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English Society Dinners.

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blishing schools, that within a few days have met my eye. So, in various parts of London, hospitals and other asylums for the distressed, arrest attention bearing the inscription "FOUNDED BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTION," which would be little remarkable, haps, were they not beheld in connexion with poor taxes to an amount such as no nation ever before paid. The buildings devoted to these charitable purposes, are often more spacious than the royal palaces, and show an exterior more imposing.

An annual dinner seems an indispensable adjunct to an English charity. Here is 66 "Samaritan society;" or an a Infirmary for diseases of the eye;" a society for the "Relief of decayed Artists;" another for relieving "poor authors;" a fifth for the "indigent blind;" a sixth for "foreigners in distress;" a seventh for the "deaf and dumb," a society for "promoting Christian knowledge;" a "medical benevolent society," and I know not how many more, for I merely take examples, all of which have their anniversary dinners. Whatever the demands upon the charitable fund, there seems always enough for a dinner fund too. Eating and drinking are not the sole objects of this festivity. Business is transacted, reports on the state of the charity made, and speeches delivered, in the course of which the pocket is appealed to. Feeling rises as the inspiring glass goes round, and the evening generally closes with an increase of the treasurer's store. Noblemen, including royal dukes, take part on these occasions, often presiding at the dinners, and otherwise giving their personal instrumentality, and freely their purses, towards the objects of the societies. In France, before the revolution, the noble families were computed at thirty thousand. In England, they may perhaps be computed at six or eight hundred; yet this handful does more of the every day business of the country, than the thirty thousand ever did in France. In France they did the work of chivalry; they fought bravely in the army and navy. England besides this, you trace them in road companies, canal companies, benevolent and public institutions of all kinds, to say nothing of their active patronage of the arts, and their share in politics; in the latter, not simply as cabinet ministers, but speakers, committee-men, and hard-workers in all ways.-Rush's Memoranda of a residence at the Court of London.

Doughty's Cabinet of Natural History of American Rural Sports.-We have received the eleventh number of the 2d vol. of this work, which preserves its instructive and amusing character; and exhibits as ornaments two finely coloured lithographic drawings-the first of the Grey Squirrel, the second of the Pine Finch and the Purple Finch. We hope and trust that the meritorious efforts of Mr. Doughty, will continue to meet with encouragement and support from all classes of readers, to whose taste it ministers, and within the compass of whose pecuniary means it easily comes.

NOTICE.-The subscribers to the Journal of Health and Recreation are requested to pay up their arrearages, and to give suitable notice of their intentions for the next year, so that a judgment may be formed of the expediency of continuing the work. Those who have not been heretofore subscribers, and who desire its continuance, will also be good enough to send on in due season, their names to the publisher.

Independently of the information of a direct positive kind, conveyed in the following remarks on the Influence of Epidemics, our readers throughout the United States will find a source of consolation, in well founded hopes of increased healthiness following the ravages caused by the devastating cholera. In this city, (Philadelphia), the fact has been of general observation and notoriety. Rarely have the gentlemen of the medical faculty been witnesses to a period of such comparative exemption from disease as since the subsidence of the cholera in 1832. Another fact equally worthy of note, as the best refutation of the accusation brought by satirists against the profession, the members of it are in good spirits and live in harmony with one another. Repose is to them not idleness, nor does it engender the evils of idleness, viz: mopishness and querulousness.

"Since the frightful epidemic of northern Europe, and particularly of Dantzic, in the years 1709 and 1710, chiefly attributable to scarcity and famine, happily nothing of the kind has been experienced in modern times. Agriculture, it is well known, has since been more successfully cultivated-its principles are better understood, and especially the mode of managing the crops so that they may succeed each other in rich variety; the communication between distant parts has been rendered more easy; people lodge better, live better, and are better clad than at former periods; and by means of improved manufactures and the multiplied resources of industry, together with better modes of government, the population in all European countries has been greatly benefitted-comfort is VOL. IV-2 s

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more widely diffused, and the occurrence of starvation and its consequences have become every where less to be apprehended.

"Take Viareggio as an example. The inhabitants of this once miserable town in the principality of Lucca, were few in number, and sunk in a deplorable state of misery and barbarism-year after year, from time immemorial, they were regularly attacked with intermittents. In the year 1741, however, sluices were constructed, by which the marshes in their neighbourhood were drained, and at the same time the overflowing of the land from the tides and tempests prevented. By this simple contrivance their constant epidemic was banished, and Viareggio soon became what it is at this day—one of the most healthy, most industrious, and affluent seaport towns on the coast of Tuscany; and families in it, whose immediate ancestors used to be cut off prematurely and miserably by the aria cattiva, now exhibit a degree of health, vigour, longevity, and moral character, such as was never known in that part of the world before.

"Dr. Thomas Short, who wrote his 'Observations' about the middle of the last century, makes a remark strongly attesting the power of civilization-namely, that epidemics in the country parts are both more frequent and more destructive than they are in towns. In London, and the other principal cities of the kingdom, according to this author, the epidemics which occurred in the early part of the last century generally carried off no more than a third, a fourth, or even a fifth part, in addition to the usual mortality of common years; whilst, in the country, an epidemic year sometimes numbered with the dead ten, fifteen, eighteen, or twenty times as many as died during a healthy year. M. Villerme has made the same observation with reference to the mortality in France.

