Dr. A.'s statements have all the air of truth; and his account bears the impress of unwearied industry, enthusiastic love of knowlege, and eminent professional courage, in an individual firmly persuaded of the contagious nature of the disease to which he exposed himself. In his.introductory pages, he has presented an interesting relation of his journey, and of the powerful impressions which his mind received on first entering the circle that inclosed the malady. Having stated that he experienced some difficulty in obtaining admission within the military cordon, he thus proceeds:

'The barrier opened, and a man who stood behind it took charge of my portmanteau. The moment inspired me with some painful ideas; I was now within the circle of contagion; an instant before, I was surrounded by a crowd of people: but I had advanced only four steps, and now every one avoided my approach. A double barrier, guarded by armed men, separated me from the rest of mankind, and forced me towards Barcelona. My mother, my relatives, my friends, were to me in a different world, and I had no other asylum than that which had become the abode of death.'

On his route, which extended for a full league across an arid and cheerless plain, he observed several houses crowded with persons who had fled from the city; and he met whole families carrying articles of furniture, begging alms from house to house, the doors of which were closed against them from the terror of infection.

Barcelona was seen towering above the plain which surrounded it, without any change in its appearance. The setting sun threw its rays on that part of the city which was exposed to my view, and the majesty of the buildings, with the regularity of the fortifications, produced a pleasing effect to the eye:- but, under this exterior of the most perfect peace and deep calm, which was increased by the silence of the bells, death continued his merciless ravages among the inhabitants, and pursued unceasingly his mysterious and fatal attacks. In the mean while, I approached the city, and arrived at one of the two gates through which the dead were carried away; and my conductor pointed out to me, on the glacis, two hundred yards from the road, a large square space inclosed with wicker hurdles seven or eight feet high, where the bodies where deposited. As I passed, I shuddered at the sight of this melancholy receptacle of human remains, to which carts were continually repairing, for the purpose of removing to the cemetery the population of Barcelona. At length I entered the city, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

I traversed different streets, and met with several individuals; some of whom appeared free from any melancholy feelings, while others looked sickly and crept slowly along; and all bending their steps towards the gates of the city, for it was the hour of promenade. Some were furnished with smelling bottles, and others

stopped

stopped their noses with their handkerchiefs, but the greater part exhibited no marks of fear. These last were principally the lower classes, among whom are generally found the lively spirit, the noisy humour, the petulance, the irascibility, and the goodness which characterize the Catalan. Many of the houses were shut up; and boards nailed on the doors of some indicated that they were no longer inhabited. Several shops were open for the sale of articles of the first necessity: but all the work-people had ceased to carry on their occupations, except the carpenters, the sound of whose hammers stunned the ear, and who, though numerous, were scarcely able to supply the required number of coffins. Some bearers on which the sick were removed to a hospital, the viaticum, empty coffins carried along, — several funerals, at which the priests recited the service in an under voice, the modest bier, carrying a corpse without pomp or honours, -in short, every thing which could recall death to the mind was all that gave movement to the city.

On my way to the residence of the French consul, I was conducted through several small streets, where I experienced a new. and very disagreeable sensation. In every house, fumigation of some sort was carrying on; here, they burned juniper, or gunpowder; there, vinegar, sage, incense, and various other aromatics; and further on, they were busy in disengaging muriatic acid gas. In these narrow streets, the houses of which are very lofty, all these odours formed a mixture that rendered the air unfit for respiration; and either from such being actually the case, or from the force of imagination, I thought that I recognized the smell of hospitals infected with the contagion of typhus. On reaching the residence of the consul, I learned that, of the five physicians sent by the Minister of the Interior, M. Mazet had died on the preceding evening, that M. Rochoux had eight days before retired to the country, and that Messrs. Bally, Pariset, and François, were in good health.'

The detail of M. AUDOUARD is composed of three parts, in the first of which he relates the rise, progress, and termination of the fever of Barcelona: in the second, he considers its symptoms, pathology, causes, and treatment; and in the third he discusses, at great length, the doctrine of its contagious nature, and the means which ought to be employed for its suppression. The historical account of the disease corresponds exactly with the statement given in the report already mentioned in our Appendix to vol. xcviii.: but it contains many additional particulars, which tend still more to establish at least the occasionally contagious character of the disease. We are yet, however, uninformed of any facts which satisfactorily prove that it was imported, or that it was always and essentially contagious in its nature; and a degree of obscurity hangs over the history of the earliest cases of the fever, which leaves us in doubt respecting their real nature, and the

