Gentlemen[1],
I rise with peculiar diffidence to address you
upon this occasion, when I reflect upon the entertainment
you proposed to yourselves from the eloquence
of that learned member, Mr. Charles
Thompson, whom your suffrages appointed to this
honour after the delivery of the last anniversary
oration. Unhappily for the interests of science, his
want of health has not permitted him to comply
with your appointment. I beg, therefore, that
you would forget, for a while, the abilities necessary
to execute this task with propriety, and
listen with candour to the efforts of a member,
whose attachment to the society was the only qualification
that entitled him to the honour of your
choice.
The subject I have chosen for this evening's
entertainment, is “An inquiry into the natural
history of medicine among the Indians in North-America,
and a comparative view of their diseases
and remedies, with those of civilized nations.”
You will readily anticipate the difficulty
of doing justice to this subject. How shall
we distinguish between the original diseases of the
Indians and those contracted from their intercourse
with the Europeans? By what arts shall
we persuade them to discover their remedies?
And lastly, how shall we come at the knowledge
of facts in that cloud of errors, in which the credulity
of the Europeans, and the superstition of the
Indians, have involved both their diseases and remedies?
These difficulties serve to increase the
importance of our subject. If I should not be
able to solve them, perhaps I may lead the way to
more successful endeavours for that purpose.
I shall first limit the tribes of Indians who are
to be the objects of this inquiry, to those who inhabit
that part of North-America which extends
from the 30th to the 60th degree of latitude.
When we exclude the Esquimaux, who inhabit
the shores of Hudson's bay, we shall find a general
resemblance in the colour, manners, and state of
society, among all the tribes of Indians who inhabit
the extensive tract of country above-mentioned.
Civilians have divided nations into savage, barbarous,
and civilized. The savage live by fishing
and hunting; the barbarous, by pasturage or cattle;
and the civilized, by agriculture. Each of these
is connected together in such a manner, that the
whole appear to form different parts of a circle.
Even the manners of the most civilized nations
partake of those of the savage. It would seem as
if liberty and indolence were the highest pursuits
of man; and these are enjoyed in their greatest
perfection by savages, or in the practice of customs
which resemble those of savages.
The Indians of North-America partake chiefly
of the manner of savages. In the earliest accounts
we have of them, we find them cultivating a spot
of ground. The maize is an original grain among
them. The different dishes of it which are in use
among the white people still retain Indian names.
It will be unnecessary to show that the Indians
live in a state of society adapted to all the exigencies
of their mode of life. Those who look for
the simplicity and perfection of the state of nature,
must seek it in systems, as absurd in philosophy,
as they are delightful in poetry.
Before we attempt to ascertain the number or
history of the diseases of the Indians, it will be necessary
to inquire into those customs among them
which we know influence diseases. For this purpose
I shall,
First, Mention a few facts which relate to the
birth and treatment of their children.
Secondly, I shall speak of their diet.
Thirdly, Of the customs which are peculiar to
the sexes, and,
Fourthly, Of those customs which are common
to them both[2].
I. Of the birth and treatment of their children.
Much of the future health of the body depends
upon its original stamina. A child born of healthy
parents always brings into the world a system
formed by nature to resist the causes of diseases.
The treatment of children among the Indians,
tends to secure this hereditary firmness of constitution.
Their first food is their mother's milk.
To harden them against the action of heat and
cold (the natural enemies of health and life among
the Indians) they are plunged every day into cold
water. In order to facilitate their being moved
from place to place, and at the same time to preserve
their shape, they are tied to a board, where
they lie on their backs for six, ten, or eighteen
months. A child generally sucks its mother till
it is two years old, and sometimes longer. It is
easy to conceive how much vigour their bodies
must acquire from this simple, but wholesome nourishment.
The appetite we sometimes observe in
children for flesh is altogether artificial. The peculiar
irritability of the system in infancy forbids
stimulating aliment of all kinds. Nature never
calls for animal food till she has provided the child
with those teeth which are necessary to divide it.
I shall not undertake to determine how far the
wholesome quality of the mother's milk is increased
by her refusing the embraces of her husband, during
the time of giving suck.
II. The diet of the Indians is of a mixed nature,
being partly animal and partly vegetable. Their
animals are wild, and therefore easy of digestion.
As the Indians are naturally more disposed to the
indolent employment of fishing than hunting, in
summer, so we find them living more upon fish
than land animals, in that season of the year.—Their
vegetables consist of roots and fruits, mild
in themselves, or capable of being made so by the
action of fire. Although the interior parts of our
continent abound with salt springs, yet I cannot
find that the Indians used salt in their diet, till they
were instructed to do so by the Europeans. The
small quantity of fixed alkali contained in the ashes
on which they roasted their meat, could not add
much to its stimulating quality. They preserve
their meat from putrefaction, by cutting it into
small pieces, and exposing it in summer to the sun,
and in winter to the frost. In the one case its
moisture is dissipated, and in the other so frozen,
that it cannot undergo the putrefactive process. In
dressing their meat, they are careful to preserve
its juices. They generally prefer it in the form of
soups. Hence we find, that among them the use
of the spoon, preceded that of the knife and fork.
They take the same pains to preserve the juice of
their meat when they roast it, by turning it often.
The efficacy of this animal juice, in dissolving meat
in the stomach, has not been equalled by any of
those sauces or liquors which modern luxury has
mixed with it for that purpose.
The Indians have no set time for eating, but
obey the gentle appetites of nature as often as they
are called by them. After whole days spent in
the chace or in war, they often commit those excesses
in eating, to which long abstinence cannot
fail of prompting them. It is common to see them
spend three or four hours in satisfying their hunger.
This is occasioned not more by the quantity
they eat, than by the pains they take in masticating
it. They carefully avoid drinking water in
their marches, from an opinion that it lessens their
ability to bear fatigue.
III. We now come to speak of those customs
which are peculiar to the sexes. And, first, of
those which belong to the WOMEN. They are
doomed by their husbands to such domestic labour
as gives a firmness to their bodies, bordering upon
the masculine. Their menses seldom begin to flow
before they are eighteen or twenty years of age,
and generally cease before they are forty. They
have them in small quantities, but at regular intervals.
They seldom marry till they are about
twenty. The constitution has now acquired a
vigour, which enables it the better to support the
convulsions of child-bearing. This custom likewise
guards against a premature old age. Doctor
Bancroft ascribes the haggard looks, the loose
hanging breasts, and the prominent bellies of the
Indian women at Guiana, entirely to their bearing
children too early[3]. Where marriages are
unfruitful (which is seldom the case) a separation
is obtained by means of an easy divorce; so that
they are unacquainted with the disquietudes which
sometimes arise from barrenness. During pregnancy,
the women are exempted from the more
laborious parts of their duty: hence miscarriages
rarely happen among them. Nature is their only
midwife. Their labours are short, and accompanied
with little pain. Each woman is delivered
in a private cabin, without so much as one of her
own sex to attend her. After washing herself
in cold water, she returns in a few days to her
usual employments; so that she knows nothing of
those accidents which proceed from the carelessness
or ill management of midwives; or those
weaknesses which arise from a month's confinement
in a warm room. It is remarkable that there
is hardly a period in the interval between the eruption
and the ceasing of the menses, in which they
are not pregnant, or giving suck. This is the most
natural state of the constitution during that interval;
and hence we often find it connected with
the best state of health, in the women of civilized
nations.
