that putrid emanations, alone, are not likely to be the cause of en * Since writing this, the author has seen a similar statement regarding the knackers of Paris, (taken from the 5th. volume of the Recueil Iadustriel) in the No. of the Journal of the Franklin Institute, for January, 1829. demic disease. Sudden and forcible impressions upon any of the other sensesvivid light, acute sounds, cutaneous irritations-may all induce temporary disorder, and are equally likely to do so as offensive odours. 3. Aqueous Decomposition does not induce Endemic Fever. This can be demonstrated by familiar examples. The bilge water, in the holds of ships, to which reference has been made, does not occasion discase, unless in some rare instances, where it has become actually dried up like that of a marsh, or absorbed into the collected rubbish and foulness of the ship's well: verifying the common saying of the sailors, that a leaky ship is ever a healthy ship, and vice versa. The British ships of war, when about to proceed on a long voyage, lay in a stock. of water, generally from the Thames, which is loaded with animal and vegetable matter. The quantity taken in is, at times, so great as to constitute many floorings or tiers of barrels, close to which the people sleep with impunity, although it is disgustingly putrid, and could scarcely fail to affect them, if it contained any seeds of disease. In some ships, the water is kept in large tanks over which the crew sleep in safety. They, who have never seen the water of the Thames, can have but little idea of its impure condition, yet it is preferred, on a long voyage, inasmuch as it has the property of self-purification. After it has been for some time in the casks or tanks, the animal and vegetable substances, contained in it, become putrid, and so much gas is disengaged, that it may be readily inflamed on the surface of the water: the solid and insoluble matters are then deposited, and the water becomes comparatively pure and potable. In this case, we have a combination of animal, vegetable and aqueous decomposition, and under favourable circumstances for producing disease, yet no endemic is generated. Dr. Ferguson has adduced a similar example occurring on land. At Lisbon, and throughout Portugal, there can be no gardens without water: but the garden is almost every thing to a Portuguese family. All classes of the inhabitants endeavour to preserve it, particularly in Lisbon, for which purpose they have very large stone reservoirs of water, that are filled by pipes, perature sufficient to evaporate more or less from the public aqueducts, when water is of the water and to expose the bottom to the abundant-but these supplies are always solar heat: the marsh must, in other words, cut off in the summer. The water, con- cease to be a marsh: and the sensible pusequently, being most precious, is husband- trefaction of organic substances be imposed with the utmost care for the three months sible before the surface can become deleof absolute drought of the summer season. tereous: hence, the writer to whose excelIt falls of course into the most concentrated lent article reference has been made more state of foulness and putridity, diminish- than once, has been induced to conclude, ing and evaporating day after day, till it that there seems to be one only condition insubsides into a thick, green, vegetable dispensable to the production of the marsh scum, or a dried crust. In the confined poison, on all surfaces capable of absorbgardens of Lisbon particularly, these reser- tion, and that is-the paucity of water where voirs may be seen in this state close to the it has previously and recently abounded. houses, close even to the sleeping places of "To this there is no exception in climates the household, in the atmosphere of which of high temperature, and from thence we they literally live and breathe: yet no one may justly infer, that the poison is producever heard or dreamt of fever being gener-ed at a highly advanced stage of the dryated amongst them from such a source: ing process ;" and he properly adds that though the most ignorant native is well" in the present state of our knowledge we aware, that were he only to cross the river and sleep on the sandy shores of the Alentejo, where a particle of water at that season had not been seen for months, and where water, being absorbed into the sand, as soon as it fell, was never known to be putrid, he would run the greatest risk of being seized with remittent fever. 4. Of the innocency of a combination of animal and vegetable putrefaction, we have numerous examples: those of the dunghill and of the animal and vegetable refuse in every extensive farm yard need alone be referred to. can no more tell what that precise stage may be, or what that poison actually is, the developement of which must be ever varying, according to circumstances of temperature, moisture, elevation, perflation, aspect, texture and depth of soil, than we can define and describe those vapours that generate typhus fever, small pox and other diseases." The marsh itself then gives off no malaria, except from the part which is exposed, and the same may be said of the lake and stagnant pond. The mode of cultivating the land in some of the departments of 5. Of the harmlessness of a combination France,-Basse Bresse, Brenne, Sologne of aqueous and vegetable putrefaction, the and Dombes, consists in forming it altercase of the sugar ship is sufficient. It nately into ponds, and then submitting it has indeed been repeatedly asserted, that to tillage: it is kept in the state of pond, the steeping of hemp, which is frequently for 18 months or two years, at the expiradone in stagnant pools, is an unhealthy tion of which time the water is made to process and the Italians have according-run into a neighbouring field: the land is ly issued ordinances to prevent it: but recultivated for one or two years, and afthese ordinances, as Dr. Ferguson has cor- terwards, again formed into