With
the small-pox you might, however, associate the measles, which, in
consequence of their manner of treating the fever preceding the
eruption, viz., the use of vapor and cold baths combined, most commonly
tends to a mortal termination. To these two evils, propagated by the
diffusion of a specific virus, may be added the prevalence of general
epidemics, such as influenza, &c., whose virulence expends its force
without restraint upon the Indians. They are not (as you are aware) a
people who draw much instruction from the school of experience,
particularly in the department of medicine, and, when by the side of
this fact you place the protean forms which the diseases of epidemic
seasons assume, the inference must follow that multitudes of them perish
where the civilized man would escape (of which I could furnish
examples).
"It is the province of the science of medicine to preserve to society
its feeble and invalid members, which, notwithstanding the war it wages
upon the principle of political economists, augments considerably the
sum of human life.
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