Observations on the cause, nature, and treatment of the epidemic disorder, prevalent in Philadelphia. By D. Nassy, M.D. member of the American Philosophical Society, &c. ; (Translated from the French.)

Observations on the cause, nature, and treatment of the epidemic disorder, prevalent in Philadelphia. By D. Nassy, M.D. member of the American Philosophical Society, &c. ; (Translated from the French.)

Table of contents

Title page

NUMBER XLVIII. District of Pennsylvania, to wit,—

§

OBSERVATIONS, &c.

POSTCRIPT.

§

§

§

[Page]

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSE, NATURE, and TREATMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC DISORDER, PREVALENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

BY D. NASSY, M. D. Member of the American Philosophical Society, &c.

[Translated from the French.]

PHILADELPHIA: Printed by Parker & Co. for M. Carey, Nov. 26,—1793.

NUMBER XLVIII. District of Pennsylvania, to wit,—

[Page]

(L. S.) BE it remembered, that on the twenty second day of November, in the eighteenth year of the independence of the united states of America, Mathew Carey and —, of the said district, have deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit:

‘Observations on the cause, nature, and treatment of the epidemic disorder, prevalent in Philadelphia. By D. Nassy, M. D. Member of the American Philosophical Society, &c.’ In conformity to the act of the congress of the united states, intituled, ‘An act for the encouragement of learning; by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.’

SAMUEL CALDWELL, Clerk of the district of Pennsylvania.

§

§

[Page]

THIS work would have appeared six weeks since, if the translator had finished it at the time promised: however, although it is published at a period when the disease is extinct, it yet seems to lose nothing of its merit; and we hope it will be well received by a judicious public. In this expectation, we have prevailed on the author (who was desirous to withdraw the manuscript) to consent to the publication.

OBSERVATIONS, &c.

[Page]

MANY Physicians have published in the newspapers of this country, their methods of preventing and curing this disease, which may be ranked as one of the most destructive and fatal;—but none of them have yet thought of favoring the public with an accurate account of the nature and particular symptoms of the fever, that makes such cruel havoc.

Never agreeing among themselves, they have mutually opposed the opinions of each other, and have often bestowed reciprocal offence. The result of this difference of ideas, always dangerous for suffering humanity, has been, that each prescribed according to his own manner, as well for preserving persons against the contagion, as for treating the disease, by bleeding, drastic purges, by stimulants, by diluents, by demulcents, by antiseptics, and by tonics, without pointing out, in the smallest degree, the circumstances or particular cases, wherein such medicines might be employed or rejected.

[Page]The most credulous amongst the people, alarmed by the public papers, and by the numerous precautions advised to be taken against the pretended pestilence, began to administer medicines to themselves, and in order to avoid imaginary evils, produced real ones; some by having recourse to the heating regimen, gave additional fire to their disease, and thus created their own graves—others applied to physicians, who, smitten with fear, thought that they perceived pestilential appearances in a common disorder, and ordered medicines, which could only add to the evil. Of consequence, those who did not fall a sacrifice, recovered with difficulty. Hence the number of the sick and dead have amazingly encreased; and the sentiment of fear operating upon every mind, has made the greatest part of the inhabitants to leave the city, and forsake in it, without attendance or assistance, the sick, who were not able to quit it. *

Would to God, that instead of that fear carried to excess, the citizens of Philadelphia had imitated the Turks! thus behaving like them towards those, would not have abandoned their children, nor the children [Page]their parents, the servants their masters, nor friends each other; but every one would have contributed to comfort and solace one another. The physicians were frequently compelled, by motives of humanity, to become nurses to the sick, who were unable of themselves to take the medicines. *

These remarks may sound harshly, but they are founded upon my own experience as well as that of several other physicians, who, whilst others were arguing on the means of preserving the city from the contagion, were courageously treading in the path of practice, solicitous to fulfil the sacred and religious duties of their profession.

In order to make up as much as in my power lies, for the void left by those who have spoken of that disease in the public papers, I shall endeavour to express my ideas as clearly and precisely as I can.

