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very much abridged. The Society therefore entertains no doubt but that the Common Council, renowned for their liberality and munificent support of every thing calculated to promote the public welfare, will immediately give the subject that consideration which it so eminently deserves. With this impression, this memorial is respectfully submitted to your honourable body.

JOHN S. BOWRON, M. D.
LEWIS BELDEN, M. D.
DAVID L. ROGERS, M. D.

S. W. AVERY, M. D.
D. L. M. PEIXOTTO, M. D.
A. P. WILSON, M. D.

At a meeting of the Medical Society, on motion, it was

Resolved, That the memorial be adopted, and transmitted to the Common Council, and also be published in the public papers.

S. W. AVERY, Secretary.

SKATING.

SKATING, says Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, is by no means a recent pastime; and probably the invention proceeded rather from necessity than the desire of amusement.

It is the boast of a northern chieftain, that he could traverse the snow upon skates of wood. We cannot by any means ascertain at what time skating made its first appearance in England, but we find some traces of such an exercise in the thirteenth century, at which period, according to Fitzstephen, it was customary in the winter, when the ice would bear them, for the young citizens of London to fasten the leg bones of animals under the soles of their feet by tying them round their ancles, and then taking a pole, shod with iron, into their hands, they pushed themselves forward by striking it against the ice, and moved with a celerity equal, says the author, to a bird flying through the air, or an arrow from a cross-bow; but some allow. ance, we presume, must be made for the poetical figure: he then adds, "at times, two of them, thus furnished, agree to start opposite to one another, at a great distance; they meet, elevate their poles, attack, and strike each other, when one or both of them fall, and not without some bodily hurt; and, even after their fall, are carried a great distance from each other, by the rapidity of the motion, and whatever part of the head comes upon the ice, it is sure to be laid bare."

The wooden skates, shod with iron or steel, which are bound about the feet and ancles like the talares of the Greeks and Romans, were most probably brought into England from the Low Countries, where they are said to have originated, and where it is well known they are almost universally used by persons of both sexes when the season permits. In Hoole's translation of the Vocabulary by Commenius, called Orbis Sensualium Pictus, the skates are called scrick-shoes, from the German, and in the print at the head of the section, in that work, they are represented longer than those of the present day, and the irons are turned up much higher in the front.

Some modern writers have asserted, that "the metropolis of Scotland has produced more instances of elegant skaters than perhaps any other country whatever, and the institution of a skating-club, about forty years ago, has contributed not a little to the improvement of this amusement." The Londoner will, however, claim superiority for the exhibitors on the Serpentine river in Hyde Park. On one occasion, four gentlemen danced, if we may be allowed the expression, a double minuet in skates with as much ease, and more elegance, than in a ball-room.

PHILADELPHIA VACCINE INSTITUTION,

Established in the year 1822, with the approbation of Professors Physick, Chapman, James, Gibson, and Coxe, of the University of Pennsylvania, Doctors Monges, Hartshorne, Hewson, &c. &c.

The Subscribers to the above Institution, those practitioners who have for the last fifteen years obtained their supplies of Vaccine Virus from the undersigned, and the profession generally throughout the United States; are respectfully informed, that applications for Vaccine Virus will be attended to as usual, at all seasons of the year, and at one day's notice, by the undersigned.

January 1, 1832.

JOSEPH G. NANCREDE, M. D.

S. E. Corner of Walnut and Tenth Streets, Philadelphia.

N. B. The Vaccine Virus can be safely transmitted by mail to any section of the country.

JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTION,

Conducted by "The Philadelphia Association of Teachers."

The first number of this work will be issued from the Literary Rooms, No. 121 Chesnut street, Philadelphia, Office of the Journal of Health, on the second Wednesday in January, and will be regularly continued on the second and fourth Wednesdays of every month, on a medium sheet, in quarto form, at $1 25 per annum, All Agents for the Journal of Health are requested to act as such for the above work.

ANNALS OF EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION,

United with the American Journal of Education, conducted by William C. Woodbridge, assisted by several friends of Education. Boston, published by Carter & Hendee. Terms $3 00 per annum, in advance.

Subscribers in arrears-and, under the circumstances, they are more numerous than we had a right to expect-are requested to remit, without delay, their dues to the publisher, H. H. Porter, 121 Chesnut street.

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THE Asiatic, or the epidemic spasmodic cholera, so long the engrossing subject of conversation, of doubt and dismay, on the continent of Europe, begins now to divide public attention, in Great Britain, with the reform bill itself. As a question of really momentous interest to the whole civilized world, we deemed it our duty to lay before our readers a brief, but, as we hoped, a lucid history of the beginning and progress of this dire disease, together with such notices of its modes and times of invasion, and the circumstances modifying its attack, as should place its true features in a clear point of view. Both when treating expressly the subject, as well as when speaking of epidemics in general, we took occasion to express our belief that the cholera is not a contagious disease; that quarantine regulations in regard to it are uncalled for, and unjustifiable, and only serve to trammel commercial intercourse between nations; and, in fine, that the system of cordons sanitaires, as adopted, either originated in ignorance of the true nature of cholera, or in a sinister and unholy spirit of government policy to cover some ulterior designs, adverse to the happiness and liberties of the people. We instanced the case of France establishing her sanatary cordon to prevent, as was alleged, the contagion of yellow fever from crossing the Pyrennees, just before the invasion of Spain, by the army under the Duke d'Angouleme. We also, at the risk of being thought presumptuous speculators by those who had not given their attention to the subject, stigmatized the repressive measures of Austria, in establishing a sanatary cordon along her frontiers of VOL. III.-19

