The London Medical and Physical Journal Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799 edition. Excerpt: ... together great bodies of sand and clay, that had been diffused through the water, and been deposited by it, together with all such remains of animal and vegetable matter as constitute the deep mould of those traets, the country abounds thereabout with septic exhalations, which are very injurious to the health of the inhabitants, where the neutralizing power of calcareous earth or chalk is wanting: and, as far as I can judge, a deficiency of the same material enters deeply into the explanation of the unhealthiness of the lens of Lincolnshire, and the adjoining hundreds of Fleg and Mersli-land in Norfolk. It must be observed, however, although chalky and calcareous soils are thus destructive of that kind of air or vapour which produces agues, fevers, &c. that it does not follow, by the rule of contraries, that all sandy, loamy, gravelly, and clayey soils, must be unhealthy, This may, however, be remarked, that in the United Stales of America, the most sickly parts are the tracts along the Atlantic, where the land consists in pretty much the whole range from New-York to Florida, of silicious sand and clay, variously mingled, and tempered with more or less of mould, without any considerable ad-mixture of calcareous earth; and this, when it occurs, consisting principally of concretions of marine shells, dug up in some parts of Virginia, and the other southern stales. As to our cities, the scite of New-York is a sandj loam or grave), except that part where the Jilague has usually prevailed hitherto, which is built upon salt meadow, miry swamp, and rotten trash. Philadelphia stands partly upon a sandy, and partly upon a stiff loamy or brick earth, impermeable to water, and destitute of a sufficient portion of calcareous earth to keep down and attach...