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Diseases of Particular Countries

free air, there arose a slow burning flame, a span high, with a strong body of smoke. Not long afterwards, there appeared, here and there, several chaps, or clefts, as from a little volcano, the vapour issuing from which burst into flames. On his breaking the lump, it burst into a very violent flame, full three feet high, which soon grew less, and then went out. The smoking and glowing fire lasted six hours; and the remainder continued to glow without for two hours longer. The grey earthy ashes, when cold, weighed five and a half ounces. Mr. Tooke concludes with a case of self-accension, noticed by Mr. Hagemann, an apothecary, at Bremen, He prepared a boiled oil of hyoscyamus, or henbane, in the usual way, with common oil. The humidity of the herb was nearly evaporated, when he was called away by other affairs, and was obliged to leave the oil on the fire. The evaporation of the humidity was hereby carried so far, that the herb could easily be rubbed to powder. The oil had lost its green colour, and had become brownish. In this state it was laid on the straining cloth, and placed in the garden, behind the house, in the open air. In half an hour, on coming again to this place, he perceived a strong smoke there, though he thought the oil must have long been cooled: on closer inspection, he found that the smoke did not proceed from the oil, but from the herb on the straining cloth; at the same time the smell betrayed a concealed fire. He stirred the herb about, and blew into it with a bellows, whereupon it broke out into a bright flame.

DISEASES PECULIAR TO PARTICULAR COUNTRIES.-The inhabitants of particular places are peculiarly subject to particular diseases, owing to their manner of living, or to the air and effluvia of the earth and waters. Hoffman has made some curious observations on diseases of this kind. He remarks, that swellings of the throat have always been common to the inhabitants of mountainous countries: and the old Roman authors say, 'Who wonders at a swelled throat in the Alps?' The people of Switzerland, Carinthia, Stiria, the Hartz forest, Transylvania, and the inhabitants of Cronstadt, he observes, are all subject to this disease. The French are peculiarly troubled with fevers, worms, hydroceles, and sarcoceles; and all these disorders seem to be owing originally to their eating very large quantities of chestnuts. The people of Britain are affected with hoarsenesses, catarrhs, coughs, dysenteries, consumptions, and the scurvy; the women with the fluor albus; and children with a disease scarcely known elsewhere, which we call the rickets. In different parts of Italy, different diseases reign. At Naples, the venereal disease is more common than in any other part of the world. At Venice, people are peculiarly subject to the bleeding piles. At Rome, tertian agues and lethargic distempers are most common; in Tuscany, the epilepsy; and in Apulia, burning fevers, pleurisies, and that sort of madness which is attributed to the bite of the tarantula, and fancied to be cured by music. In Spain, apoplexies are common, as also melancholy, hypochondriacal complaints, and bleeding piles. The Dutch are peculiarly subject to the scurvy, and to the stone in the kidneys. The people of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Pomerania, and Livonia, are all terribly afflicted with the scurvy: and it is remarkable, that in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, fevers are very common; but in Iceland, Lapland, and Finland, there is scarcely ever such a disease met with. The Russians and Tartars are afflicted with ulcers, made by the cold, of the nature of what we call chilblains, but greatly worse; and in Poland and Lithuania, there reigns a peculiar disease, called the Plica Polonica, so terribly painful and offensive, that scarcely any thing can be thought worse. The people of Hungary are very subject to the gout and rheumatism: they are also more infested with lice and fleas than any other people in the world; and they have a peculiar disease which they call cremor. The Germans, in different parts of the empire, are subject to different reigning diseases. In Westphalia, they are peculiarly troubled with peripneumonies and the itch. In Silesia, Franconia, Austria, and other places thereabout, they are very liable to fevers of the burning kind, to bleedings at the nose, and other hæmorrhages; and to the gout, inflammations, and consumptions. In Misnia they have purple fevers; and the children are peculiarly infested with worms. In Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, there are very few diseases; but what they have are principally burning fevers and phrenzies. Anciently, the most common diseases in Egypt were blindness, ulcers in the legs, consumptions, and the leprosy, called elephantiasis, which was peculiar to that country; as Pliny observes, Egypti peculiare hoc malum elephantiasis. At Constantinople the plague always rages; and in the West Indian islands, malignant fevers, and the most terrible colics. These diseases are called endemic. In general, it is observed, that the colder the country is, the fewer and the less violent are the diseases.

Schæffer tells us, that the Laplanders know no such thing as the plague, or fevers of the burning kind; nor are they subject to half the distempers we are. They are robust and strong, and live to eighty, ninety, and many of them to more than one hundred years; and at this great age they are not feeble and decrepit, but a man of ninety is able to work or travel as well as a man of sixty with us. They are subject, however, to some diseases, more than other nations. They