Note 1 — INTRODUCTION.

A plan established in the army proved so useful, that I will here mention it. The letters and reports of the medical gentlemen in the pest-houses, I constantly sewed together, made them up in monthly volumes, and kept them at my quarters, where every medical gentleman in the army was invited to come and daily peruse them. The disease became thus the subject of daily discussion; and, from these discussions, I was enabled daily to propose queries in my letters to the gentlemen in the pest-houses. Thus, the history of the disease, in most of its points, came to be investigated; and, previously to entering a pest-house, before his tour of duty came round, every gentleman had acquired some knowledge of the plague, and of the success of other practitioners.