a pond: the rectly remarked, have overlooked the lead-consequence of this system is, that the ing, primary, causes, scated in the stagnant whole country is rendered almost uninhabpool, the autumnal season and the mias-itable: the labourer enters upon the land, matic or malarious soil around, and have had as soon as the water has been drained off, their attention directed to a concomitant circumstance of little or no importance. Nor does the manufacture of the indigo constitute an exception to the rule laid down. It is peculiar in the process, as it is in the products, and besides, if putrefaction be permitted, the product is spoiled. Again, that these pestilential emanations may arise in marshy districts, it is necessary that there shall be a degree of tem-' to put it into a state of culture, and im- drying and dried surface is exposed, the place becomes insalubrious. A striking instance of the increase of malaria, after draining, is given by M. Rigaud Delile. "At the time of the erection of the bridge of Felice, in order to unite all the waters of the river, Sextus V. was obliged to divert a branch of the Tiber, which passed below the hills of Magliano, leaving to time the task of filling the old bed. Half of the population perished: one single convent of Nuns contained 69 sisters, including Novices, of whom 63 died in two years." of the lofty mountains into the vallies. The discovery that it was common in countries, where no snow was ever perceptible, at length exploded this common belief. Our ignorance is not, however, confined to endemic disease. We know no more of the immediate cause of epidemics-of the influenza for example, which frequently visits us, than we do of the cause of the incessant vicissitudes which occur in the atmosphere itself: nor have we the slightest acquaintance with the constituents of any emanation from the subject of any one of the numerous contagious disorders,— small pox, measles, &c.-active as such emanations unquestionably are. The extent of our ignorance on this subject will be most clearly exhibited, by a reference to the chief ex professo essays which have appeared, within the last few years. In the year 1820, as we have seen, Dr. Ferguson read his paper on marsh poison before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In the seventy second number of the Ed It has been already asserted, that we are utterly uninformed regarding the precise character of the emanations from even the most unhealthy marshes, where we know, that some volatile matter must be disengaged. The air has been over and over again submitted to analysis, but, in no case, have any other constituents been discovered or any different proportions of those constituents than what are met with in the air of the most salubrious situations. It is not hydrogen, or carburetted, or sulphur-inburgh Review, an article was contained etted hydrogen, for no such adventitious gases are discoverable on the most accurate analysis--nor is it an additional quantity of carbonic acid gas or of azote. The revival of the old theory of animalcules, in the eighth number of the American Quar-lished, at Paris, a work entitled "Recherterly Review scarcely requires a comment, as the author has manifestly too much ingenuity to be serious. on the subject, which was ascribed to Dr. M'Culloch, and, in the fifty-ninth number of the London Quarterly, several of the views, therein maintained, were combated. In the year 1823, M. J. S. E. Julia pub ches historiques, chimiques et medicales sur l'air marecageux," or, "Researches historical, chemical and medical on marshy air," and, in the course of the last year, Dr. McCulloch gave to the world a treatise on the subject, reviews of which, constituting distinct essays, have been recently afforded in the Southern Review and the American Quarterly. All these essays, except the latter of Dr. M'Culloch, are now before us. The causes, then, of endemic disease are involved in great obscurity. It may, indeed, be affirmed,that we are totally unacquainted with the cause of every endemic disease of every kind. All that we know of malaria is, that it seems to consist of some peculiar terrestrial emanation of which we know nothing. We are totally in the dark, regarding the precise nature of Dr. Ferguson's opinion has been already the locality, which renders the base of lofty stated--he is satisfied, that malaria does mountains in every region of the globe sub- not arise from aqueous or vegetable putreject to Goitre or Bronchocele, as it is tech-faction singly or combined. The author nically termed the swelled neck, of which many cases are met with in this country. We know not why the yellow fever, is endemic in the West Indies-the Guinea Worm and elephantiasis in Africa or idiocy and corporeal deformity in the Valais-the causes are inscrutable and will probably ever remain so. Yet, at one period, not a doubt was entertained that the swelled neck was occasioned by drinking snow water, which had descended from the summits of the article in the London Quarterly seems to possess opinions nearly similar to those of Dr. Ferguson. M. Julia ascribes it to a union of animal and vegetable putrefaction, but expresses his total ignorance of the nature of the emanation. Dr. MCulloch maintains, that putrefuction, in the proper sense of the term, is not necessary to its production, but that the stage or mode of vegetable decomposition, required for the production of the malaria, is differ ent from that, which generates a fetid gas. The Southern Reviewer, more bold in his assertions, affirms it to be a doctrine established by incontrovertible reasoning, "founded on a vast mass of accumulated facts," that the principal source of this deleterious agent is the decomposition of vegetable substances, whilst the author of the article in the American Quarterly attempts to prop what, he properly terms, the exploded opinion that miasma is animalcular; and, we may add, that others, amongst whom is President Dwight of