I may have mistaken the inductions with which the diagnostic signs of the disease have furnished me. I may also have mistaken the proximate and distant causes of the present epidemic. But what I am to advance, shall be less sounded on theory, which often deceives, than on practice, and my clinical observations. [Page]Thus, I will only say what I have seen or believe myself to have seen, in my patients. I shall neither exaggerate nor disguise any thing. I only seek for truth, and I write but for the good of humanity, without intending to give my observations for incontestable decisions. Hippocrates has said of medicine, Ars longa, occasio celeris, experimentum periculosum, et judicium difficile. I have, then, no other aim but to stimulate my colleagues, more learned than me, to enlighten the public. It is our duty likewise to undeceive the physicians in other parts of this continent, and of Europe, concerning the specifics recommended in the newspapers of North America, which may be very fatal to mankind.

All epidemics are more or less contagious. They can be but the effect of a common and universal cause: the vitiated nature of aliments, or a derangement of the temperature of the atmosphere, cause them. If the air is not infected, diseases cannot be epidemic, and this is so, indeed, though it only attacks the natives.*

What can be the cause of that corruption of the air? For what reason are the natives and those inured to the climate of Philadelphia alone infected, with the [Page]prevailing disease, whilst foreigners escape it? they are the first subjects of our enquiry.

The summer of 1792 was very warm. We were tormented by an amazing number of flies and other insects, till the middle of November. The following winter was very moderate as to cold, but subject to surprising variations. By various meteorological observations, it appears that the thermometer* ascended and descended from eight to ten degrees in a single day. There was almost a constant rain, till the end of the Spring, which was very cold, and very damp. There was no hard frost, and the snow had scarcely fallen, when it was succeeded by a thaw. § The waters, which, without being frozen, had been stagnant; the quantity of insects, which winter had killed, the entrails of the fish made use of in the city, cast by the side of the Delaware, the rotten skins of the dead animals, and reptiles left near the wharves, or at a short distance from the city, have all certainly contributed to fill the air with putrid and hurtful miasma. These added to the quantity of vapours, and of corpuscles of [Page]all kinds with which the atmosphere is always loaded, cannot but rarify or thicken the liquids, affect the solids, and derange the animal economy, in the most sensible manner.*

Besides the burning heat of this Summer, we have had a small share of wind, rain, or thunder since Spring; and those three agents are necessary to purge the air from the putrid miasma, and the infectious particles with which it was impregnated. The exhalations continually produced by the rays of the sun, from the prodigious number of burying places in Philadelphia, must be subjoined to the other causes of infection. To these we likewise must add the great consumption of meat, salt provisions, and green fruits; the strong drink, an ill fermented beer, and cyder made of green fruit; we will perceive, I think, in this manner of living of the inhabitants of this country, (notwithstanding the conformity of their constitutions to the atmosphere, of which I shall speak hereafter) that their stomachs were much more disposed to receive the putrid miasmas of the air, than the stomachs of those who have observed a good regimen, and have been regular in their eating, and sober in their drinking. Let one observe [Page]the most part of those who have been attacked by this disease. He will find that seven-eighths have been strong persons, mechanics who had not observed any regimen, and children, whom green fruits, and an immense quantity of water melons, and sweet potatoes, have caused to be attacked by worms, which killed them, without the most part of the latter being attacked by any particular fever, either bilious, putrid, or malignant. Besides, we are not ignorant, that every country has its periodical diseases; that the spring, equinox, and summer, produce a great deal of disorder in the animal oeconomy, and that as soon as the air is infected, the character of endemical diseases is changed, and they become more serious, and mortal. That being once admitted, we shall proceed, to investigate the nature of the fever, which the air and so many other causes have produced, and we shall afterwards examine which are the surest means of curing it. I do not flatter myself that I shall analyse these objects with certainty: physic being a science conjectural, notwithstanding its own principles, and the mass of knowledge requisite for practising it.—I will then only relate the observations which I have made upon a considerable number of patients, and the inferences with which they have supplied me.

Fevers, in general, may be ranked in two classes: essential fevers, and symptomatic fevers. These take [Page]their origin from a local vice, or from another disease caused by some accident, or by some putrid miasma residing in the air; and whose characters vary infinitely, owing as well to the complexion, to the solids and liquids, as to the stomach, to the liver, and finally, to the whole hypogastric region, and abdominals, &c. We shall say nothing of the essential fevers proceeding from the fault of the blood and humours alone: which appear to us to have no affinity with the epidemical diseases, since they are the effects of a complication of causes belonging to the individual.