The customs peculiar to the Indian MEN, consist
chiefly in those employments which are necessary
to preserve animal life, and to defend their
nation. These employments are hunting and war,
each of which is conducted in a manner that tends
to call forth every fibre into exercise, and to ensure
them the possession of the utmost possible
health. In times of plenty and peace, we see them
sometimes rising from their beloved indolence, and
shaking off its influence by the salutary exercises
of dancing and swimming. The Indian men seldom
marry before they are thirty years of age:
they no doubt derive considerable vigour from
this custom; for while they are secured by it from
the enervating effects of the premature dalliance of
love, they may insure more certain fruitfulness to
their wives, and entail more certain health upon
their children. Tacitus describes the same custom
among the Germans, and attributes to it the
same good effects. “Sera juvenum venus, eoque
inexhausta pubertas; nec virgines festinantur;
eadem juventa, similis proceritas, pares validique
miscentur; ac robora parentum liberi
referunt[4].”
Among the Indian men, it is deemed a mark of
heroism to bear the most exquisite pain without
complaining; upon this account they early inure
themselves to burning part of their bodies with
fire, or cutting them with sharp instruments. No
young man can be admitted to the honours of manhood
or war, who has not acquitted himself well in
these trials of patience and fortitude. It is easy to
conceive how much this contributes to give a tone
to the nervous system, which renders it less subject
to the occasional causes of diseases.
IV. We come now to speak of those customs
which are common to both sexes: these are
PAINTING, and the use of the COLD BATH. The
practice of anointing the body with oil is common
to the savages of all countries; in warm climates
it is said to promote longevity, by checking excessive
perspiration. The Indians generally use
bear's grease mixed with a clay, which bears the
greatest resemblance to the colour of their skins.
This pigment serves to lessen the sensibility of the
extremities of the nerves; it moreover fortifies
them against the action of those exhalations, which
we shall mention hereafter, as a considerable source
of their diseases. The COLD BATH likewise fortifies
the body, and renders it less subject to those
diseases which arise from the extremes and vicissitudes
of heat and cold. We shall speak hereafter
of the Indian manner of using it.
It is a practice among the Indians never to
drink before dinner, when they work or travel.
Experience teaches, that filling the stomach with
cold water in the forenoon, weakens the appetite,
and makes the system more sensible of heat and
fatigue.
The state of society among the Indians excludes
the influence of most of those passions which disorder
the body. The turbulent effects of anger
are concealed in deep and lasting resentments.
Envy and ambition are excluded by their equality
of power and property. Nor is it necessary that
the perfections of the whole sex should be ascribed
to one, to induce them to marry. “The weakness
of love (says Dr. Adam Smith) which is so
much indulged in ages of humanity and politeness,
is regarded among savages as the most
unpardonable effeminacy. A young man would
think himself disgraced for ever, if he showed
the least preference of one woman above another,
or did not express the most complete indifference,
both about the time when, and the person
to whom, he was to be married[5].” Thus are
they exempted from those violent or lasting diseases,
which accompany the several stages of such
passions in both sexes among civilized nations.
It is remarkable that there are no deformed Indians.
Some have suspected, from this circumstance,
that they put their deformed children to
death; but nature here acts the part of an unnatural
mother. The severity of the Indian manners
destroy them[6].
From a review of the customs of the Indians,
we need not be surprised at the stateliness, regularity
of features, and dignity of aspect by which
they are characterized. Where we observe these
among ourselves, there is always a presumption of
their being accompanied with health, and a strong
constitution. The circulation of the blood is more
languid in the Indians, than in persons who are in
the constant exercise of the habits of civilized life.
Out of eight Indian men whose pulses I once examined
at the wrists, I did not meet with one in
whom the artery beat more than sixty strokes in a
minute.
The marks of old age appear more early among
Indian, than among civilized nations.
Having finished our inquiry into the physical
customs of the Indians, we shall now proceed to
inquire into their diseases.
A celebrated professor of anatomy has asserted,
that we could not tell, by reasoning à priori, that
the body was mortal, so intimately woven with its
texture are the principles of life. Lord Bacon
declares, that the only cause of death which is natural
to man, is that from old age; and complains
of the imperfection of physic, in not being able to
guard the principle of life, until the whole of the
oil that feeds it is consumed. We cannot as yet
admit this proposition of our noble philosopher. In
the inventory of the grave in every country, we
find more of the spoils of youth and manhood than
of age. This must be attributed to moral as well
as physical causes.
We need only recollect the custom among the
Indians, of sleeping in the open air in a variable
climate; the alternate action of heat and cold upon
their bodies, to which the warmth of their cabins
exposes them; their long marches; their excessive
exercise; their intemperance in eating, to
which their long fasting and their public feasts
naturally prompt them; and, lastly, the vicinity
of their habitations to the banks of rivers, in order
to discover the empire of diseases among them
in every stage of their lives. They have in vain
attempted to elude the general laws of mortality,
while their mode of life subjects them to these remote,
but certain causes of diseases.
From what we know of the action of these powers
upon the human body, it will hardly be necessary
to appeal to facts to determine that FEVERS
constitute the only diseases among the Indians.
These fevers are occasioned by the insensible qualities
of the air. Those which are produced by cold
and heat are of the inflammatory kind, such as pleurisies,
peripneumonies, and rheumatisms. Those
which are produced by the insensible qualities of
the air, or by putrid exhalations, are intermitting,
remitting, inflammatory, and malignant, according
as the exhalations are combined with more or less
heat or cold. The DYSENTERY (which is an Indian
disease) comes under the class of fevers. It
appears to be the febris introversa of Dr. Sydenham.
The Indians are subject to ANIMAL and VEGETABLE
POISONS. The effects of these upon the
body, are in some degree analogous to the exhalations
we have mentioned. When they do not
bring on sudden death, they produce, according to
their force, either a common inflammatory, or a
malignant fever.
The SMALL POX and the VENEREAL DISEASE
were communicated to the Indians of North-America
by the Europeans. Nor can I find that they
were ever subject to the SCURVY. Whether this
was obviated by their method of preserving their
flesh, or by their mixing it at all times with vegetables,
I shall not undertake to determine. Their
peculiar customs and manners seem to have exempted
them from this, as well as from the common
diseases of the skin.
I have heard of two or three cases of the GOUT
among the Indians, but it was only among those
who had learned the use of rum from the white
people. A question naturally occurs here, and
that is, why does not the gout appear more frequently
among that class of people, who consume
the greatest quantity of rum among ourselves?
