sent suffering, and therefore distinctly remembered; but for the reasons above stated, we are rather reluctant to admit them as frequent causes of fever. That they induce relapses we have no doubt; but a full meal, or a sharp walk for a few hundred yards frequently produces the same effect.

One general cause has been assigned, with great confidence, by some writers on the present epidemic, though others seem rather to doubt of its existence as such. I allude to famine, a circum. stance which, from the most early times, has been observed in alliance with epidemics, and an oracular exposé to the same effect may be seen in Thucydides. That it has had some share, direct or indirect, in the production of the disease, I can hardly doubt; yet I must confess that no instances of fever which could be traced to this source ever fell under my notice. Two friends of mine did indeed meet with a case of disease in which hunger seemed to have a principal share; but whether it was typhus fever, or mere prostration of strength from inanition, they declare themselves unable to decide. In this town, the fever, as I am informed, was observed prevalent before the scarcity took place; and it seems curious that the inhabitants of great manufacturing towns, who must have suffered most from the late general distress, should be found to be the last to become affected with fever.

From the report of Dr Hunter of Leeds, it appears, that the disease even yet is not very general in that large town, and that when it did begin, it originated very distinctly from contagion. At Glasgow, its appearance was perhaps later than here; and at Dundee, later than at either place. Poverty, filth, and defective accommodation, must always operate powerfully in propagating the disease when it has once commenced; but as the editor of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal truly remarks, there were certainly no such miserable or revolting examples of starvation to be seen in Edinburgh, as have been described in Ireland. (See Dr Kidd's paper, Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal.) At any rate, starvation can only be considered as a predisposing cause, and can never account for the appearance of the disease amongst the higher orders.

It has been already remarked, that a great number of the febrile patients received into Queensberry House consisted of labouring Irish, who, without doubt, by their habits of filth and debauchery, have tended much to spread the disease, if not to introduce it in its present form into this city. Their migratory and mendicant habits tend much to establish the probability of the latter opinion, as the present epidemic, no doubt, first made its appearance in Ireland, and very soon after

`was noticed in this town, where it still continues to prevail very much amongst that branch of the population. I say branch of the population, because, of late years, the distresses in Ireland, and the comparative ease of procuring employment in Scotland, have filled with low Irish all the little offices and employments usually occupied by the Celtic part of our own population; and this change has been so sudden and so rapid, that twelve years ago, the sight of an Irish porter or lamp-lighter was considered as matter of curiosity. This I do not state upon my own authority or recollection, but upon that of a friend who has long watched the tide of population in Edinburgh, with its multifarious variations and bearings. The exertions, however, of the Society for the Suppression of Begging; of the Magistrates; and other public-spirited individuals, have prevented the wives of Irish labourers from doing much mischief in this town, by their practice of going out to beg while their husbands are at work; but, in some of the country districts, where absolute prevention is impossible, it is suspected that the fever has been propagated by their means. It is evident, however, that this mendicity can act only by transferring the contagious matter from one house to another, and therefore is only to be classed with the other innumerable ways of propagating contagion.

REVIEW

OF THE

TABLES.

THE foregoing general account has been drawn up from observation on nearly 2000 cases of the present epidemic, which I have had an opportunity of seeing either here, or at the Royal Infirmary within the last 15 or 16 months, and to upwards of 1000 of these it has been my particular duty to attend.

But a general description of a disease, however carefully drawn up, gives but a vague and unsatisfactory idea to the reader on many points connected with it. I have therefore, to obviate this as much as possible, thrown into a tabular view, a specimen of which will be seen Table No. 1, Appendix, NO. II., the cases of 743 patients, either dismissed cured from, or who have died at this hospital, since it was opened on the 23d February 1818, up to the 1st January of the present year. These Tables I meant to have published at length; but as they would have been both expensive and volų,

minous, I have thought it better to give the most interesting of the information contained in them condensed into smaller Tables. As it seems to be the opinion of some physicians, that many circumstances connected with fever vary considerably with the season of the year, I have generally drawn up the Tables, first by months, then by quarters, giving lastly the general average. The spring and winter quarters are of course incomplete, the first comprehending only the five last days of February, and the months of March and April; and the winter quarter, as I have called it, includes only November and December., I have thought it better to make this arrangement, in order that we might get the summer and autumn quarters complete, than to count by quarters from the opening of the house,-conceiving that what is given of the spring and winter seasons will be sufficient to satisfy most of my readers, who imagine that in these seasons the disease shews any peculiarities. Knowing that tables are, in general, very little consulted by many of the profession, I shall here give the sum of the information contained in them, in a form less artificial, referring such as are more curious to the Appendix,

I have been induced to give these minute tabular views, more from a wish which several friends have expressed for such information, than from