exported, nearly 77 millions and a half.

The extraordinary trade in corn has lately doubled the number of strangers at Odessa. That sea-port seems in a fair way of becoming one of the most considerable towns of the Russian empire its increase proceeds in a manner beyond all conception.

This prodigious exportation of grain from Odessa forms a striking article in the German papers. They state, that last year there were exported from that place, in 1366 ships, goods to the value of 5,406,000 roubles, and only to the amount of 408,600 roubles imported. Among the 846 large ships which arrived, were 407 Russian, 258 English, 101 Austrian, 25 French, 23 Turkish, 15 Swedish, &c.

SWEDEN.

The importation of coffee being found to amount to 3,317,000 lbs., which was reckoned to be half the

value of Swedish iron exported, the military chief of that kingdom fancied that the trade of the kingdom would be improved by prohibiting the introduction of coffee at all, to which was added a similar prohibition against wines, foreign spirits, and all cottons except those imported direct from India in Swedish vessels. Soon after, the use of Swedish coffee, or any thing resembling coffee, was prohibited, as affording a cover for the introduction of the real drug. It was thus asserted that an improvement would be made in the exchanges; yet soon after all the principal Banks in Stockholm broke, and at Christiana all business was at a stand, the merchants remark. ing, " because no foreign goods may be brought to our markets, our productions meet with no sale abroad." No redress, however, seems to have been afforded, the peasantry throughout the country being inflamed with a patriotic and ignorant zeal to wear the manufactures and use the commodities of their own nation only.

THE plan and limits of this work necessarily restrict us to a brief consideration of the most striking circumstances in the history of the public health during the year 1817; of these, the facts connected with the propagation of Typhus Fever, are by far the most important. There were comparatively few large towns or districts in the empire which did not suffer under this calamity; but we propose, in the following sketch, to confine ourselves solely to the Statistics of Fever, if we may so express ourselves, as they are to be collected from the records of the

public institutions of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, and from the works of the physicians who have practised in those cities, and favoured the world with their opinions.

As there is great reason to suppose, that in numerous instances febrile contagion has been conveyed from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and as it is highly probable that it has been imported into the former city in particular, and into the western part of Scotland in general, as well as into England, by means of the vast influx of Irish labourers, we shall begin by submitting

to our readers a few facts connected with the progress of fever in the sister island. The Fever Hospital of Dublin, which was opened in 1804, admitted in that year 422 cases only; in 1810, when fever became very general all over Ireland, 1774 patients were admitted; and in 1817, the admissions amounted to 5745. In another hospital in that city, (the Hardwicke,) the cases of fever increased, between the years 1813 and 1817, from 1842 patients to the enormous number of 8915. The progress of fever was nearly in a similar proportion all over the country. In a northern district, of which Stra bane was the principal town, little short of a fourth part of the population was affected, and of these not fewer than 1 in 9 died.* We would not be understood to say, that we owe our Typhus exclusively to Ireland; unfortunately, too many of its causes have existed among ourselves, for we believe it to be a fact beyond all dispute, that the disease frequently derives its origin from poverty, and its concomitants, hunger, cold, and rags, aggravated by filth and intemperance, conjointly pressing upon the desponding inhabitants of insufficient and over-crowded lodgings, a state of society which has been but too prevalent since the late peace.

From the year 1812, Typhus Fever was steadily gaining ground in Glasgow and its vicinity; its progress was so rapid, that it nearly doubled its numbers every successive twelve months between 1812 and 1817. This is proved by the state of the admissions into the Infirmary of that city, which, for the successive years, were as follows: 16-35-90-230-399-714.† The

mortality by fever kept pace with this increment, and the deaths doubled annually during the same period. The male sex were found to suffer much more, comparatively, than the female, although the number of females who were attacked with the disease consi❤ derably out-numbered the males; by one calculation made in the Infirmary of Glasgow, the proportion was 1 death in 9 males, and 1 in 16 females; by another calculation, the proportion was 1 in 74 among the males, and 1 in 14 among the females; the general average of deaths in both sexes, was 1in 10.