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Hungary and Gallicia, during the latter part of the short but bloody contest between Poland and Russia. It was our opinion that the Austrian government feared more the contagion of Polish independence and liberty than it did the Russian cholera.

Close on this expression of our opinion follows its verification. The last accounts from Vienna are to the following effect :---The cordons between Hungary, Austria, Poland, and Silesia are done away with, and all the cholera hospitals are to be speedily closed: all persons dying with cholera are allowed to be interred, with all religious ceremonies, publicly in the ordinary burying. ground, which was previously not permitted, even in cases of persons of the highest ranks. We took occasion, when censuring the sanatary cordons, to mention among the evils which they inflicted, the interruption to trade. As a practical commentary, showing the correctness of our opinion, we may be allowed to call the attention of our readers to a sentence contained in the accounts, just referred to. After stating that the cordons were done away with, it is said" Trade in general has, in consequence, become very brisk here, (at Vienna) especially with Hungary, Gallicia, and Russian Poland, where all articles of manufacture and luxury are wanting."

The Austrian government has, we are told, become fully convinced that cholera is not contagious, and hence the doing away with its former restrictions. But is there not good reason for believing that the termination of the Polish war alone has opened its eyes to this matter; and that its fears respecting an intercourse with free Poland have subsided, now that Poland is once more enslaved and a Russian province.

We shall proceed to lay before our readers a series of facts, touching the first appearance and subsequent diffusion of cholera in various parts of India, Persia, Russia, and Poland, which will go to prove, as far as evidence can prove, that the disease is not contagious. Perhaps we shall be found, at times, repeating what we have already advanced in the former pages of this journal; but the importance of the subject, and the necessity of our fellow-citizens generally entertaining correct notions respecting it, will justify any such repetition. We shall borrow also, with freedom, from an article in the North American Medical and Surgical Journal, for October last, in which we took occasion to give the history of the disease somewhat at large.

In India the medical officers of the army were the only Europeans in easy circumstances who had occasion to enter the particular districts where the cholera prevailed; hence we find a greater number of them fell victims to the disease than of the European population generally; nevertheless the whole number of physicians who were attacked was, in fact, but very trifling. We have the most unquestionable evidence that in hospitals,

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those in attendance upon the sick very generally escaped the disease, which is as strong a proof as could be offered of its non-contagious character. At Nagpoor, says the Bengal report, the medical staff remained for several days, night and day, in the hospitals, and yet all escaped. In the Hospital of the Royals, says the Madras report, only one individual out of one hundred and one attendants was attacked. In the general hospital in India it is stated, upon the authority of assistant surgeon Whyte, that the friends and relations of the sick, who, by assisting the patients into and out of the bath, and every other way, were thereby exposed to be attacked by the disease, whether it be conveyed through the medium of an infected atmosphere or by the touch, in no instance were affected; neither were the dooly bearers nor hospital assistants. In Deputy Inspector Farrell's Report at Columbo in Ceylon, we have nearly as strong evidence of the non-contagiousness of the disease: he remarks also that it has been known to attack patients admitted into the hospital for other complaints, and to have carried them off with its usual rapidity, and not to appear again in the same hospital, although it raged in all directions around it.

The introduction of the cholera from a foreign source, though boldly asserted in reference to several of the Indian and Russian provinces, by the advocates of contagion, has not in a single instance been satisfactorily proved. On the contrary, all the facts which have been collected are in favour of the opposite opinion. Thus, into the Isle of France it is said to have been imported by the Topaze frigate, which arrived from Ceylon on the 29th of October, 1829; but it appears from the report of Dr. Kinnis, that cases of the disease had occurred in the island on the 5th and 6th of September, although the disease did not prevail extensively until the 18th of November, when it broke out in its most severe form among the African slaves and Indian convicts. A considerable number of sailors belonging to merchant vessels, lying near the shore, died of the disease, whereas not a soul belonging to the Topaze, which lay about a mile and a half from shore, but communicated constantly with it, was attacked after her arrival. But one patient and no hospital attendant was attacked at head quarters. No children, and a very small proportion of women were affected.

At Ceylon, according to Deputy Inspector Farrell's Report, it was found that the disease, on appearing at any one place, attacked almost at the same instant, a vast number of persons, who, from their habits, modes of life, and separation of their abodes, could not possibly have communicated it to one another.

The governor of the island of Bourbon, when informed of the occurrence of the epidemic in the neighbouring island of Mauritius, took immediately every precaution to cut off the commu

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