The mean state of the thermometer, and hygrometer, in Mobile, for three months, 1846, was as follows:

August, thermometer 78°-hygrometer 59°

From partial observations made in 1845, the same very unusual inequality in the range of these instruments existed. The autumns of those years, 1845 and '46, have been remarkably healthy.

Observation has caused the writer to remark, that during the nights and mornings, dense dews, commonly called fogs, are hovering over and settling down on the hills and bluffs of South Alabama, whilst the atmosphere of the vallies and plains below are comparatively dry. That these elevations are more unhealthy in dry seasons than the vallies, is a fact conceded by all.

It is a popular opinion among physicians, that dew, or an atmosphere saturated with moisture, is most unhealthy; because, in that condition the miasm is suspended, or held in solution in such a manner as to be inhaled or absorbed into the system. Independent of this indirect effect, there can be no doubt that an atmosphere thus charged with water, exerts a direct and pernicious influence upon the functions of the skin and lungs.

Dr. C. A. Lee, of New York, who has been making many experiments in reference to this subject, remarks, relative to the influence of the dew-point in the production of diseases: "This arises chiefly from the circumstance, that a high state of the dew-point interrupts to a greater or less extent, the healthy functions of the skin and lungs; two of the most important organs of the body. I maintain that a perfect decarbonization of the blood, cannot take place in the lungs with a high dew-point; and, consequently, that the vital fluid cannot receive a sufficient quantity of oxygen to fit it for those various offices which it is designed to perform in the animal economy."

We are led, consequently, to infer, from the remarks of this able investigator, as to cause and effect, that as the hygrometer approaches the maximum or tninimum point, so, in proportion, the seasons will vary from health to disease.

This principle of reasoning is not inconsonant with the operations of nature, for we find in the vegetable kingdom, that an unusual degree of moisture, tends to depress the healthy property of every variety of plant and forest growth.

Diseases of the Third, or Present Epoch.

Having presented the general outlines of the physical characters of each section of the State, we will now endeavour to give a brief description of the prominent diseases prevailing in each division. It is too much the custom with medical men to view disease in the mass, without directing the attention to its individual character. Diseases that are dissimilar in the manner of invasion, unlike in symptoms, complication, duration and mode of termination, either in recovery or death, are gen. erally looked upon as one and the same affection. This want of analy. sis in investigating the nature of disease in the abstract, leads to great

confusion in medical literature, particularly in the South, where remedies are prescribed through the Medical Journals, in varying doses, for disease under some one head, that may be totally dissimilar in character. It is true, that disease, to a great extent may prevail in some one locality in the same season, presenting precisely the same symptoms as in the various types of intermittent, remittent, congestive and yellow fevers; yet, in other sections of the country the symptoms may be so unlike in many respects as to demand an opposite method of treatment. Being only in the incipent stage of those investigations which it is our purpose to pursue, and pretending only to a mere sketch in this paper, rather than a full history, our account of the diseases now prevailing, must necessarily be brief and imperfect, with the satisfaction, however, of believing, that so far as we go we are correct.

As the affections of winter, from their increasing severity and fatality, are becoming invested with an interest of peculiar importance, even greater than that which attains to those of summer and autumn, a separate notice will hereafter be taken.

Many settlements and towns, which in the second epoch were noted as the abodes of disease, have of late years become distinguished for great salubrity. The city of Montgomery presents a marked instance of this change. From the settlement of this place, until 1837, a visitation of summer and autumnal fever, was annually experienced; since then, its exemption from this character of disease, has been very remarkable. This fortunate revolution in the health of this flourishing town was coincident with marked physical changes, such as the filling up of slues, ponds and low lands, abounding in organic remains, by the washing down of the ferruginous clay and sand from the surrounding hills.

The exceptions to the many instances of this kind that abound, are to be found upon, and in, the vicinity of the yellow argillaceous soils, which, as has already been mentioned, retain moisture, attract dews, and give rise to disease of much constancy and uniformity of character.

We now propose to describe those maladies which would seem to be the offspring of some emanation from that character of soil, which we have endeavoured to show is peculiar to sections presenting certain geological features, and which have been brought into cultivation since

1830.