To this I answer, that the effects of this liquor
upon those enfeebled people, are too sudden and
violent, to admit of their being thrown upon the
extremities; as we know them to be among the
Indians. They appear only in visceral obstructions,
and a complicated train of chronic diseases.
Thus putrid miasmata are sometimes too strong to
bring on a fever, but produce instant debility and
death. The gout is seldom heard of in Russia,
Denmark, or Poland. Is this occasioned by the
vigour of constitution peculiar to the inhabitants of
those northern countries? or is it caused by their
excessive use of spirituous liquors, which produce
the same chronic complaints among them, which
we said were common among the lower class of
people in this country? The similarity of their
diseases makes the last of these suppositions the
most probable. The effects of wine, like tyranny
in a well formed government, are felt first in the
extremities; while spirits, like a bold invader,
seize at once upon the vitals of the constitution.
After much inquiry, I have not been able to find
a single instance of FATUITY among the Indians,
and but few instances of MELANCHOLY and MADNESS;
nor can I find any accounts of diseases
from WORMS among them. Worms are common
to most animals; they produce diseases only in
weak, or increase them in strong constitutions[7].
Hence they have no place in the nosological systems
of physic. Nor is DENTITION accompanied
by disease among the Indians. The facility with
which the healthy children of healthy parents cut
their teeth among civilized nations, gives us reason
to conclude that the Indian children never suffer
from this quarter.
The Indians appear moreover to be strangers to
diseases and pains in the teeth.
The employments of the Indians subject them
to many accidents; hence we sometimes read of
WOUNDS, FRACTURES, and LUXATIONS among
them.
Having thus pointed out the natural diseases of
the Indians, and shown what diseases are foreign
to them, we may venture to conclude, that FEVERS,
OLD AGE, CASUALTIES, and WAR are the
only natural outlets of human life. War is nothing
but a disease; it is founded in the imperfection
of political bodies, just as fevers are founded
on the weakness of the animal body. Providence
in these diseases seems to act like a mild legislature,
which mitigates the severity of death, by
inflicting it in a manner the least painful, upon the
whole, to the patient and the survivors.
Let us now inquire into the REMEDIES of the
Indians. These, like their diseases, are simple,
and few in number. Among the first of them we
shall mention the POWERS OF NATURE. Fevers,
we said formerly, constituted the chief of the diseases
among the Indians; they are likewise, in the
hands of nature, the principal instruments to remove
the evils which threaten her dissolution; but
the event of these efforts of nature, no doubt,
soon convinced the Indians of the danger of trusting
her in all cases; and hence, in the earliest accounts
we have of their manners, we read of persons
who were intrusted with the office of physicians.
It will be difficult to find out the exact order in
which the Indian remedies were suggested by nature
or discovered by art; nor will it be easy to
arrange them in proper order. I shall, however,
attempt it, by reducing them to NATURAL and
ARTIFICIAL.
To the class of NATURAL REMEDIES belongs
the Indian practice of abstracting from their patients
all kinds of stimulating aliment. The compliance
of the Indians with the dictates of nature,
in the early stage of a disease, no doubt, prevents,
in many cases, their being obliged to use any
other remedy. They follow nature still closer, in
allowing their patients to drink plentifully of cold
water; this being the only liquor a patient calls for
in a fever.
Sweating is likewise a natural remedy. It was
probably suggested by observing fevers to be terminated
by it. I shall not inquire how far these
sweats are essential to the crisis of a fever. The
Indian mode of procuring this evacuation is as follows:
the patient is confined in a close tent, or
wigwam, over a hole in the earth, in which a red
hot stone is placed; a quantity of water is thrown
upon this stone, which instantly involves the patient
in a cloud of vapour and sweat; in this situation
he rushes out, and plunges himself into a river,
from whence he retires to his bed. If the
remedy has been used with success, he rises from
his bed in four and twenty hours, perfectly recovered
from his indisposition. This remedy is used
not only to cure fevers, but remove that uneasiness
which arises from fatigue of body.
A third natural remedy among the Indians, is
PURGING. The fruits of the earth, the flesh of
birds, and other animals feeding upon particular
vegetables, and, above all, the spontaneous efforts
of nature, early led the Indians to perceive the necessity
and advantages of this evacuation.
VOMITS constitute their fourth natural remedy.
They were probably, like the former, suggested
by nature, and accident. The ipecacuanha is one
of the many roots they employ for that purpose.
The ARTIFICIAL REMEDIES made use of by
the Indians, are BLEEDING, CAUSTICS, and ASTRINGENT
medicines. They confine bleeding
entirely to the part affected. To know that opening
a vein in the arm, or foot, would relieve a pain
in the head or side, supposes some knowledge of
the animal economy, and therefore marks an advanced
period in the history of medicine.
Sharp stones and thorns are the instruments they
use to procure a discharge of blood.
We have an account of the Indians using something
like a POTENTIAL CAUSTIC, in obstinate
pains. It consists of a piece of rotten wood called
punk, which they place upon the part affected, and
afterwards set it on fire: the fire gradually consumes
the wood, and its ashes burn a hole in the
flesh.
The undue efforts of nature, in those fevers
which are connected with a diarrhœa, or dysentery,
together with those hemorrhages to which
their mode of life exposed them, necessarily led
them to an early discovery of some ASTRINGENT
VEGETABLES. I am uncertain whether the Indians
rely upon astringent, or any other vegetables,
for the cure of the intermitting fever. This
disease among them probably requires no other
remedies than the cold bath, or cold air. Its
greater obstinacy, as well as frequency, among
ourselves, must be sought for in the greater feebleness
of our constitutions, and in that change
which our country has undergone, from meadows,
mill-dams, and the cutting down of woods; whereby
morbid exhalations have been multiplied, and
their passage rendered more free, through every
part of country.
This is a short account of the remedies of the
Indians. If they are simple, they are like their
eloquence, full of strength; if they are few in
number, they are accommodated, as their languages
are to their ideas, to the whole of their
diseases.
We said, formerly, that the Indians were subject
to ACCIDENTS, such as wounds, fractures, and
the like. In these cases, nature performs the office
of a surgeon. We may judge of her qualifications
for this office, by observing the marks of
wounds and fractures, which are sometimes discovered
on wild animals. But further, what is the
practice of our modern surgeons in these cases?
Is it not to lay aside plasters and ointments, and
trust the whole to nature? Those ulcers which require
the assistance of mercury, bark, and a particular
regimen are unknown to the Indians.
The HEMORRHAGES which sometimes follow
their wounds, are restrained by plunging themselves
into cold water, and thereby producing a
constriction upon the bleeding vessels.
Their practice of attempting to recover DROWNED
PEOPLE, is irrational and unsuccessful. It consists
in suspending the patient by the heels, in order
that the water may flow from his mouth.
