in the Beginning of _January_ 1761, the
Fever was upon the Decline in the General Hospitals, though it was
still rife; but by sending off a Party of Convalescents to
_Hervorden_, which thinned the Hospitals, it became less frequent, and
but few died. The Guards marched upon the Expedition into _Hesse_, on
the eleventh of _February_, which gave us full Room for billetting all
our Convalescents, and thinning the Wards; by which Means the Fever
almost entirely ceased in all the Hospitals we had before they went
away; though there still remained about four hundred sick.

When the Guards marched out of _Paderborn_, they left the Care of
their Sick to us, who belonged to the General Hospital: the first
Regiment of Guards left sixty sick; the second, twenty-nine; the
third, twenty-eight; and the Granadiers, fifteen, in their regimental
Infirmaries; who were mostly ill of the Malignant Fever: amongst whom
the Infection was so very strong, that, although I procured the Sick
new airy Houses for Hospitals, which were kept as clean and well-aired
as possible, and procured clean Bedding, and clean Linen for every
Man, and had the Sick laid thin, yet several died, and it was some
Time before we got entirely free of the Infection. The first and third
Regiments suffered most, owing to all the Sick of each Regiment being
put into a particular Hospital by themselves, which kept up the
Infection, so that they lost one-third of those left ill of this
Fever; and many of the Nurses, and People who attended them, were
seized with it. But not being able to procure particular Houses for
the Sick of the _Coldstream_ or Second Regiment, and for the
Granadiers, I distributed them through the different Hospitals we had
then in Town, where the Contagion had ceased; and by their being thus
scattered, while they were kept very clean, and at as great a Distance
as possible, from the other Patients in the Wards where they were put,
they lost few in Proportion to the first and third Regiments, and the
Disorder did not spread.

About the End of _May_, the Weather was very warm at _Osnabruck_; when
this Fever began to make its Appearance in the Corner of a large Ward,
which was next to one kept for salivating venereal Patients; and only
divided from it by means of a few thin Deals. Perceiving a strong
Smell in this Place, I suspected that the Fever arose from the foul
Steams coming from the next Ward, and therefore ordered the salivating
Ward to be thinn