1 7 0
CHAP. XI.
H I S T O R Y
O F
felves in the caufe of their country, and dying amidft the bleffings and applaufes of their compatriots. Alas, how many of their youthful affociates, in this unhappy war, might have envied them fo glorious an exit! W h a t numbers have perifhed—not in the field of honour—but on the bed of ficknefs !—not amidft the fhouts of victory—but the groans -of defpair !—condemned to linger in the horrors of peftilence ; to fall without a conflict, and to die without renown (f) ! THESE reflections, and the obfervations which I have made in the preceding pages, on the infufficiency of the means to the (f) T h e difeafe in which fo many gallant men have perifhed, is commonly known by the name of the yellow fever. T w o writers of great ability (Dr. Rufh of Philadelphia, and Dr. Benjamin Mofeley of Pall Mall, London) have treated fully of this dreadful calamity. T h e picture which the latter has given of an unhappy patient of his in the Weft Indies, a young officer of great merit, in the laft ftage of this difeafe, after four days illnefs, is drawn by the hand of a mafter. " I arrived at the lodgings of this much-efteemed young man (fays the doctor) about four hours before his death. When 1 entered the room, he was vomiting a black muddy cruor, and was bleeding at the nofe. A bloody ichor was oozing from the corners of his eyes, and from his mouth and gums. His face was befmeared with blood, and, with the dulnefs of his eyes, it prefented a moft diftreffing contraft to his natural vifage. His abdomen was fwelled, and inflated prodigioufly. His body was all over of a deep yellow, interfperfed with livid fpOts. His hands and feet were of a livid hue. Every part of him was cold excepting about his heart. He had a deep ftrong hiccup, but neither delirium nor coma; and was, at my firft feeing him, as I thought, in his perfect fenfes. He looked at the changed appearance of his fkin, and expreffed, though he could not fpeak, by his fad countenance, that he knew life was foon to yield up her citadel, now abandoning the reft of his body. Exhaufted with vomiting, he at laft was fuffocated with the blood he was endeavouring to bring up, and expired." Mofeley on Tropical Difeafes, 3d edit. p. 459.
objects