In Edinburgh, as in all other large towns, fever always exists more or less in the sordid habitations of the poor; and some closes and houses, particu larly those employed as lodging-houses for the lower orders, are never without cases of the disease. We have it upon the authority of an able physician, that for the last twenty years, he has never known that part of the city called Portsburgh, free from continued fever ; and on a personal examination of the district, he found that disease in almost every house. In the spring of 1816, every one of the children in the West-Kirk Poor-House, about 160 in number, suffered from an attack of fever, of whom two died; and between 30 and 40 of the aged poor were also affected, of whom more than a third were carried off. In the autumn of the same year, every child in the City Charity-Workhouse, to the number of 200, and about 50 other individuals belonging to the institution, were attacked with fever; of these latter about 1 in 12 died, but all the children recovered. In the year 1817, not

an individual in either of these extensive asylums for the poor was affected; nevertheless the disease was much more prevalent than usual throughout the city. It was for some time supposed, that the increased admissions into the Royal Infirmary, were produced from the exertions of the medical officers of the two Dispensaries, and the active agents of the Destitute Sick Society, in consequence of which almost every case of fever throughout the city and neighbourhood was brought to light, and was immediately recommended for reception; but subsequent experience has given great reason to suppose, that this increase was not apparent only, but founded upon an actual increase in the numbers of those affected with the disease. By the reports of the New Town Dispensary, it appears, that during the three months ending in December 1, 1816, the cases of fever registered at that institution, amounted to no more than 1 in 6144 of the whole applications for relief; but, in the three months ending March 1, 1817, they increased to 1 in 8217. In the next three months, the increase was still progressive, and amounted to 1 in 2014. During the quarter between June and September, the fever cases diminished somewhat in number, their proportion being only 1 in 24 of the whole; but for the ensuing quarter, which terminated on December 1, 1817, they had arisen to an amount of nearly double, being one in 12,15 It was also found, that while at first the disease was confined to certain small districts, in the course of the season it became pretty generally diffused over the town. It is a well-known fact that the extremes of heat and cold are unfavourable to the spreading, or even to the existence of Typhus Fever; but the heat of our weather in Scotland never arises to that degree which is found to be incompatible with the presence of the

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disease, and the diminution of its rava! ges in the months between June and September is, in a great measure, to be attributed to that free exposure to the open air, which the persons and habitations of the poor undergo, at a season when there is no temptation to seek for increased warmth by crowding within doors, and shutting up every avenue by which a free ventilation might be established.

In the Royal Infirmary, which was supplied with patients from the Dispensary, the returns of which we have already quoted, as well as from the Old Town Dispensary, and various other sources, there were treated during the first ten months of 1817, 347 patients, of whom 21, or 1 in 16¦¦ died; the actual numbers dismissed cured for the two preceding years could not be ascertained; but the deaths by fever for each of those years was only 12, so that there is every reason to suppose the number of fever cases admitted into the house were greatly increased in the year 1817; indeed, several additional wards were appropriated for the reception of these cases, and at length a separate establishment was fitted up at Queensberry House by the managers of the Royal Infirmary. The history of this excellent institution does not come within the period of the present report, as it was not opened until the 3d of February, 1818.

Fever was not particularly prevalent in London before the autumn of 1816. In September and October of that year, fever, manifestly contagious, appeared in the courts about Saffron Hill, and among some young people employed at a silk manufactory in Spital Fields, but who resided with their families. Contrary, however, to what has been observed at Edinburgh, it subsided on the approach of winter, but again reappeared in March, in the vicinity of Essex Street, White-chapel, where the

silk manufacturers resided, as well as near the manufactory itself at Saffron Hill, Old Street, and Clerkenwell. In the following month it broke out in the parish of Shadwell, in the overcrowded'work-house of which it spread rapidly. Other poor houses, especially those of Whitechapel, St Luke, St Sepulchre, and St George Southwark, became much infected with the disease in the course of the summer and autumn. It showed itself also in the private habitations of the poor in almost all the close and crowded districts in the eastern and northern parts of the town. It was very prevalent in the alleys in Whitechapel, and in the many filthy courts about Smithfield, and spread extensively in similar situations. It is singular that St Giles's, proverbially the receptacle of beggary, remained nearly free from the epidemic till November, after which month the fever cases sent from it to the House of Recovery became very numerous. The epidemic at length became so prevalent, that the Medical Committee of the Fever Institution addressed a circular letter to the physicians of all the hospitals and dispensaries in London, requesting information on the subject, the result of which was, that, in all the hospitals except two, from one of which no returns were received, and in all the dispensaries, except one at the west end of the town, a very great increase of fever cases had occurred. This was the case even with St George's Hospital, Hyde-Park Corner, and the Middlesex Hospital, north of Oxford Street. In Guy's Hospital, the number of fevers admitted during six weeks, in September and October, 1817, exceeded the number admitted during the same period in 1816, in the proportion of 15