The reigning fever as far as I have been able to observe it, begins by pains in the loins, and in the head, at first light, and afterwards acute, accompanied with chills more or less considerable. The face then becomes very red, as well as the eyes, which are filled with tears. Some are delirious from the first day of the fever, some only towards the third day, after which they sink into a state of weakness, or into a profound lethargy, from which they never recover. The belly, and hypocondres, excepting a few pains, are almost in their natural state; but the stomach is generally tense or painful. The tongue, in all cases, from the beginning to the end, is loaded with a whitish crust, and the edges are of a very high red.

Some have vomitings from the first days, others only towards the third or fourth day. The matter which [Page]they then bring up, is whitish, green or black. Some vomit pure blood. They have a bloody flux, always preceded by bleeding of the nose more or less considerable. Some are thirsty, and others, though their tongue is dry, are not so. The skin is sometimes dry, and shrivelled, and sometimes much covered with sweat. But I have not perceived on the skin of any of my patients, any buboes or carbuncles or any other pestilential eruption. I have observed on three persons only, some few red spots, like the bite of a fly, on the stomach or breast.* Many are fatigued and low spirited.

Some have kept their spirits, and have exhibited all the good symptoms, during four days, till the beginning of the fifth, when all is changed, and the patient is despaired of. The urine, as to quantity, is the same as in a state of health; as to quality, it is highly coloured, with a great deal of a whitish sediment. But some have, towards the beginning of the seventh day, considerable evacuations of blood.† The pulse, that compass of physicians, is here very equivocal. It never [Page]corresponds with the alarming symptoms which accompany the disease, excepting the starting of the tendons; and that in a few patients, I have neither found the pulse intermittent, nor altogether obliterated.— More or less motion, strength or weakness was all that I could observe; so that, during the time of my attendance I regarded, with more attention, the other signs, than the state of the pulse. In that variety of symptoms, the patients die on the second, third, fifth, seventh, or ninth day, of the disease; and notwithstanding the observation of those critical days, several have elapsed without having any sensible crisis, whereby nature could drive away the disease. They recovered in proportion as the alarming symptoms ceased, which happens very seldom in acute diseases. Some women, attacked with that fever during their menses, had them suddenly suppressed, and children sometimes passed up and down a great quantity of worms, for the most part very red. In the critical days, the hiccup torments the patients in a most cruel manner, and then the eyes and skin of some become yellowish. Several patients who spate or vomited blood, bled at the nose, evacuated a brown matter, and were tormented with the hiccup, did however recover, notwithstanding those alarming signs, which together with the other symptoms, announced the approach of death. But those who vomited a black matter, who pissed blood, who were heavy and sleepy, who became [Page]yellow before the seventh day, or whose stomach was much swelled, especially those who in the beginning of the disease, made any use of cathartics, died between the fifth and eighth day.*

Those are the observations, I have made on my patients, whose different situations I have studied with the most steady application.

What is then this fever? Is it the sweating sickness, the putrid bilious fever, the inflammatory fever, or the disease of Siam, or the malignant fever?—I do not know; but I am convinced, that it unites in itself almost every characteristic sign of these diverse fevers. Besides, it disguises itself, varies and assumes so many different aspects, according to the complexion and constitution of the patient, the state of the mass of blood and humours, the diseases, which he was subject to, when he was attacked with that fever, and still much more than it is supposed, to the tranquility and agitation of his mind, that all judgment, and even inductions, upon its particular character, are liable to error.

Nevertheless it appears that it is produced by one [Page]and the same cause: that it shews the cause of its own principle, and is only derived from an inflammation, which the miasmas of the air, combined with the dispositions of the body, produce an inflammation in the episgrastic region, which affects the liver and the hypocondria in such a manner, that the blood, the bile, and other humours acquire more fluidity, owing to the heat increasing the dilatation of the vessels, causing a dissolution of the blood and of the humours, which are the principal characters with which the fever in question is accompanied. Pains in the stomach and reins, the first signs of this disease, are succeeded by the pathagnomic signs, as well as by vomitings and pissing of blood; and it is certain, that all which can produce the gastritis, of which the several species have been described by Sauvage and Hoffman, and especially drastic cathartics, strong emeticks, and all that increase the fluidity of the humours, such as mercury, &c. are not only contrary to the treatment of the disease, but may occasion certain death. And how many since it prevails have been victims of the violent treatment, and pretended specifics?*

[Page]The result of all that I have said is that in the cure of this disease, no regular system can be followed.— Therefore, I followed none, nor have I adopted any one medicine in preference to another. My prescriptions were only regulated by the conjectures which I have drawn from the examination of my patients, and the informations they could give me concerning their constitutions, and the state of their health before they were taken ill.

