ber 21, 1799, and signed by Dr. James Craik, his attending physician, and Dr. Elisha Dick, his consulting physician. Thus died one of the greatest and most distinguished men of any age or nation, in the last hour of the last day of the week, in the last month of the year in the last year of the last century, in his 68th year. The violent ague with which this commenced was doubtless the rigor of incipient inflammation.

"The pain and sense of stricture in the upper and fore part of the throat, and the labor of breathing, showed that the inflammation was seated in the larynx."

The more immediate cause of the attack was standing on the damp ground for some time, looking at some workmen. Inflammatory diseases are more violent and fatal in large persons like Washington, who was six feet high; his head measured seven and a half inches, and he weighed, in 1778, two hundred and nine pounds.

And it is not uncommon for persons to feel a kind of burning or raw sensation in the throat when their feet have become damp or cold, and remained so for some time. In others it is the first warning that a cold has been taken, given sometimes at midnight when the person had retired in usual health; this was the case with Washington. In all such sudden attacks at night, a person should send for a physician at once, then have a mustard plaster put to the throat, a thin piece of wetted paper or muslin intervening between the mustard and the skin, to keep it from raising a blister and breaking the skin; let the plaster be made of vinegar and mustard only; then put the feet in hot water, with one or two, or three tablespoons of ground mustard stirred up in a gallon of the water, which should be in a wooden vessel, this will bring the water over half leg deep;

keep adding more hot water from time to time for half an hour, so that the water shall be hotter when the feet are taken out than when put in; at the end of the half hour, the patient being wrapped up well all the time in a good thick blanket, drinking as much cold water as he desires, wipe the feet dry, hold them by the fire, rubbing them with the hands until perfectly dry and warm, especially between the toes and at the heels, get into bed with bottles of hot water to the feet; these bottles should be only three-fourths filled with water, should be well stopped, and be wrapped up, each bottle in a small piece of woollen flannel, with the edges of the flannel turned in so as to be an additional aid in keeping the cork in; additional bed clothing should be placed from the upper part of the thighs downwards, and as little as consistent with preventing chilliness on the upper part of the person, the bed clothing to be well tucked in at the sides, until the arrival of the physician. These directions are given, not as a cure, except in mild cases, but in order to save time, for, as is seen above, it is, if at all violent, a rapidly progressing, and speedily fatal disease.

The reason of its fatality is, that there is inflammation. The minute blood vessels are over distended with angry, inflammatory blood, and the chink of the glottis, that is, the entrance at the top of the windpipe, through which the air must pass to the lungs, and it can reach them in no other way, is very narrow, and is easily filled up by these blood vessels being so swollen with the unusual amount of blood in them, that they more or less completely occupy the passage designed for the breath, and besides this, the more watery portion of the blood is exuded through the delicate sides of the little blood

vessels into the interstices, and causes additional swelling of the parts.

CROUP OF CHILDREN,

is precisely the same thing, only occurring in the body of the windpipe instead of at the top, and as the windpipe is more roomy, and from its unyielding gristly nature, not inclined to swell, the more watery portions of the blood are differently disposed of: they harden and form a tough, leathery kind of substance like the exuding and hardening of gum on a tree, this thickens and thickens until the whole cavity is filled, is choked up, and the child dies from suffocation; an operation similar to that of the filling up of the boilers of steam-boats, or the spout of the tea-kettle where limestone water is used. And as many a lovely child is destroyed in a single night, and many young mothers are wholly ignorant of the dangerous nature of the ailment, it may be useful to state here what should be done while the messenger has gone for a physician.

SYMPTOMS OF CROUP.

It almost always comes on at night, after the child has been some time in bed, and generally after having been out of doors of a damp, raw day. He is restless, and gives an unusual sounding cough, without its wakening him; a cough so peculiar that a parent who has heard it once, will never fail to recognize it afterwards, a kind of ringing, husky, muffled cough, with something of a hoarse barking sound; it is from a Scotch word, which means a croaky or husky sound; after a while the child coughs again, and is roused up, and after each cough the breath is drawn in with a hissing noise like a chicken with the pip, the breathing becomes slower as the open.

ing becomes smaller by the gradual filling up as before described, the face is flushed, the eyes red, tearful, blood shot, skin dry and hot, or face bathed in perspiration, the hand is frequently carried to the throat, as if distress were felt there, great thirst, urine high colored, great uneasiness, restlessness between the fits of coughing; a mother who has ever heard it once, needs no description to enable her to recognize it again. The first born are most likely to perish with it; simply because the parent has no experience of its nature, and hence is not alarmed in time, or knows not what to do, while the physician is being sent for. In the hope of being instrumental in saving some little sufferer, whose life is inexpressibly dear, at least to one or two, I will make some suggestions, not for the cure of the patient, but to save time. The instant you perceive that the child has Croup, indicated by the barking Cough, uneasy breathing, restlessness, send for a physician, and as instantly wrap a hot flannel around each foot, to keep it warm; but while the flannels are being heated, dip another flannel, of two or more thicknesses, in spirits of turpentine, or spirits of hartshorn; or have a large mustard plaster applied, one that will reach from the top of the throat down to some two inches below the collar bones, wide enough at top to reach half-way round the neck on either side, and nearly across the whole breast at bottom. But it will take time to send for a physician, to prepare flannels, and to make the plaster or obtain the turpentined flannel, and in some cases fifteen minutes is an age-is death, if lost; therefore, while these things are preparing, give the child, if one year old or over (and half as much, if less), about half a teaspoonful of Hive Syrup, and double the dose every fifteen

minutes until vomiting is produced; and every half hour after vomiting, give half as much as caused the vomiting, until the physician comes, or the child ceases to cough, when he breathes free, and is safe. If you have no Hive Syrup, give a teaspoon-ful of Syrup of Ipecac, and double the dose every fifteen minutes until vomiting is produced. If you have nothing at all, boil some water, keep it boiling, dip woollen flannels of several folds into it, squeeze it out moderately with your hand, and apply it as hot as the child can possibly bear it to the throat, and in from one to three minutes, according to the violence of the symptoms, have another to put on, the instant the first is removed, and keep this up until the breathing is easy and the cough is loose and the phlegm is freely discharged, or until the arrival of the physician.

The second form of Throat-Ail is called Chronic Laryngitis, from its long continuance, this is the real Throat-Ail, which for some years past has been becoming increasingly common, and which from neglect, is so frequently ending in a general decline and death, usually running its course to a fatal termination in a year or two, or three.

The nature, causes, and symptoms of this disease have been described in previous pages. The object now is, to attempt to induce persons TO ATTEND TO THE FIRST SYMPTOMS, for the simple reason, that in perhaps a majority of cases, they are the symptoms of coming Consumption. Some physicians of great eminence, men of learning, and of patient, long continued research, have so generally seen the symptoms of throat-ail end in Consumption, as to have expressed their opinion, that the symptoms of chronic layringitis are the effect of Consumptive disease already present in the system; and I