This practice is founded on a belief that the patient
dies from swallowing an excessive quantity
of water. But modern observations teach us that
drowned people die from another cause. This
discovery has suggested a method of cure, directly
opposite to that in use among the Indians; and has
shown us that the practice of suspending by the
heels is hurtful.
I do not find that the Indians ever suffer in their
limbs from the action of COLD upon them. Their
mokasons[8], by allowing their feet to move freely,
and thereby promoting the circulation of the
blood, defend their lower extremities in the day-time,
and their practice of sleeping with their feet
near a fire, defends them from the morbid effects
of cold at night. In those cases where the motion
of their feet in their mokasons is not sufficient to
keep them warm, they break the ice, and restore
their warmth by exposing them for a short time
to the action of cold water[9].
We have heard much of their specific antidotes
to the VENEREAL DISEASE. In the accounts of
these anti-venereal medicines, some abatement
should be made for that love of the marvellous,
and of novelty, which are apt to creep into the
writings of travellers and physicians. How many
medicines which were once thought infallible in
this disease, are now rejected from the materia
medica! I have found upon inquiry that the Indians
always assist their medicines in this disease,
by a regimen which promotes perspiration. Should
we allow that mercury acts as a specific in destroying
this disease, it does not follow that it is proof
against the efficacy of medicines which act more
mechanically upon the body[10].
There cannot be a stronger mark of the imperfect
state of knowledge in medicine among the Indians,
than their method of treating the SMALL-POX.
We are told that they plunge themselves
in cold water in the beginning of the disease, and
that it often proves fatal to them.
Travellers speak in high terms of the Indian
ANTIDOTES TO POISONS. We must remember
that many things have been thought poisonous,
which later experience hath proved to possess no
unwholesome quality. Moreover, the uncertainty
and variety in the operation of poisons, renders it
extremely difficult to fix the certainty of the antidotes
to them. How many specifics have derived
their credit for preventing the hydrophobia, from
persons being wounded by animals, who were not
in a situation to produce that disease! If we may
judge of all the Indian antidotes to poisons, by
those which have fallen into our hands, we have
little reason to ascribe much to them in any cases
whatever.
I have heard of their performing several remarkable
cures upon STIFF JOINTS, by an infusion of
certain herbs in water. The mixture of several
herbs together in this infusion calls in question the
specific efficacy of each of them. I cannot help
attributing the whole success of this remedy to the
great heat of the water in which the herbs were
boiled, and to its being applied for a long time to
the part affected. We find the same medicine to
vary frequently in its success, according to its
strength, or to the continuance of its application.
De Haen attributes the good effects of electricity,
entirely to its being used for several months.
I have met with one case upon record of their
aiding nature in PARTURITION. Captain Carver
gives us an account of an Indian woman in a difficult
labour, being suddenly delivered in consequence
of a general convulsion induced upon her
system, by stopping, for a short time, her mouth
and nose, so as to obstruct her breathing.
We are sometimes amused with accounts of Indian
remedies for the DROPSY, EPILEPSY, COLIC,
GRAVEL, and GOUT. If, with all the advantages
which modern physicians derive from their knowledge
in anatomy, chemistry, botany, and philosophy;
if, with the benefit of discoveries
communicated from abroad, as well as handed
down from our ancestors, by more certain methods
than tradition, we are still ignorant of certain
remedies for these diseases; what can we expect
from the Indians; who are not only deprived
of these advantages, but want our chief motive,
the sense of the pain and danger of those diseases,
to prompt them to seek for such remedies to relieve
them? There cannot be a stronger proof
of their ignorance of proper remedies for new or
difficult diseases, than their having recourse to enchantment.
But to be more particular; I have
taken pains to inquire into the success of some of
these Indian specifics, and have never heard of
one well attested case of their efficacy. I believe
they derive all their credit from our being ignorant
of their composition. The influence of secrecy
is well known in establishing the credit of
a medicine. The sal seignette was supposed to be
an infallible medicine for the intermitting fever,
while the manufactory of it was confined to an apothecary
at Rochelle; but it lost its virtues as soon
as it was found to be composed of the acid of tartar
and the fossil alkali. Dr. Ward's famous pill
and drop ceased to do wonders in scrophulous
cases, as soon as he bequeathed to the world his
receipts for making them.
I foresee an objection to what has been said concerning
the remedies of the Indians, drawn from
that knowledge which experience gives to a mind
intent upon one subject. We have heard much
of the perfection of their senses of seeing and hearing.
An Indian, we are told, will discover not
only a particular tribe of Indians by their footsteps,
but the distance of time in which they were
made. In those branches of knowledge which
relate to hunting and war, the Indians have acquired
a degree of perfection that has not been
equalled by civilized nations. But we must remember,
that medicine among them does not possess
the like advantages with the arts of war and
hunting, of being the chief object of their attention.
The physician and the warrior are united
in one character; to render him as able in the former
as he is in the latter profession, would require
an entire abstraction from every other employment,
and a familiarity with external objects,
which are incompatible with the wandering life of
savages.
Thus have we finished our inquiry into the diseases
and remedies of the Indians in North-America.
We come now to inquire into the diseases
and remedies of civilized nations.
Nations differ in their degrees of civilization.
We shall select one for the subject of our inquiries
which is most familiar to us; I mean the British
nation. Here we behold subordination and classes
of mankind established by government, commerce,
manufactures, and certain customs common to
most of the civilized nations of Europe. We
shall trace the origin of their diseases through their
customs, in the same manner as we did those of
the Indians.
I. It will be sufficient to name the degrees of
heat, the improper aliment, the tight dresses, and
the premature studies children are exposed to, in
order to show the ample scope for diseases, which
is added to the original defect of stamina they derive
from their ancestors.
II. Civilization rises in its demands upon the
health of women. Their fashions; their dress and
diet; their eager pursuits and ardent enjoyment of
pleasure; their indolence and undue evacuations
in pregnancy; their cordials, hot regimen, and
neglect, or use of art, in child-birth, are all so many
inlets to disease.
Humanity would fain be silent, while philosophy
calls upon us to mention the effects of interested
marriages, and of disappointments in love,
increased by that concealment which the tyranny
of custom has imposed upon the sex[11]. Each of
these exaggerates the natural, and increases the
number of artificial diseases among women.
III. The diseases introduced by civilization extend
themselves through every class and profession
among men. How fatal are the effects of idleness
and intemperance among the rich, and of hard labour
and penury among the poor! What pallid
looks are contracted by the votaries of science
from hanging over the “sickly taper!” How
many diseases are entailed upon manufacturers, by
the materials in which they work, and the posture
of their bodies! What monkish diseases do we
observe from monkish continence and monkish
vices! We pass over the increase of accidents
from building, sailing, riding, and the like. War,
as if too slow in destroying the human species,
calls in a train of diseases peculiar to civilized nations.