After that, here is a summary of the method I have followed, and still constantly follow, with such successes, that compared, with the number of patients, whom I fear to have been the unfortunate victims of [Page]the means used in vain to cure them, confirms me more and more in the resolution I have taken to follow that practice.*

[Page]As soon as I was called to visit a patient, and as soon as I perceived the least sign of inflammation, I, first of all, ordered him to be bled once or twice, and regulated the quantity of blood to be let, according to his age, and the strength of his constitution. If it was the first day of the sickness, and the inflammation was not likely to be of consequence, and if the patient inclined much to vomiting, I administered to him either a vomit in a large quantity of water, or some purgative of senna, manna, cream of tartar, and salt of seignette to cleanse the first passages. If he complained of a head ach, which did not lessen, or if the inflammation began, I prescribed bleeding after the purgatives*, and during that time until the third day, I only prescribed plentiful and cooling drinks, and in proportion as the strength failed, or I suspected a beginning of dissolution in the humours, I did not spare cordials, or the most softening astringents, mixed with mucilages and antiphlogistics; not forgetting, when occasion required, antiseptics, for which I used the alexipharmic essence of stahl, and the camphoric tincture of besoard; I also prescribed blisters, when I perceived the least [Page]sign of sleepiness. I have never purged any patient, excepting those who took physic on the first day; but about the sixth day of his illness, or when I perceived, by his urine, that the coction was made, I never used bark, which I look upon rather as a good strengthener than as an antiputrid, before the disease is abating. As to children, all I prescribed for them was bermifuges and glysters made of milk and honey, and every one evacuated a considerable quantity of reddish worms.

Amongst all the melancholy symptoms of this cruel disease, I found none so difficult to calm as vomitings, and hiccup. Acids composed of dulcified marine, and vitriolic salt, had but little success. I succeeded much better, as well against continual vomitings as against bloody evacuations, with a strong mucilage made of flax-seed, gum-arabic, honey, and cinnamon water, of which I directed my patients to take a spoonful every ten minutes.

Topics of emollient herbs boiled in strong wine, vinegar applied warm on the stomach, the lower part of the belly, and the reins, have also been of great service with me against the pains of those parts. I used no narcotics. If the patient, when the disease abated, was tormented with a want of sleep, I only administered to him almond-juice very thick, mixed [Page]with diacodium. In fine, my whole treatment was at first only established upon the inflammation, which I always believed to be the origin of that disease, and afterwards on the dissolution of humors which followed; and therefore I made the application according to circumstances, and the different shapes in which the disease presented itself, and of the best advices given us by the most eminent authors who have written on physic.

But is, or is not this disease contagious? A question which I think I am only able to answer by a distinction, which experience seems to justify. It is contagious for those, whose organical constitution has great homogenity with the air of this country. The affinity and relation existing between their constitution, and the impression of this atmosphere, gives them a nearer disposition to receive the impressions of the putrid miasmas, with which the air is impregnated, and which alter and trouble, more, or less that equilibrium of the solids and liquids, so necessary to maintain good health. The disease is not contagious for foreigners, whose constitutions have little homogenity with that dry air. We are convinced of it by the prodigious numbers abounding in this city, none of whom were attacked with that disease, whilst the most part of the natives, and those used to the climate, were taken ill with it.

[Page]The relations of man with all that surrounds him, and the influence of the air on the constitutions, cannot be described. We see the effects of them without often being able to penetrate the causes. We can give but conjectures on that head; and I only ground this, upon this certain fact, that men accustomed to a climate, are much more subject to the hurtful variations and influences of its atmosphere, than those, whose complexion, through a physical propensity, is still subject to the nature of the climate that they have just quitted. From thence arise endemic diseases, which do not affect foreigners, and from thence also the peculiar diseases which attack new-comers, without affecting the natives, as experience has often shewed to us in our colonies.