Our attention will first be directed to those SUMMER and AUTUMNAL fevers, of the COAL and GRANITIC or HILLY PORTIONS Of THE STATE. Notwithstanding the extreme vicissitudes of the weather, incident to this region, are sufficient to give rise to an endless variety in the type of fevers, yet the general character of disease is not such as would come under the head of active, or open phlegmasia, but, like those of other sections, they are attended with small frequent pulse, moderate degree of heat on the surface, and in a majority of cases, there is a constant tendency to prostration.

Exposed, as this upland country is, to the effect of northerly winds, it may be assumed, that the warm days proper of summer, are some twenty less in number, than in the middle and Southern sections. For two or three weeks in July and August, the thermometrical range is higher than is exhibited in the pariries, or on the sea board; yet, if we take

the mean temperature for any number of months consecutively, it is less in proportion than in the same degree of latitude, either East or West, where the levelled surface of prairie soil presents an unbroken area of perennial verdure. There, the substratum is decomposed lime-stone; the surface, alluvial soil, where caloric and moisture are known to abound.

In the upland country, fevers of an intermittent and remittent type usually make their appearance about the first of July, increasing in number and becoming more violent in the month of August, with occasionally one of a typhoid character; and by the first of September, they have attained their maximum point.

These fevers, usually begin to decline in October; being more unfrequent, and less violent, except in those cases that have proceeded from a relapse, and then the disease is both obstinate and tedious, until repeated frosts have tended to change the character of the atmosphere, allay malaria, and brace up the shattered constitution. For some years past, in low, moist localities, the fevers have assumed a more grave type; what the physicians in those regions term "congestive intermittents." They are mostly quotidian, the chill continuing from two to six hours, and attended with coldness, shivering and the usual phenomena of an ordinary chill.

The cold stage is not attended with the same difficulty of respiration, cold clammy skin, sense of oppression, heat of the internal surface, extreme thirst, together with that marked depression of all the vital forces that characterizes the true congestive fever; the continuance of the cold stage, and moderate febrile reaction, seeming to depend upon the general tendency to a state of adynamia, that so peculiarly marks every form of fever at the present day, rather than any vital or important derangement of the functions. In the course of these, as well as all other acute affections, it is not unfrequently the case, that from some morbid derangement, by the administration of harsh and irritating medicines, vomiting, watery dejections and a state of colapse, may suddenly supervene. Under these circumstances, the medical attendant, unaccustomed to the fevers of the prairies, or not having studied the individual nature of southern fevers, is perfectly assured that he has encountered a case of congestive fever. This character of fever is rare in this region, and is simply referred to here because it is the only description of cases which has been denominated congestive; and the difference in the two diseases will become apparent, when we have described those of the prairies.

The summer and autumnal fevers of this region are principally intermittent and remittent, of a mild mature, attended with little fatality; the only severe, or grave form of febrile affection, being of a continued or typhoid character. Dr. Clark, in his esteemed letter, remarks, "in August, September and October of 1840, in Benton County, typhoid fever prevailed as an epidemic, assuming frequently a malignant, obstinate and unmanageable character. It attacked, indiscriminately, individuals of all ages, without regard to sex or colour. During the prevalence of this fever, we had also every grade and vareity of intermittent and remittent fever, throughout the summer months, but all the fatal cases, were of a typhoid character."

Notwithstanding the occurrence of this and other partial epidemics, idiopathic typhoid fever cannot by any means be regarded as the prevailing disease of summer and autumn; it more properly belongs to the winter and spring months; yet, as the general tendency of the remittent is to the continued typhoid, taken in connection with those that are essentially so, and that is the only type which is considered grave or dangerous, we cannot err in stating that typhoid fever prevails in this section of the State to some extent at least.

In the summer of 1839 and '40, the writer witnessed many cases of fever of various types in this section of country; some, which termed "typhoid congestive," were attended with a coldness of the extremities. profuse perspiration, and a strong accelerated pulse. Contrary to the usual course of fever, the perspiration increases with the arterial excitement, and subsides with it. In other cases, again, there is bilious vomiting, soft feeble pulse, moist yellow tongue, stupor, or coma.

In these forms of disease, the fever generally lasted from ten to fifteen days, and may be comprehended under that variety as described by Chomel, as not being essentially typhoid fever, representing different degrees of severity.