to 1. From the records of the House of Recovery, (the Fever Hospital of London,) it appears, that from the year 1815 to the year 1817, the following was the progressive increase of fever.-1815, 80-1816, 118-1817, 760. The information derived from medical men resident in Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and many other great towns throughout England, fully proves the great increase of fever cases in their charitable institutions, and among their inhabitants.

The medical history of the Typhus Fever is not a legitimate object for our inquiries, but we may be permitted to state some circumstances connected with its propagation. That it has often proceeded from occasional causes, as fatigue, distress, cold and moisture, intemperance, confined air and filth, independent of contagion, admits of little doubt; but that it has much oftener been traced to this last cause alone, is a decided fact. In some confined and crowded situations, the illness of twenty, thirty, and forty patients, has been traced to one infected individual. In the hospitals, the nurses, clerks, and students have, in numerous instances, contracted the disease from the patients; and in private families of the first respectability, it has been introduced, and has proved comparatively more fatal than among the lower orders. It is not a little curious, however, that in districts equally crowded and dirty, and where the inhabitants suffered equal privations, some have furnished numerous examples of the Typhus Fever, while others have been free from it; nay, of two rival lodging houses in the same close in Edinburgh, both miserably dirty, and constantly crowded with a succes

sion of the lowest of the people, one has furnished a succession of fever cases, while the other has remained free; and, in the course of some months afterwards, this has suffered in its turn, while that has been exempted. Upon the whole, although the Typhus Fever, which so generally prevailed through this country in 1817, was decidedly contagious, it appears that it was so under certain circumstances only, and that the contagion was far from being so active as it has been in other countries.

Our bounds do not admit of our entering much further at present into the discussion of the interesting subject of the public health, but we cannot dismiss it altogether without adverting to some highly important facts connected with Vaccination, especially as they have occurred in Scotland. From sloth and from prejudice, this most salutary process has not been so frequently enforced as it should be, and in the year 1813, small-pox became very prevalent in various parts of Scotland, but particularly in the town and neigh. bourhood of Forfar, a circumstance the more alarming, because among others it was said to have attacked above 200 persons who had previously gone through the process of vaccination. The alarm excited by this circumstance became so great, that a meeting of the medical gentlemen of the neighbourhood was called by the Sheriff of the county, and the result of their deliberation was, that "the small-pox contagion had produced a slight disease" in a number of children who had been inoculated with cow-pox matter, but that the occurrence in no degree diminished their confidence in the preventative power of vaccination. In the close of the year 1816,

small-pox, after vaccination, became prevalent in Dundee, and in the spring of 1817, an epidemic small-pox occurred at Cupar, in Fife, where 54 cases were ascertained to have taken place after vaccination; there is little doubt that the disease existed in other towns also, and that had medical practitioners in general been fully aware of its nature, and turned their attention to its history, the chain of communication from one place to another might have been fully traced. The first decided cases which occurred in Edinburgh were noticed in June and July 1817, and from that period they spread to various parts of Scotland. Similar cases, though by no means so numerous, have been observed in England and Ireland.

Vaccination was early and extensively adopted north of the Tweed, and the confidence in its powers was unbounded. It is not to be supposed, therefore, that the reports of its failure in preventing small-pox could be received with indifference, more espe cially as some medical men, both in Scotland and England, had denied that it afforded permanent security. In opposition, however, to the reported failures, some of the friends of vaccination in England supposed that the eruptive disease, which it was agreed on all hands was epidemic, in this part of the empire, was not small-pox, but a disease resembling it, probably that known under the name of chickenpox. This opinion, however, has been refuted by the experiments of Dr Adam, and by those conducted on an extensive scale in the military hospitals of Edinburgh, under the superintendence of Dr Hennen. In these experiments it was proved, that matter taken from vaccinated persons labouring under the epidemic disease, pro