What havoc have the corruption and
monopoly of provisions, a damp soil, and an unwholesome
sky, made, in a few days, in an army!
The achievements of British valour, at the Havannah,
in the last war, were obtained at the expence
of 9,000 men, 7,000 of whom perished
with the West-India fever[12]. Even our modern
discoveries in geography, by extending the empire
of commerce, have likewise extended the empire
of diseases. What desolation have the East and
West-Indies made of British subjects! It has been
found, upon a nice calculation, than only ten of a
hundred Europeans, live above seven years after
they arrive in the island of Jamaica.
IV. It would take up too much of our time to
point out all the customs, both physical and moral,
which influence diseases among both sexes. The
former have engendered the seeds of diseases in
the human body itself: hence the origin of catarrhs,
jail and miliary fevers, with a long train
of other diseases, which compose so great a
part of our books of medicine. The latter likewise
have a large share in producing diseases. I
am not one of those modern philosophers, who
derive the vices of mankind from the influence of
civilization; but I am safe in asserting, that their
number and malignity increase with the refinements
of polished life. To prove this, we need
only survey a scene too familiar to affect us: it is
a bedlam; which injustice, inhumanity, avarice,
pride, vanity, and ambition, have filled with inhabitants.
Thus have I briefly pointed out the customs
which influence the diseases of civilized nations.
It remains now that we take notice of their diseases.
Without naming the many new fevers,
fluxes, hemorrhages, swellings from water, wind,
flesh, fat, pus, and blood; foulnesses on the skin,
from cancers, leprosy, yawes, poxes, and itch;
and, lastly, the gout, the hysteria, and the hypochondriasis,
in all their variety of known and unknown
shapes; I shall sum up all that is necessary
upon this subject, by adding, that the number of
diseases which belong to civilized nations, according
to Doctor Cullen's nosology, amounts to
1387; the single class of nervous diseases form
612 of this number.
Before we proceed to speak of the remedies of
civilized nations, we shall examine into the abilities
of NATURE in curing their diseases. We
found her active and successful in curing the diseases
of the Indians. Are her strength, wisdom,
or benignity, equal to the increase of those dangers
which threaten her dissolution among civilized nations?
In order to answer this question, it will
be necessary to explain the meaning of the term
nature.
By nature, in the present case, I understand
nothing but physical necessity. This at once excludes
every thing like intelligence from her operations:
these are all performed in obedience to
the same laws which govern vegetation in plants,
and the intestine motions of fossils. They are as
truly mechanical as the laws of gravitation, electricity,
or magnetism. A ship when laid on her
broadside by a wave, or a sudden blast of wind,
rises by the simple laws of her mechanism; but
suppose this ship to be attacked by fire, or a water-spout,
we are not to call in question the skill
of the ship-builder, if she be consumed by the one,
or sunk by the other. In like manner, the Author
of nature hath furnished the body with powers to
preserve itself from its natural enemies; but when
it is attacked by those civil foes which are bred
by the peculiar customs of civilization, it resembles
a company of Indians, armed with bows and
arrows, against the complicated and deadly machinery
of fire-arms. To place this subject in a proper
light, I shall deliver a history of the operations
of nature in a few of the diseases of civilized
nations.
I. There are cases in which nature is still successful
in curing diseases.
In fevers she still deprives us of our appetite for
animal food, and imparts to us a desire for cool
air and cold water.
In hemorrhages she produces a faintness, which
occasions a coagulum in the open vessels; so that
the further passage of blood through them is obstructed.
In wounds of the flesh and bones she discharges
foreign matter by exciting an inflammation, and
supplies the waste of both with new flesh and
bone.
II. There are cases where the efforts of nature
are too feeble to do service, as in malignant and
chronic fevers.
III. There are cases where the efforts of nature
are over proportioned to the strength of the disease,
as in the cholera morbus and dysentery.
IV. There are cases where nature is idle, as in
the atonic stages of the gout, the cancer, the epilepsy,
the mania, the venereal disease, the apoplexy,
and the tetanus[13].
V. There are cases in which nature does mischief.
She wastes herself with an unnecessary
fever, in a dropsy and consumption. She throws
a plethora upon the brain and lungs in the apoplexy
and peripneumonia notha. She ends a
pleurisy and peripneumony in a vomica, or empyema.
She creates an unnatural appetite for
food in the hypochondriac disease. And, lastly,
she drives the melancholy patient to solitude,
where, by brooding over the subject of his insanity,
he increases his disease.
We are accustomed to hear of the salutary kindness
of nature in alarming us with pain, to prompt
us to seek for a remedy. But,
VI. There are cases in which she refuses to
send this harbinger of the evils which threaten
her, as in the aneurism, schirrhous, and stone in the
bladder.
VII. There are cases where the pain is not
proportioned to the danger, as in the tetanus, consumption,
and dropsy of the head. And,
VIII. There are cases where the pain is over-proportioned
to the danger, as in the paronychia
and tooth-ach.
This is a short account of the operations of nature,
in the diseases of civilized nations. A lunatic
might as well plead against the sequestration
of his estate, because he once enjoyed the full exercise
of his reason, or because he still had lucid
intervals, as nature be exempted from the charges
we have brought against her.
But this subject will receive strength from considering
the REMEDIES of civilized nations. All
the products of the vegetable, fossil, and animal
kingdoms, tortured by heat and mixture into an
almost infinite variety of forms; bleeding, cupping,
artificial drains by setons, issues, and blisters;
exercise, active and passive; voyages and journies;
baths, warm and cold; waters, saline, aërial, and
mineral; food by weight and measure; the royal
touch; enchantment; miracles; in a word, the
combined discoveries of natural history and philosophy,
united into a system of materia medica, all
show, that although physicians are in speculation
the servants, yet in practice they are the masters of
nature. The whole of their remedies seem contrived
on purpose to arouse, assist, restrain, and
controul her operations.
There are some truths like certain liquors,
which require strong heads to bear them. I feel
myself protected from the prejudices of vulgar
minds, when I reflect that I am delivering these
sentiments in a society of philosophers.
Let us now take a COMPARATIVE VIEW of the
diseases and remedies of the Indians with those of
civilized nations. We shall begin with their diseases.
In our account of the diseases of the Indians, we
beheld death executing his commission, it is true;
but then his dart was hid in a mantle, under which
he concealed his shape. But among civilized nations
we behold him multiplying his weapons in
proportion to the number of organs and functions
in the body; and pointing each of them in such a
manner, as to render his messengers more terrible
than himself.