Such are, in a few words, what I have observed in this disease, and the methods I have followed to cure it. This is what the little leisure, left me by my patients, could allow me to commit hastily to writing. The public will not, certainly, find, in my style, any thing to make amends for the dryness of the subject I am writing upon. If what I say, has nothing new nor learned, what I have shewn, without order and method, is at least said with candor and sincerity. My aim is to obtain light, in order the better to serve my patients; and should this short publication prove agreeable to the public, I will give a longer dissertation on the actual [Page]epidemic. If, after what I have just said, any physicians, having followed a method different from mine, may have met with greater success, I beg that they would publish their observations. I assure them, before hand, of my sincere gratitude, and of the thanks of the public; non est in medico semper relevetur ut aeger.

Philadelphia, Oct. 10th, 1793.

D. NASSY.

Notes

*

I could mention several facts to prove the melancholy situation of the sick, from the desertion of their friends; but we must forgive those individuals, in favor of many of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, who have hurried to the assistance of the poor with an ardor which does honour to humanity.

↵

*

They have by their flight to the country fully complied with the Latin Distich,

Hoc tria labificam tollunt adverbia pestem,

Mox, longe, tarde, code, recode, rodi.

↵

*

‘Many circumstances, says Boerhaave, induce us to believe that the causes of epidemic diseases reside in the air, and depend upon the inexplicable variety of the exhalations therein contained.’

↵

*

Reaumur's.

↵

§

According to the observations of Hippocrates, ‘when the winter has been too mild, or too cold, when the Spring or Summer, and the following Autumn have been dry, we must fear cruel diseases.’ The musquitoes were uncommonly numerous during Autumn: ‘a certain sign,’ says Dr. Lind, of an unwholesome atmosphere.

↵

*

‘A stench which proceeded from the lakes about two leagues from Montpellier,’ says Mr. Sauvage, in his Nosology, ‘produced pestilential pleurisies in the neighbouring cities.’

↵

*

Those spots were so inconsiderable, that I doubt whether I may rank them among the petechiae, or milliary eruptions.

↵

†

Amongst my patients, I had but one who had an entire suppression of urine during five days. Warm baths and flaxseed mucilages were of great service to him, and he is now recovered.

↵

*

It is well known that purgatives do not act only upon the stomach and intestinal canal, but their action is communicated to the liver, the pancreas, and the spleen.

↵

*

It is true that Mr. Rosensten, a celebrated Swedish physician, prescribed calomel with camphor and aloes, as a preservative against the small pox, a disease well marked. But who is yet acquainted with the nature of an epidemic, so as to prescribe preservatives in the beginning of the disease? Besides mercury dissolves the blood, and above all the other humours. It is then, contrary and dangerous, for all that has a tendency to dissolution, and consequently in the prevailing disease. Let the bodies of those who die of that disease be opened, it will be found that the lower part of the belly, and all the epigrastic are the only ones affected, while the heart and the brains are in their natural state. Besides, let the dead bodies of those who used mercury and cathartics, be examined, and it will appear, whether in these, the evil has not been encreased and whether the gangrenous spots do not visibly discover the violent irritations caused by those corrosive medicines. The philosophical stone of physic, the universal panacea, is not yet discovered, and were it amongst possible things, one may well be allowed to doubt that Heaven had only reserved that discovery to the physicians of this part of the globe.

↵

*

I have visited and attended during the course of this disease, that is to say, since the 28th August to this day, more than 160 patients, of whom 117 were really attacked with the fever, which it would be difficult to call by a very characteristic name. Of that number I had the misfortune to lose 19. To eleven of these I was only sent for on the 2d, 4th or 5th day after they were taken ill, after they had been treated by other physicians, after they had taken violent vomits, cathartics, tincture of bark, with liq. laud. as they themselves informed me. Every one complained of beating pains on their stomach already much swelled.— Eight others who sent for me in the beginning of this sickness, had on the second or third day of my treatment, considerable vomitings of a black matter, the jaundice, pissed blood, and died on the 4th, 5th, 7th or 9th day.

I do not mention other patients whom I have visited and treated during that time the number of which exceeds fifty. Many had but little remittent, or colliquative fever. A greater number were affected more in mind than body, having consulted me, the more I attributed their uneasy situation to the fear they were seized with, and the more that I assured them they were not sick, the less they believed me. I was obliged in order to cure them, to make use of an innocent stratagem, by giving them some agreeable potions concealed under the disgusting appearance of medicines; and though they were only made with a few grains of cooling powders of stahl, they operated on them, by the merit of persuasion, by restoring to them the tranquility of mind they had lost.

