methods of cure were employed which had different
effects. These fevers were often attended with cholic, spasms in the
stomach, and diarrhea. The first method consisted in vomitting, purging,
and then administering the bark, to which musk was sometimes added, when
the disorder grew worse. In this case, when the disease did not end in
death, the fever was often succeeded by dysentery, or those who believed
themselves cured, were subject to relapses. The second method, which Doctor
Bergeron employed with more success, was opposite to the former; he vomited
the patients but little, or not at all, endeavouring to calm the symptoms,
to strengthen the patient by bitters, and at the last, he administered the
bark.[A13]

The Negroes who, like all other people, have a materia medica, and
pharmacopeia of their own, and who at this season, are subject to the same
disorders as the Europeans, have recourse at the very beginning, to a more
heroic remedy, and such of our soldiers encamped at Daccard, as made use of
it, in general found benefit from it. The Priest or Marabous, who often
offered them the assistance of his art, made them take a large glass of
rum-punch, very warm, with a slight infusion of cayenne pepper. An
extraordinary perspiration generally terminated this fit. The patient then
avoided, for some days, walking in the sun, and eat a small quantity of
roasted fish and cous-cous, mixed with a sufficient quantity of cassia
leaves of different species, to operate as a gentle purgative. In order to
keep up the perspiration, or according to the Negro Doctor, to strengthen
the skin, he applied from time to time, warm lotions of the leaves of the
palma christi, and of cassia, (_casse puante_.) The use of rum, which is
condemned by the Mahometan religion, and is a production foreign to this
country, gives reason to suppose that the remedy is of modern date, among
the Negroes.

[A13] It is to be observed that the author, in these two passages, uses the
word _Kina_ or Peruvian bark--T.

[A14] XXIII.--_On the Isle of St. Louis_.

St. Louis is a bank of scorching sand, without drinkable water or verdure,
with a few tolerable houses towards the South, and a great number of low
smoky straw huts, which, occupy almost all the North part. The houses are
of brick, made of a salt clay, (_argile salee_) which the wind reduces to
powder, unless they are carefully covered with a layer of chalk or lime,
which it is difficult to procure, a