We said formerly that fevers constituted the
chief diseases of the Indians. According to Doctor
Sydenham's computation, above 66,000 out
of 100,000 died of fevers in London, about 100
years ago; but fevers now constitute but a little
more than one-tenth part of the diseases of that
city. Out of 21,780 persons who died in London
between December, 1770, and December, 1771,
only 2273 died of simple fevers. I have more
than once heard Doctor Huck complain, that he
could find no marks of epidemic fevers in London,
as described by Dr. Sydenham. London has undergone
a revolution in its manners and customs
since Doctor Sydenham's time. New diseases, the
offspring of luxury, have supplanted fevers; and
the few that are left are so complicated with other
diseases, that their connection can no longer be
discovered with an epidemic constitution of the
year. The pleurisy and peripneumony, those inflammatory
fevers of strong constitutions, are now
lost in catarrhs, or colds, which, instead of challenging
the powers of nature or art to a fair combat,
insensibly undermine the constitution, and
bring on an incurable consumption. Out of 22,434
who died in London between December, 1769,
and the same month in 1770, 4594 perished with
that British disease. Our countryman, Doctor
Maclurg, has ventured to foretel that the gout will
be lost in a few years, in a train of hypochondriac,
hysteric, and bilious diseases. In like manner,
may we not look for a season when fevers, the natural
diseases of the human body, will be lost in
an inundation of artificial diseases, brought on by
the modish practices of civilization?
It may not be improper to compare the PROGNOSIS
of the Indians, in diseases, with that of
civilized nations, before we take a comparative
view of their remedies.
The Indians are said to be successful in predicting
the events of diseases. While diseases are
simple, the marks which distinguish them, or characterize
their several stages, are generally uniform
and obvious to the most indifferent observer.
These marks afford so much certainty, that the Indians
sometimes kill their physicians for a false
prognosis, charging the death of the patient to
their carelessness, or ignorance. They estimate
the danger of their patients by the degrees of
appetite; while an Indian is able to eat, he is
looked upon as free from danger. But when we
consider the number and variety in the signs of
diseases, among civilized nations, together with
the shortness of life, the fallacy of memory, and
the uncertainty of observation, where shall we find
a physician willing to risk his reputation, much less
his life, upon the prediction of the event of our
acute diseases? We can derive no advantage from
the simple sign, by which the Indians estimate
the danger of their patients; for we daily see a
want of appetite for food in diseases which are attended
with no danger; and we sometimes observe
an unusual degree of this appetite to precede the
agonies of death. I honour the name of Hippocrates:
but forgive me, ye votaries of antiquity,
if I attempt to pluck a few grey hairs from
his venerable head. I was once an idolater at his
altar, nor did I turn apostate from his worship, till
I was taught, that not a tenth part of his prognostics
corresponded with modern experience, or
observation. The pulse[14], urine, and sweats, from
which the principal signs of life and death have
been taken, are so variable, in most of the acute
diseases of civilized nations, that the wisest physicians
have in some measure excluded the prognosis
from being a part of their profession.
I am here insensibly led to make an apology for
the instability of the theories and practice of
physic. The theory of physic is founded upon
the laws of the animal economy. These (unlike
the laws of the mind, or the common laws of
matter) do not appear at once, but are gradually
brought to light by the phænomena of diseases.
The success of nature in curing the simple diseases
of Saxony, laid the foundation for the ANIMA MEDICA
of Doctor Stahl. The endemics of Holland[15]
led Doctor Boerhaave to seek for the
causes of all diseases in the FLUIDS. And the
universal prevalence of diseases of the NERVES, in
Great-Britain, led Doctor Cullen to discover
their peculiar laws, and to found a system upon
them; a system, which will probably last till
some new diseases are let loose upon the human
species, which shall unfold other laws of the animal
economy.
It is in consequence of this fluctuation in the
principles and practice of physic, being so necessarily
connected with the changes in the customs
of civilized nations, that old and young physicians
so often disagree in their opinions and practices.
And it is by attending to the constant changes in
these customs of civilized nations, that those physicians
have generally become the most eminent,
who have soonest emancipated themselves from
the tyranny of the schools of physic; and have
occasionally accommodated their principles and
practice to the changes in diseases[16]. This variety
in diseases, which is produced by the changes in
the customs of civilized nations, will enable us to
account for many of the contradictions which are
to be found in authors of equal candour and abilities,
who have written upon the materia medica.
In forming a comparative view of the REMEDIES
of the Indians, with those of civilized nations, we
shall remark, that the want of success in a medicine
is occasioned by one of the following causes:
First, our ignorance of the disease. Secondly,
an ignorance of a suitable remedy. Thirdly, a
want of efficacy in the remedy.
Considering the violence of the diseases of the
Indians, it is probable their want of success is always
occasioned by a want of efficacy in their medicines.
But the case is very different among the
civilized nations. Dissections daily convince us
of our ignorance of the seats of diseases, and cause
us to blush at our prescriptions. How often are
we disappointed in our expectation from the most
certain and powerful of our remedies, by the negligence
or obstinacy of our patients! What mischief
have we done under the belief of false facts
(if I may be allowed the expression) and false theories!
We have assisted in multiplying diseases.
We have done more—we have increased their
mortality.
I shall not pause to beg pardon of the faculty,
for acknowledging, in this public manner, the weaknesses
of our profession. I am pursuing Truth,
and while I can keep my eye fixed upon my guide,
I am indifferent whether I am led, provided she is
my leader.
But further, the Indian submits to his disease,
without one fearful emotion from his doubtfulness
of its event; and at last meets his fate without an
an anxious wish for futurity; except it is of being
admitted to an “equal sky,” where
“His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
But, among civilized nations, the influence of a
false religion in good, and of a true religion in bad
men, has converted even the fear of death into a
disease. It is this original distemper of the imagination
which renders the plague most fatal, upon
his first appearance in a country.
Under all these disadvantages in the state of medicine,
among civilized nations, do more in proportion
die of the diseases peculiar to them, than
of fevers, casualties, and old age, among the Indians?
If we take our account from the city of
London, we shall find this to be the case. Near
a twentieth part of its inhabitants perish one year
with another. Nor does the natural increase of
inhabitants supply this yearly waste. If we judge
from the bills of mortality, the city of London
contains fewer inhabitants, by several thousands,
than it did forty years ago. It appears from this
fact, and many others of a like nature, which
might be adduced, that although the difficulty of
supporting children, together with some peculiar
customs of the Indians, which we mentioned,
limit their number, yet they multiply faster, and
die in a smaller proportion than civilized nations,
under the circumstances we have described. The
Indians, we are told, were numerous in this country,
before the Europeans settled among them.
Travellers agree likewise in describing numbers of
both sexes who exhibited all the marks of extreme
old age. It is remarkable that age seldom impairs
the faculties of their minds.
The mortality peculiar to those Indian tribes
who have mingled with the white people, must be
ascribed to the extensive mischief of spiritous
liquors. When these have not acted, they have
suffered from having accommodated themselves too
suddenly to the European diet, dress, and manners.
It does not become us to pry too much into futurity;
but if we may judge from the fate of the
original natives of Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the
provinces on the continent, we may venture to
foretel, that, in proportion as the white people
multiply, the Indians will diminish; so that in a
few centuries they will probably be entirely extirpated[17].