pro

propagation of the disease at that period from one individual to another. It is difficult to conceive what motive could have influenced the Spanish physicians, who reported on the first cases which are supposed to have arisen from a communication with the vessels in the harbour, when they declared that those cases possessed none of the characters of yellow fever: but we believe that they acted conscientiously in making this declaration; and we must refuse our assent to a contrary opinion, which is attempted to be forced on us because yellow fever had prevailed at the Havannah when the vessels sailed, and afterward raged with dreadful fury in the suburbs and city of Barcelona. It is very remarkable that nearly a month elapsed between the first appearance of the fever in Barcelonetta and the known occurrence of any case of it in Barcelona; (see the present volume, p. 326.)—a circumstance which was not likely to have taken place if the disease had been highly contagious, if it had been the malignant pestilential fever of Dr. Chisholm: for it must be observed that the inhabitants of Barcelona did not use any precautions, nor was the communication between the city and suburbs cut off until the 3d of September, more than a month after the disease is supposed to have shewn itself in Barcelonetta. This fact seems to give strong countenance to the opinion that the fever was originally endemic, and afterward acquired a new virulence, with the power of propagating itself by contagion. During the prevalence of this destructive malady, the inmates of several public establishments escaped its ravages: the poor-house, (containing 1119 persons,) and not fewer than five nunneries, being stated to have enjoyed this happy immunity. The monks, on the other hand, were carried off in great numbers, as well as all those who were connected with the medical profession; a fact that may be explained by a recollection of the anxious and fatiguing duties which all these persons had to perform at the bedside of the sick, without assuming the existence of contagion. In one nunnery, the disease seems to have been satisfactorily traced to the reception of the linen of two individuals who had died of the complaint; and in another, the fever began in the persons of the tourriere and portress. In several other instances which are related, the persons seized appear to have been completely insulated; and, if they actually received the disease by contagion, it must have been through the medium of the air admitted by the windows. (pp. 363. 365.) In the citadel, which contained 1000 individuals, including convicts, only ten cases of the fever occurred, and only four died. To shew the beneficial effects of free ventilation, Dr. A. states

that,

6

that, in the street de la Fon Seca, instances of the fever were very numerous on that side of the way on which the houses are contiguous; while on the opposite, where the houses stand free, and many of them have gardens, very few cases occurred. This fact, however, admits of a different explanation. In the street de San Olaguer, which is not far from that just named, there had been no case of the disease up to the 20th of November; although it was surrounded by other streets, in which great numbers had died. It is probable,' says the author, that the contagion did not find access into the houses which were at the two extremities of the street, and that the inhabitants lived so retired as not to introduce among themselves the malady.' (P. 366.) Can we suppose, however, that the inhabitants of any street in Barcelona could have adopted such measures of precaution as to prevent the introduction of a highly contagious disease, without this circumstance becoming matter of general notoriety?

No exact estimate has been made of the mortality in the city during the prevalence of yellow fever. The population was rated at 140,000: but, on the breaking out of the disease, the wealthier families emigrated to so great an extent as to leave, it is said, only half of that number of persons exposed to the malady. Of these, it is supposed, from sixteen to seventeen thousand died within the city and suburbs, the proportion of deaths being estimated by the author at fourfifths of all the persons seized; -- a mortality truly appalling. This is, however, obviously an exaggerated view; for even the returns of the Lazaretto and Seminario hospital do not furnish so large a proportion of deaths. In the Lazaretto, the mortality does not appear to have quite amounted to twothirds for of 74 patients admitted from the 9th to the 31st of August, only 48 died. In the Seminario it was greater, but still not equal to four-fifths: for of 1706 patients admitted into this hospital during the months of September, October, and November, 1238 died. Little difference was perceptible between the two sexes, with regard to the rate of mortality. Up to the 15th of October, rather more men in the full vigor of life had died: but, at this period, women, children approaching to the age of puberty, and old men, became peculiarly the victims of the disease. Young_children, however, appear to have suffered less from the fever: but their fate became almost as deplorable, from the loss of their parents. Thus unfortunately circumstanced, they were driven by misery and famine to wander about the streets: till they were collected together by the charity of the citizens, food was provided for the elder, and the younger were nou

rished by means of she-goats. The inhabitants of Barcelonetta suffered much more from the disease than those of the city: above half of the population of the former, which was estimated at 8000, having fallen a sacrifice.

Dr. AUDOUARD has presented us with a very distinct account of the symptoms which marked the fever, and has illustrated his general observations by numerous cases. The disease appears to have been, in all respects, the same with the yellow fever of the West Indies. Very great praise is due to the author for the minuteness of his reports, and the calm intrepidity with which he pursued his pathological investigations, under the firm conviction of the contagious nature of the malady; and he was the first of the French physicians at Barcelona who ventured to inspect the body of any patient that had died of the yellow fever. In these examinations after death, which appear to have been conducted with laborious accuracy, he found in every instance the matter of the black vomit in the stomach or in the intestines; in the former, resembling coffee-grounds; in the latter, of a more uniform and pitchy color and consistence, the result (he believes) of the process of digestion. He seems never to have observed gangrene of any of the viscera, as some have stated: but he mentions that the black matter shone through the coats of the intestine in many cases, so as to mislead a superficial observer. Marks of slight inflammation, both in the stomach and the intestines, were frequently seen, but he regards it as secondary, and refers it to the irritating effects of the matter of the black vomit. The liver was often of a clear yellow color on its upper surface, while the under presented a leaden grey;-the consequence, according to Dr. A., of the gravitation of the blood. The gall-bladder was found in various states, but never turgid; nor were any indications discovered of a superabundance of bile. superabundance of bile. Within the right auricle and ventricle of the heart, he very often remarked what he has named a fibro-albuminous concretion, formed by the coagulation of the fibrin of the blood. This fact calls irresistibly to our mind the fever described by Dr. Chisholm as occurring among the negroes of Grenada in 1790, to which he gave the extraordinary name of epidemic polypus. Marks of inflammation, though slight, were occasionally perceptible in the lungs; and in two cases the tonsils were inflamed. Within the cranium, marks of congestion were often visible; sometimes extravasation of blood in the folds of the pia mater; and often serous fluid within the ventricles. The membranes of the spinal cord were also observed to contain a similar liquid, occasionally to the extent

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