Typhoid fever, whether remittent at the first, or continued from the onset, is attended with extreme debility and great prostration of body, nervousness, irritability, perversion of the senses, stupor, sometimes delirium, and pain in the head and limbs; thirst and heat of skin, are frequently the variable, although prominent symptoms. The pulse is small and frequent, the bowels are slightly tympanitic, and sore on presThe tongue is usually round and lengthened, dark in the middle, the edges inclining to bend, and always dry, but when it becomes moist it is generally a sign of convalescence, which may occur in 8 or 10 days, but the usual duration of the fever is from 15 to 25 days.

sure.

This fever is not so strongly marked in autumn as in winter, and, separated from it, would not deserve the name, as it does not comprehend the strict definition of typhoid fever, a further notice of it, however, will be taken under the head of diseases pertaining to winter and spring. In the treatment of the continued fevers of this section of country, whether they are idiopathic, or supervening upon a remittent type, local depletion cautiously practised, diaphoretics, sinapisms, emolient poultices, diffusible stimulants, and mild alteratives, are the remedies usually employed by judicious practitioners. Quinine has been used at different periods, in every variety of dose and form, but always tending to aggravate the disease, and increase that disposition to local inflammation, which usually exist in the cases of that region.

We are, therefore led to infer, that the disease is one of that mixed character, requiring a mild antiphlogistic course, combined with moderate stimuli, to guard against the tendency that invariably exists to prostration.

In the southern portion of the State, pointed out as the Tertiary, the the fevers are less uniform in their type than in any other region, differing in every respect with the varying features of the country, and the peculiar nature of the soil; for in this section we find every variety of cause that would tend to generate malaria.

Here you meet with the dark lagoon that is overshadowed by the cumbrous foliage of timeworn forest trees; here the brackish marsh abounding in animal and vegetable deposit, the accumulated mass of ages lies exposed to the sun, and here the widespread creek and overflowing river leave their slimy deposit of decomposed matter over a vast extent of adjacent soil to furnish material for the generation of poisonous gases, all combining with their teeming stench to induce disease of grave malignant nature.

As any attempt at a description of all these types is incompatible with the limits of this paper, we will confine ourselves to those cases which occur in the vicinity of the swamp, extending from the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, down to the City of Mobile.The fevers here are strikingly dissimilar to those now prevailing in other parts of the country; the poisonous cause of disease, it will be remembered, arises from swamps and marshes of recent formation, in which vegetable matter greatly preponderates.

The cold and hot stages of the intermittents are characterized by the most violent extremes. The chill lasts from four to six hours, often amounting to a "shaking ague," the fever then ensues and continues with great violence from ten to twenty hours; the sweating stage is scarcely formed before another chill is announced, the paroxysms occuring at irregular intervals, and it must be noted that these intermittents are exceedingly obstinate, usually continuing from 8 to 10 days without any change.

The remittent, or, according to a strict definition, continued bilious fever, most usually form, and is commonly known as "swamp fever." It is attended with a full bounding pulse, from 110 to 130 in the minute, a dry and hot skin, pale flattened tongue covered with white fur, which in the course of the disease becomes yellow or dark brown, the pain in the head, back and limbs is very violent, some thirst, nausea and biliary derangement. Once in 24 or 48 hours, there is a tendency to remit, manifested usually by less frequency of pulse, abatement of pain, and moisture about the chest and head. The bowels are usually con stipated, all the secretions becoming diminished or suppressed. The blood very soon looses its rich tenacious qualities, becoming thin and pale, and the disease is from 6 to 14 days in running its course.

We have been treating this fever for several years, and seldom succeed in cutting it short. Large doses of quinine change the character of the symptoms, but never cure; convalescence is painfully protracted, or interupted by relapses, until the approach of frost.

During convalescence, or rather that protracted undefined state between the subsidence of the fever and frost, the patient is very weak, presenting a pale waxen appearance, but there is no evidence that any organ, has experienced a severe lesion. In fact, the absence of any tendency to local determination, sinking or collapse of the vital forces or to putresency and decomposition, proves at once its non-malignant character.

In the examination of four bodies made in the Hospitals of Mobile, the liver was atrophied in one, being also dry and brittle, like those dying of Yellow fever; and of a pale straw color. In the other three, this organ presented nothing peculiar as a lesion of disease; in fact there was no