↵

*

None of my patients were bled more than twice, and they lost but 6 or 8 ounces of blood at a time. My well grounded fear of the dissolution of the blood, made me to be very cautious about bleeding, which I prescribed but in case of need, and according to the signs I perceived in my patients. Thus many recovered without having been bled.

↵

POSTCRIPT.

[Page]

Whilst this paper was in the hands of one of my friends, who had undertaken to translate it into English, and print it, I had an opportunity of visiting the new asylum of the unfortunate, at Bush-hill. For this favour, I was indebted to Mr. Devese, a physician and surgeon from, St. Domingo, who, by a happy choice, has been entrusted with the care and direction of the hospital at Bush-hill; and who, to a feeling heart, unites the knowledge requisite for doing honour to his two professions. At my request, he was kind enough to have opened, in my presence, the bodies of two patients, who had died of the reigning disease. Of these two, the one had, before he came to the hospital, made use of the drastic purges with mercury, and the other had been treated in a more mild manner. The anatomical inspection of these two bodies, and of several others, made in the same hospital, has confirmed, in a most incontrovertible manner, the truth of what I have advanced, in one of my notes (P. 31,) and have plainly proved the havoc that those violent medicines, when administered in an inflammatory sickness, have caused in the stomach and intestines, the effects whereof were perceived upon the bodies of other patients who died of that disorder, although treated in a different manner. Therefore if the virus of that epidemical disease, yields, but with difficulty, to the cool antiphlogistic method, much more will it destroy the patient, [Page]in a still shorter time, if, with the intention of opposing it, we augment its violence by medicines analogous to its destructive nature.

How much that new hospital has penetrated my heart with gladness! The situation, the cleanness, the neatness that reign in every room, the contented and satisfied looks of the patients, who seem to bless their benefactors from the bottom of their hearts; the vigilance, the activity of the French under-surgeons, American nurses, and others whom I found there; the obliging and solacing manner in which they speak to the patients; in a word, every circumstance has moved my sensibility, in such a way, as to shed tears. Without prodigality, there is nothing wasted in that hospital. The most valuable medicines, the most exquisite wines, the nicest and most suitable diet, in short, every thing is in abundances, and every thing is destined for the relief of those unhappy and devoted persons, whom the epidemic has struck with [...] blow.

If the peace and tranquility, which are enjoyed in this country, enchant the soul of the meek and peaceful man, the charity of the American people towards their poor, the eager cares with which some humane and generous persons, have, in a short time, and at their own expence, fitted up this new asylum for suffering humanity, the assiduity and zeal of the committee that superintend it, all this may edify the most virtuous people on earth, and give an example to the universe how [Page]much more, of what adds to the dignity of the species, man, when in society, can perform, than when alone, than when he has not degraded his nature by ambition, covetousness, and cold self-love. This picture, so comforting for humanity, must and ought to spread joy, in a heart of sensibility, and make one say with transport, ‘Blessed be the name of God! Notwithstanding the crimes and horrors committed in some parts, virtue and charity are not yet banished from the whole earth!’

FINIS.

§

§

*⁎* The reader is requested to observe, that the note to page 6 belongs to page 7; and that at the bottom of page 7 to page 6.

Information about this book

Title statement

Observations on the cause, nature, and treatment of the epidemic disorder, prevalent in Philadelphia. By D. Nassy, M.D. member of the American Philosophical Society, &c. ; (Translated from the French.)

Nassy, David de Isaac Cohen, 1747-1806.

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Text Creation Partnership,

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2008-09.

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N19788

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N19788

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Evans 25855

ID [NOTIS]

APX4545

ID [IMAGE-SET]

25855

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99021322

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— Observations on the cause, nature, and treatment of the epidemic disorder, prevalent in Philadelphia. By D. Nassy, M.D. member of the American Philosophical Society, &c. ; (Translated from the French.), Nassy, David de Isaac Cohen, 1747-1806..

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26 p. ; 22 cm. (8vo)

Printed by Parker & Co. for M. Carey,,. Philadelphia: :: Nov. 26, --1793.. (Parentheses substituted for square brackets enclosing "Translated from the French.") (Errata note, p. 26.)

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Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.

Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.

Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.

The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.

Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).

Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.