Yale College, who was extremely fond of physical investigations, have maintained the opinion that the diseases, commonly imputed to stagnant waters and marsh miasmata, are produced by animalcular putrefaction! What do these discrepancies prove but that there are no fixed ideas on the subject? In conclusion, we may affirm, from a thorough consideration of the matter, that we are wholly uninstructed regarding the immediate cause of any one of these endemics or endemico-epidemics, which so frequently affect districts previously healthy: the anxieties, the interests, the fears, the prejudices and the superstitions of indivivuals are active on such occasions to suggest a cause-but, it is extremely doubtful, whether any adequate cause has, in any case, been discovered. It has fallen to the lot of the writer of this article to witness numerous cases of disease of this character in situations which have been, previously and subsequently, amongst the most salubrious, but, in every instance, on the most scrutinizing investigation, no satisfactory cause could be met with. Many, it is true, have been suggested, but most of them have been founded in medical or physical error and in the natural credulity of man kind. In the year 1816, the town of Havre and several other places in Normandy were affected by an epidemic cholera, putting on, pretty nearly, the same symptoms, as are induced by some varieties of poison. The public mind was agitated and every one felt persuaded that the disease was occasioned by Oysters, which had been obtained from a new bed, formed at Havre, in earth recently excavated in the moat of the old castle. So much excitement prevailed, that Messrs. Chaussier and Vauquelin were sent down to Havre, by the Faculty of Medicine of Paris to report on the causes. These gentlemen found the oysters perfectly sound-that the symptoms were merely those of an accidental epidemic and that the whole of the excitement had originated from jealousy towards the new establishment. The result proved the correctness of their report. A medical gentleman was one of the witnesses on a trial, respecting a nuisance, where the writer of this article was a witness on the opposite side. He deposed, that an infected gas had passed in at the key-hole of a door and attacked a child, lying asleep in its crib, with a malady that proved fatal. The nuisance, complained of, was the smoke from a manufactory of the spirit of coal tar. The assigning of such a cause was frivolous in the extreme. The disease, under which the child labored, was hydrocephalus or water in the head, and might have occurred, as it does occur, in any situation. Unfortunately, the public, instead of judging for themselves, are induced to adopt, without reservation, every phantasy, provided it emanates from one of the profession, and on subjects, frequently, where the extra-professional are as capable of arriving at correct conclusions as the professional. This is to be deplored. Medicine is physical in its nature,-physico-moral in its investigation and practice, and no assertion ought to be received, especially on a matter of this nature, merely because it proceeds from a medical practitioner. The reasons ought to be rigidly examined. They should be weighed in those scales which would be employed for testing the validity of any other assertion, and, until this course is adopted, we cannot expect to witness that improvement in the theory and in the practice of the Profession, which is in every point of view, so desirable an object. CHEMISTRY. Z.Y. In Chaucer's Tale of the "Chanon Yeman," Chemistry is termed an Elfish Art, that is, taught or pursued by Spirits "Whan we be ther as we shall exercise And again: "Though he sit at his boke both daie and night, "In lerning of this elvish nice lore." DABNEY CARR TERRELL, Esq. We publish, to day, the first of a manuscript collection of fugitive pieces, by the late Dabney Carr Terrell Esq.--an individual whose modest and unassuming merit prevented his being sufficiently appreciated beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. An unfortunate and fatal duel with a fellow student, at the age of seventeen, threw over his existence a gloom which is perceptible in all his compositions, and thus exerted a baneful influence on his subsequent success in life. Mr. Terrell died at New Orleans, of the yellow fever, on the sixteenth of August, in the year 1827, at the early age of 29. Kentucky and Virginia, (for his parents were Virginians) will be proud to reckon him amongst their meritorious descendants and as one eminent, in a department, where so few are capable of attaining even mediocrity. Many of Mr. Terrell's productions will remind the reader of the immortal Byron, whom he appears, indeed, to have taken for his model, and all are indicative of unusual poetic talent in the lamented author. SONNET I. In my young days, and in yon foreign clime Where I did seek a refuge from the blow Which smote my soul, and quench'd its burning glow; In the hard consciousness of blood and crime, I plung'd me in the follies of the time Where syrens smile and sparkling goblets flow; And then I sought the sage's lore to know, To catch the Muse's consecrated rhyme, But these were vain: the heart, all uncon troll'd, Still on that recollection sternly hung, mould, Not all its woes a single tear had wrung From him, who bore them silently, untold, Till madly to that mountain nymph it clung. D. C T. SONNET II.-TO THE MOON. The moon is set, the thousand stars that shed, And yonder comes the joyous king and bright Who bends upon the earth his cheering ray And rules alone the Heaven's-the lord supreme of day. D.C.T. TRANSLATION FROM METASTASIO. LA PARTENZA.-THE PARTING. I "Ecco qual fiero istante; Nice, ma Nice addio!" Alas! the fatal hour is come, For we two ne'er must meet again; II. Permit, at least, of peace bereft, III. When on a far and foreign shore V. VI. Of gallant youths a glittering band VII. Oh! lady, think how keen the dart, |