"Now with regard to the comparative frequency of epidemics at different periods during the last and present centuries, we may avail ourselves of the same authority for information. Dr. Short calculates, that, previous to 1750, they recurred every four, or from that to eight years, in the country parishes of England; a fact which he gathered from the parish registers: and the conclusion at which he arrives is, that the years decidedly epidemic, as compared to other years, were in the ratio of two to eleven; and that of fortyfour consecutive years, from twenty-three to twenty-four counted a small number of deaths, eight were very destructive, and the remaining twelve or thirteen could neither be called salubrious or otherwise. We have no exact returns of the same description for London or the provincial towns, but we may form a pretty adequate notion of at least the decline in the frequency of epidemics visiting them, from M. Villerme's table for Paris. In drawing up the following tabular form, which is here slightly abridged, the author reckoned as epidemic years those in which there was an increase of deaths amounting to more than one-tenth above those immediately before or after. He found that there were

Influence of Epidemics.

6 epidemic years out of 13, in the 17th century.

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"A similar return shews that a change equally prosperous has occurred throughout the whole of France, and M. Villerme justly assumes that we cannot have a stronger proof of the happy influence of advancing civilization.

"There are some facts connected with the decline of epidemics in Paris, which are too curious to be omitted here. Formerly, the end of summer, especially when that season had been unusually warm, was the time for epidemic maladies. Thus the months of August and September (the latter particularly), were, during the latter part of the 17th, and beginning of the 18th century, notoriously fatal. But this appears to be quite changed at present. By a comprehensive table, founded on two millions of deaths, and extending from the end of the 17th century to our own times, M. Villerme shews that the periods of the maximum and minimum mortality are altogether displaced. Disposing the twelve months in the order of their respective mortality, September, which stood first at the early period referred to, has gradually sunk to the place which it now occupies, the seventh or eighth in the series; while April, which in former times seems to have been comparatively salubrious, has long been raised to the head of the list. The alteration is clearly owing to the decline of epidemics, both in frequency and intensity: when they used to rage, as in the 17th century, the maximum mortality fell in the autumn, while now, under the influence of ordinary circumstances, it occurs in the spring.

"The effect of epidemics on the other diseases does not escape the notice of M. Villerme. What he says on this subject we shall lay before the reader:-"It is the nature of epidemic maladies to render other complaints more rare. This has been observed often enough by physicians; they are familiar with the fact, that while an epidemic reigns, other maladies diminish in frequency, or exhibit more or less of the symptoms of the prevailing disease. In the month of April last, when the cholera prevailed here, we had a good example of this. But the practical consequence to be derived from the circumstance is, that when an epidemic is not particularly destructive, the usual number of deaths is not much, or scarcely at all, augmented. One might imagine that those persons who at ordinary periods would die of various deaths, now die of the prevailing one, as if the special causes of the latter, its very existence, or the circumstances which attend it, were so many preventives of

* A similar remark will apply to the cholera in Philadelphia and other cities in the United States.

the ordinary mortal diseases. Thus in the 47 communes of the department of the Oise, which reckoned, in 1821, 116 deaths from the miliary-sweat, the total mortality did not exceed what it reasonably ought to be, taking into consideration the rate of increase in population, and supposing that no extraordinary cause of mortality existed during that year. For example, in the said communes,

66

In 1816 there were 709 deaths. In 1819 there were 787 deaths. 1817 66 66 735 66 1820 66 66.813 1818"

718

66

1821 (Epid.)" 838

The result to be deduced from this and similar facts is, that epidemics, generally speaking, do not warrant the alarm which their appearance ordinarily excites. It is, however, unquestionable that they always increase the number of the sick, as well as that they have often depopulated whole countries.”

To an inexperienced observer it would seem almost idle and ridiculous to inquire whether epidemics affect the population of a country, and paradoxical to assert, that even those which are considerably destructive do not. Yet such is the case which correct statistics would seem to make out; and it is accounted for on no very abstruse principle. It is simply because epidemics, for the most part, partake the character described in the preceding passage by M. Villerme, namely, that of swallowing up the mortality of ordinary diseases; and partly, if not principally, because mortality has a powerful influence upon reproduction. An epidemic may be compared to a battle in its effects; yet a battle-nay, a war of ten, fifteen, or twenty years' standing-may not diminish the population of the states which carry it on. That it may not, seems to be put beyond a question by the sanguinary war which raged in Europe from 1791 till 1815; during all that time the number of inhabitants in France, England, Germany, and Italy, suffered no decrease, and that in spite of constant battles, in which too the mortality fell upon men in the full strength and vigor of their age.

But when we say that there was no decrease, we ought to qualify the expression: any decrease which occurred was not permanent: the movement of the population, after suffering a slight shock, went forward again with a renewed impulse; and so it is with epidemics.

When a destructive calamity of either kind carries off a large proportion of the inhabitants of a country, a void in the population is the immediate effect; but invariably this is followed by an extraordinary proportion of marriages and births. Numbers of persons of a marriageable age, having most probably now become possessed of the means by inheritance, hesitate no longer to form matrimonial connexions. Marriages even which were barren hitherto, are now observed to become fruitful. And finally, the returns shew that not only is the annual amount of deaths diminished, but its proportion also, as if men had really become more vivacious, or less subject to die.

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Ŏwing undoubtedly to the occurrence of such circumstances,