It may be said, that health among the Indians,
like insensibility to cold and hunger, is proportioned
to their need of it; and that the less degrees,
or entire want of health, are no interruption to the
ordinary business of civilized life.
To obviate this supposition, we shall first attend
to the effects of a single disease in those people
who are the principal wheels in the machine of
civil society. Justice has stopt its current, victories
have been lost, wars have been prolonged, and
embassies delayed, by the principal actors in these
departments of government being suddenly laid up
by a fit of the gout. How many offences are daily
committed against the rules of good breeding, by
the tedious histories of our diseases, which compose
so great a part of modern conversation! What
sums of money have been lavished in foreign countries
in pursuit of health[18]! Families have been
ruined by the unavoidable expences of medicines
and watering-places. In a word, the swarms of
beggars which infest so many of the European
countries, urge their petitions for charity chiefly
by arguments derived from real or counterfeit
diseases, which render them incapable of supporting
themselves[19].
But may not civilization, while it abates the
violence of natural diseases, increase the lenity of
those that are artificial, in the same manner that it
lessens the strength of natural vices by multiplying
them? To answer this question, it will only be necessary
to ask another: Who should exchange the
heat, thirst, and uneasiness of a fever, for one fit of
the colic or stone?
The history of the number, combination, and
fashions of the remedies we have given, may serve
to humble the pride of philosophy; and to convince
us, that with all the advantages of the whole
circle of sciences, we are still ignorant of antidotes
to many of the diseases of civilized nations. We
sometimes sooth our ignorance, by reproaching our
idleness in not investigating the remedies peculiar
to this country. We are taught to believe that
every herb that grows in our woods is possessed of
some medicinal virtue, and that Heaven would be
wanting in benignity, if our country did not produce
remedies for all the different diseases of its
inhabitants. It would be arrogating too much to
suppose that man was the only creature in our
world for whom vegetables grow. The beasts,
birds, and insects, derive their sustenance either
directly or indirectly from them; while many of
them were probably intended, from their variety in
figure, foliage, and colour, only to serve as ornaments
for our globe. It would seem strange that
the Author of nature should furnish every spot of
ground with medicines adapted to the diseases of
its inhabitants, and at the same time deny it the
more necessary articles of food and clothing. I
know not whether Heaven has provided every
country with antidotes even to the natural diseases
of its inhabitants. The intermitting fever is common
in almost every corner of the globe; but a
sovereign remedy for it has been discovered only
in South-America. The combination of bitter and
astringent substances, which serve as a succedaneum
to the Peruvian bark, is as much a preparation
of art, as calomel or tartar emetic. Societies
stand in need of each other as much as individuals;
and the goodness of the Deity remains unimpeached
when we suppose, that he intended medicines
to serve (with other articles) to promote that knowledge,
humanity, and politeness among the inhabitants
of the earth, which have been so justly attributed
to commerce.
We have no discoveries in the materia medica
to hope for from the Indians in North-America. It
would be a reproach to our schools of physic, if
modern physicians were not more successful than
the Indians, even in the treatment of their own
diseases.
Do the blessings of civilization compensate for
the sacrifice we make of natural health, as well as
of natural liberty? This question must be answered
under some limitations. When natural liberty
is given up for laws which enslave instead of protecting
us, we are immense losers by the exchange.
Thus, if we arm the whole elements against our
health, and render every pore in the body an avenue
for a disease, we pay too high a price for the
blessings of civilization.
In governments which have departed entirely
from their simplicity, partial evils are to be cured
by nothing but an entire renovation of their constitution.
Let the world bear with the professions
of law, physic, and divinity; and let the lawyer,
physician, and divine yet learn to bear with each
other. They are all necessary, in the present state
of society. In like manner, let the woman of
fashion forget the delicacy of her sex, and submit
to be delivered by a man-midwife[20]. Let her snatch
her offspring from her breast, and send it to repair
the weakness of its stamina, with the milk of a
ruddy cottager[21]. Let art supply the place of nature
in the preparation and digestion of all our aliment.
Let our fine ladies keep up their colour with carmine,
and their spirits with ratifia; and let our
fine gentlemen defend themselves from the excesses
of heat and cold, with lavender and hartshorn.
These customs have become necessary in the corrupt
stages of society. We must imitate, in these
cases, the practice of those physicians who consult
the appetite only, in diseases which do not admit of
a remedy.
The state of a country in point of population,
temperance, and industry, is so connected with its
diseases, that a tolerable idea may be formed of it,
by looking over its bills of mortality. Hospitals,
with all their boasted advantages, exhibit at the
same time monuments of the charity and depravity
of a people[22]. The opulence of physicians, and
the divisions of their offices, into those of surgery,
pharmacy, and midwifery, are likewise proofs of
the declining state of a country. In the infancy
of the Roman empire, the priest performed the
office of a physician; so simple were the principles
and practice of physic. It was only in the
declension of the empire that physicians vied
with the emperors of Rome in magnificence and
splendour[23].
I am sorry to add, in this place, that the number
of patients in the HOSPITAL, and incurables in the
ALMSHOUSE of this city, show that we are treading
in the enervated steps of our fellow subjects in
Britain. Our bills of mortality likewise show the
encroachments of British diseases upon us. The
NERVOUS FEVER has become so familiar to us, that
we look upon it as a natural disease. Dr. Sydenham,
so faithful in his history of fevers, takes
no notice of it. Dr. Cadwallader informed me,
that it made its first appearance in this city about
five and twenty years ago. It will be impossible to
name the CONSUMPTION without recalling to our
minds the memory of some friend or relation, who
has perished within these few years by that disease.
Its rapid progress among us has been unjustly
attributed to the growing resemblance of
our climate to that of Great-Britain. The HYSTERIC
and HYPOCHONDRIAC DISEASES, once
peculiar to the chambers of the great, are now to
be found in our kitchens and workshops. All
these diseases have been produced by our having
deserted the simple diet and manners of our ancestors.
The blessings of literature, commerce, and religion
were not originally purchased at the expence
of health. The complete enjoyment of health is
as compatible with civilization, as the enjoyment
of civil liberty. We read of countries, rich in
every thing that can form national happiness and
national grandeur, the diseases of which are nearly
as few and simple as those of the Indians. We
hear of no diseases among the Jews, while they
were under their democratical form of government,
except such as were inflicted by a supernatural
power[24]. We should be tempted to doubt
the accounts given of the populousness of that
people, did we not see the practice of their simple
customs producing nearly the same populousness
in Egypt, Rome, and other countries of antiquity.
The empire of China, it is said, contains
more inhabitants than the whole of Europe. The
political institutions of that country have exempted
its inhabitants from a large share of the diseases of
other civilized nations. The inhabitants of Switzerland,
Denmark, Norway[25], and Sweden, enjoy
the chief advantages of civilization without having
surrendered for them the blessings of natural health.
