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with the patient. Note, that the pabulum of this distemper, whatever it may be, is no otherwise morbific, than as it is fitted to admit and encourage this particular infection, so that the ejection thereof wholly or in part, is not in ar other respect, conducive to the health or duration of the constitution. I am farther strengthened as to the validity of these conjectures, by a common observation, that in a numerous family of children, the small-pox at one time seizes two or three only, and not the rest, who play, who feed, who lie with the infected. But some two or three years afterward, when the contagion prevails again, they who were spared on the former occasion, are now attacked, perhaps destroyed. It may be said, perhaps, that the former infection was of a weaker kind, than the latter. With me this is of little weight, because it as often happens that the first was the more mortal of the two, not only throughout the neighbourhood, but in the very family, from whence I take the state of my observation.

What I have here said on the small-pox, I extend to all epidemic fevers, the measles, the plague, the yellow, the spotted fevers, &c. which, when very destructive, ought, on my principles, to be inoculated, as well as the disorder in question. Nay, it is my opinion, they will be inoculated, as soon as necessity shall have opened the eyes of mankind, as it did the eyes of a Turkish bashaw, who, it is said, successfully inoculated the plague; and as soon too as the physicians shall have found out a right method of conveying the respective infections. By my conjectures on the leading fact, stated as above, it would seem to follow, that peparation for inoculation is not necessary. Not so necessary, I confess, as hath been imagined, but still very useful, and therefore by no means to be neglected. Every disorder incident to the human body, is more or less mitigated by a right and sound state of the humours, to which purging and a well-judged regimen may, no doubt, contribute somewhat, although by no means so much as a light and wholesome diet from infancy upward, together with a good air, and continual exercise, seldom pushed to a profuse sweat.

And now that my subject naturally leads me to that of temperance, give me leave to say, as a clergyman, that al

though the small-pox, and other infectious disorders, are each of them, ' sui generis,' and but little connected, if at all with other disorders, as might be made appear by innumerable experiments, yet all of them are considerably connected with the state of the constitution. Here temrance, that is, the use in sufficient quantities of light and le some food, appears to be no less calculated for health as a physical regimen, than for virtue, as the prescription of Christianity. It is equally well fitted either to guard against, to subdue, or to mitigate, all kinds of bodily disorders; or those of the mind. Infidelity, and her natural daughter intemperance, are more lucrative friends to the faculty than is commonly imagined. Christianity, if once thoroughly tried, will be found, that universal remedy which hath been so anxiously and so unsuccessfully sought after every where, but in that obvious, yet almost obsolete receipt. book-I mean the Bible.

The physical part of this letter I do most humbly submit to its proper judges, the gentlemen of the faculty; in some feeble hopes, that this additional reason for inoculation may augment the frequency of that most useful practice; the religious or moral part of it, I submit only to experiment, which if the public will not make, much good may its ill health and vices do the public.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF

A WELL OR POOL

IN THE COUNTY OF MONAGHAN,

FAMOUS FOR CURING THE JAUNDICE.

ABOUT three easy miles from Clones, on the way from thence to Monaghan, and very near the road, is the pool, or well, as the country people call it, of Grallibois, wherein great numbers have bathed for the jaundice, and been cured, from time immemorial (to my certain knowledge for more than forty years), after trying all other methods recommended by their friends and physicians, but in vain. There is not a year, wherein cures enough are not performed here to give this water a vogue, superior to all other remedies in this disorder, had it never been resorted to before. People of all ranks and conditions, and under all circumstances and stages of the disorder, excepting such as are far gone in a black jaundice, come hither extremely ill, and go away in a few days perfectly well. The notoriety of what I here assert is so established throughout the whole country for twenty miles round, and to a much greater distance, among the acquaintances of such as have come from other countries to be cured, that it is wholly needless to assign particular instances. A very great number have fallen within my own knowledge, and some, of persons who were growing black. So far humanity obliges me to vouch the benefit of repairing to this pool.

I hope the physicians will allow me to speak from the same principle, when I attempt to carry its effects a little farther on this subject. To do so, I must give a particular

account of the water itself, and the method of cure, which have somewhat in them extremely curious, and almost incredible.

This pool, which is not over a foot and a half in depth, and not more than four or five feet over, is situated within three feet of a rivulet, from whence it borrows all its water by a short inlet or gut of two or three yards, and by a soakage from a mill-race, flowing entirely from the same rivulet, and running along the side of a hill, about eight or ten feet higher than the well. This latter supply however is very inconsiderable. Passing this way in June 1769, with a very sensible young gentleman, we stopped to make observations on this pool; and having smelt and tasted the water both of the rivulet and well, with all the accuracy we were masters of, we had reason to judge them precisely the same water to all sensible evidence, and likewise the same with common river water. Not satisfied with this trial, which might have deceived us, we carefully shut out all influx from the rivulet, and from the adjacent ground, and then caused the pool to be emptied to the last drop, whereby we perceived, that here is absolutely no spring, nor a single drop of any fluid arising from within the cavity itself. Yet all the people, who live in the neighbourhood of this pool, declare the water of this rivulet to be as incapable of curing the jaundice, either above or below the pool, as any other water. They insist, it hath been tried, and found ineffectual. Their report of this trial however is to me very doubtful and improbable, as the method of cure by the water of this pool hath somewhat so uncommon, and apparently dangerous in it, that I can hardly think any patient in his senses, having come to the spot, would risk his life, merely for an experiment, when he might as well use the water, vouched by every body there to be safe and sanative, as that which they all must have declared to be useless. The reader will judge of this, when I acquaint him with the method of cure, which is this.

The patient, stripped to the shirt or shift, sits down in the pool, and some body heaves the water of the pool upon his or her head, and all over the body. Thus thoroughly wet, the patient, still keeping on the wet linen, is again clothed, but tears off a rag of his clothes, no matter from

what part of them, and ties it on an Alder-tree, which grows very near to the pool, then is carried off to some house in the neighbourhood, put to bed, sweats profusely without any farther medicines or means made use of for that purpose, and finds himself prodigiously relieved as to all the symptoms of his disorder, and calls impatiently for food. To perfect his cure he repeats this method a second and a third time, and fails not to go away perfectly sound and well; so well, that I have never heard it said, the disorder returned. I forgot to tell the reader, he need not repeat the ceremony of the rag, the Alder or the genius of the pool, being always content with one offering of this kind from each patient.

The

Here is all I know concerning the facts, but only, that forty years ago, I was told, some stranger, acquainted with the method of cure, but not with the pool, nor the ragged Alder, had thrice bathed, in the manner above-mentioned, at some other part of this rivulet, or in a larger river, into which this little stream discharges itself, not two hundred yards below the pool; and was perfectly cured. oldest people who live near the pool, declared to me, they never heard of any such patient or cure; and the report appears very improbable, as every one, coming from a distance, would be careful to inquire for the right place to bathe in, and as hardly any one would be so cruel, as to give him wrong directions in a matter so hazardous as to his life.

As I lay no great stress on the qualities of this water, applied but superficially to the skin, and prevented from penetrating through the absorbent vessels into the blood or habit, by the great and almost immediate diaphoresis which ensues; I am very much inclined to an opinion, that the cure is owing to the method, not any peculiar virtue in the water, and in short that any other water so applied, would work the same sort of cure; and I am the more confirmed in this opinion, because, in dry weather, this rivulet does not bring with it the fortieth part of the water, which is passed by it in time of heavy rains. Yet in all seasons of the year, and be the quantity of water more or less, out of which the pool is supplied, the method of cure equally succeeds, and consequently the cure cannot depend on

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