But it is unnecessary to appeal to ancient or remote
nations to prove, that health is not incompatible
with civilization. The inhabitants of many
parts of New-England, particularly of the province
of Connecticut, are but little affected by artificial diseases.
Some of you may remember the time, and
our fathers have told those of us who do not, when
the diseases of Pennsylvania were as few and
as simple as those of the Indians. The food of
the inhabitants was then simple; their only drink
was water; their appetites were restrained by labour;
religion excluded the influence of sickening
passions; private hospitality supplied the want of
a public hospital; nature was their only nurse, and
temperance their principal physician. But I must
not dwell upon this retrospect of primæval manners;
and I am too strongly impressed with a hope of a
revival of such happy days, to pronounce them the
golden age of our province.
Our esteem for the customs of our savage
neighbours will be lessened, when we add, that
civilization does not preclude the honours of old
age. The proportion of old people is much
greater among civilized, than among savage nations.
It would be easy to decide this assertion
in our favour, by appealing to facts in the natural
histories of Britain, Norway, Sweden, North-America[26],
and several of the West-India islands.
The laws of decency and nature are not necessarily
abolished by the customs of civilized nations.
In many of these, we read of women among
whom nature alone still performs the office of a
midwife[27], and who feel the obligations of suckling
their children to be equally binding with the
common obligations of morality.
Civilization does not render us less fit for the
necessary hardships of war. We read of armies
of civilized nations, who have endured degrees of
cold, hunger, and fatigue, which have not been
exceeded by the savages of any country[28].
Civilization does not always multiply the avenues
of death. It appears from the bills of mortality,
of many countries, that fewer in proportion
die among civilized, than among savage nations.
Even the charms of beauty are heightened by
civilization. We read of stateliness, proportion,
line teeth[29] and complexions, in both sexes,
forming the principal outlines of national characters.
The danger of many diseases is not proportioned
to their violence, but to their duration.
America has advanced but a few paces in luxury
and effeminacy. There is yet strength enough
in her vitals to give life to those parts which are
decayed. She may tread back her steps. For
this purpose,
I. Let our children be educated in a manner
more agreeable to nature.
II. Let the common people (who constitute the
wealth and strength of our country) be preserved
from the effects of ardent spirits. Had I a double
portion of all that eloquence which has been employed
in describing the political evils that lately
threatened our country, it would be too little to set
forth the numerous and complicated physical and
moral evils which these liquors have introduced
among us. To encounter this hydra requires an
arm accustomed, like that of Hercules, to vanquish
monsters. Sir William Temple tells us, that formerly
in Spain no man could be admitted as an
evidence in a court, who had once been convicted
of drunkenness. I do not call for so severe a law
in this country. Let us first try the force of severe
manners. Lycurgus governed more by these,
than by his laws. “Boni mores non bonæ leges,”
according to Tacitus, were the bulwarks of virtue
among the ancient Germans.
III. I despair of being able to call the votaries
of Bacchus from their bottle, and shall therefore
leave them to be roused by the more eloquent
twinges of the gout.
IV. Let us be cautious what kind of manufactures
we admit among us. The rickets made their
first appearance in the manufacturing towns in
England. Dr. Fothergill informed me, that he
had often observed, when a pupil, that the greatest
part of the chronic patients in the London Hospital
were Spittal-field weavers. I would not be
understood, from these facts, to discourage those
manufactures which employ women and children:
these suffer few inconveniences from a sedentary
life: nor do I mean to offer the least restraint to
those manufactories among men, which admit of
free air, and the exercise of all their limbs. Perhaps
a pure air, and the abstraction of spiritous liquors,
might render sedentary employments less
unhealthy in America, even among men, than in
the populous towns of Great-Britain.
The population of a country is not to be accomplished
by rewards and punishments. And it is
happy for America, that the universal prevalence
of the protestant religion, the checks lately given
to negro slavery, the general unwillingness among
us to acknowledge the usurpations of primogeniture,
the universal practice of inoculation for the
small-pox, and the absence of the plague, render
the interposition of government for that purpose
unnecessary.
These advantages can only be secured to our
country by AGRICULTURE. This is the true basis
of national health, riches, and populousness. Nations,
like individuals, never rise higher than when
they are ignorant whether they are tending. It
is impossible to tell from history what will be
the effects of agriculture, industry, temperance,
and commerce, urged on by the competition of
colonies, united in the same general pursuits, in a
country, which for extent, variety of soil, climate,
and number of navigable rivers, has never been
equalled in any quarter of the globe. America is
the theatre where human nature will probably
receive her last and principal literary, moral, and
political honours.
But I recall myself from the ages of futurity.
The province of Pennsylvania has already shown
to her sister colonies, the influence of agriculture
and commerce upon the number and happiness of
a people. It is scarcely a hundred years since
our illustrious legislator, with a handful of men,
landed upon these shores. Although the perfection
of our government, the healthiness of our climate,
and the fertility of our soil, seemed to ensure a
rapid settlement of the province; yet it would
have required a prescience bordering upon divine,
to have foretold, that in such a short space of
time, the province would contain above 300,000
inhabitants; and that nearly 30,000 of this number
should compose a city, which should be the third,
if not the second in commerce in the British empire.
The pursuits of literature require leisure
and a total recess from clearing forests, planting,
building, and all the common toils of settling a
new country: but before these arduous works
were accomplished, the SCIENCES, ever fond of
the company of liberty and industry, chose this
spot for the seat of their empire in this new world.
Our COLLEGE, so catholic in its foundation, and
extensive in its objects, already sees her sons executing
offices in the highest departments of society.
I have now the honour of speaking in the
presence of a most respectable number of philosophers,
physicians, astronomers, botanists, patriots,
and legislators; many of whom have already seized
the prizes of honour, which their ancestors had
allotted to a much later posterity. Our first offering
had scarcely found its way into the temple of
fame, when the oldest societies in Europe turned
their eyes upon us, expecting with impatience to
see the mighty fabric of science, which, like a well-built
arch, can only rest upon the whole of its
materials, completely finished from the treasures
of this unexplored quarter of the globe.
It reflects equal honour upon our society and
the honourable assembly of our province, to acknowledge,
that we have always found the latter
willing to encourage by their patronage, and reward
by their liberality, all our schemes for promoting
useful knowledge. What may we not expect
from this harmony between the sciences and
government! Methinks I see canals cut, rivers
once impassable rendered navigable, bridges erected,
and roads improved, to facilitate the exportation
of grain. I see the banks of our rivers
vying in fruitfulness with the banks of the river
of Egypt. I behold our farmers nobles; our
merchants princes. But I forbear—imagination
cannot swell with the subject.
I beg leave to conclude, by deriving an argument
from our connection with the legislature, to
remind my auditors of the duty they owe to the
society. Patriotism and literature are here connected
together; and a man cannot neglect the one,
without being destitute of the other. Nature and
our ancestors have completed their works among
us; and have left us nothing to do, but to enlarge
and perpetuate our own happiness.