others now in Philadelphia, met at the Navy Yard, on the 22d inst. Commodore CHARLES STEWART was called to the Chair, and Purser ROBERT PETTIT appointed Secretary.

The Chairman, in a short and feeling address, stated that they had convened for the purpose of offering some testimonial of their respect, to the memory of a brother officer, Doctor JOHN A. KEARNEY, late "Fleet Surgeon" of the Home Squadron, who died on the 27th of last August, at Salmadina, in the Gulf of Mexico.

A Committee consisting of Surgeons James M. Greene, W. S. W. Ruschenberger, and Purser Robt. Pettit, was appointed to prepare a notice and resolutions, expressive of the respectful sentiments and feelings of the meeting. The Committee reported the following, which was adopted:

We are impressed with no common feelings of sorrow, when we reflect, that only a few short weeks have elapsed, since the lamented subject of this notice, was on duty with us, in fine health and spirits, and with every prospect of a long and useful life; and that now he is numbered among the last victims of that disease, the fell scourge of strangers within the tropics!

We cannot permit an occasion so melancholy to pass, without a slight tribute to the memory of one with whom most of us have passed many happy hours, in our varied duties of a life at sea; or amid the social circle, with our friends on shore.

Doctor Kearney entered the service at an early age, and during a career of nearly forty years, passed with distinguished honour through the various ranks of the Medical Corps of the Navy. He served as Surgeon's Mate, Surgeon, Member and President of Medical Boards, and Fleet Surgeon of different squadrons.

In the war of 1812 he was Surgeon of the Frigate Constitution, in her triumphant encounter with two of the enemy's vessels and a larger force.

The deceased was a warm advocate for strict discipline, and willingly showed the utmost deference for those whose rank or seniority placed them in command-while he used every honorable means to promote the consideration which he believed was due to skilful and well instructed medical officers. Nor was he less strenuous in his efforts to advance the interests of others in the different departments of the service; and in 1835 had the pleasure to witness the passage of a law in Congress, improving the condition of every rank in the Navy.

Doctor Kearney was a noble hearted and generous man-he was a kind, affectionate husband, a tender parent, most sincere friend, and acquitted himself in all the relations of life, as a Christian and polished gentleman.

But it was in the exercise of his profession, either in the hospital, or on board his ship, that he was seen to most advantage-there, his whole time and attention were given to the sick, and no comfort or luxury was spared that could alleviate the sufferings of the patient, or tend to his recovery.

As friends of the deceased, we only join in the common expression

of sorrow, at the loss which his family, the public service, and society have sustained in the death of Doctor KEARNEY-and it is therefore

Resolved, That we sympathise with his family and relatives in their bereavement, and that we offer them our heartfelt regret, and most sincere condolence.

Resolved, That when time shall have assuaged the sorrows of his mourning relatives, they may direct his children to contemplate with becoming pride, a father's patriotism, his unsullied reputation, and the bright example of his virtues.

Resolved, That we appreciate his services in co-operating with the Army, in its struggle with the ruthless Seminole of Florida, and in voluntarily joining the squadron, now amidst disease and death in the Gulf of Mexico.

Resolved, That we will cherish with grateful recollection the memory of the deceased, as a skilful and efficient officer, a pleasing associate on duty, and as an accomplished gentleman.

Resolved, That these proceedings be signed by the Chairman and Secretary, and published in the papers of this city, and that a copy of them be sent to the Secretary of the Navy, with a request that he forward it to the family of the deceased, and also that a copy of it be sent to the Secretary of War, for Col. James Kearney, of the Topographical Engineers, only surviving brother of the deceased. CHARLES STEWART, Chairman.

Robert Pettit, Secretary.

U. S. Navy Yard, Philada. Sept. 22d, 1847.

RECORD OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.

THE IRISH IMMIGRANTS' FEVER,

GROS ISLE, 33 miles below Quebec, August 27th, 1847.

To the EDITOR of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.

DEAR SIR,-Through the politeness of Mr. W. Stevenson, of Quebec, who runs a small steamboat for the government, I have been able to make a short visit to this quarantine station, and am now on my return to Quebec; or shall be, as soon as our little steamer takes on board the last of the convalescents from the fever hospitals, which I see waiting on the dock. Presuming that our brethren generally, throughout the United States, feel a lively interest in the disease which is prevailing here and up the St. Lawrence, even to our own country, I propose to give you a rapid and superficial sketch of what I have seen, and what I may hereafter see; although, as I have been travelling for more than two months, and seen but few medical journals, I do not know but others have already done for you what I am

about to attempt. If so, please send on my letter to my colleagues of the Western Journal, at Louisville.

Gros Isle is one of the endless succession of beautiful islands which adorn this noble river, from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Many of them consist of ancient drift, and have level surfaces which rise but a few feet above the water; but this is rocky and rugged, with heights of 80 or 100 feet, in its centre, and hence the name given it by the early French voyageurs. Its breadth is less than a mile, with a length of nearly two. The black birch, white cedar, and various kinds of pine, overshadow and partly obscure its stony surface.

The quarantine station is on the south-east or right hand side, which, in the approach, present three distinct groups of one story board sheds, some of which are mere cottages, but others from two to four hundred feet long. The lowest, or eastern group, is for the reception and temporary accommodation of immigrants in health; the next up the island, for the quarantine physician, and a small detachment of troops from the garrison at Quebec; the third, or western, more extensive than both the others, for the sick and their physicians, nurses, and a numerous body of carpenters, engaged in the erection of additional houses to receive the hundreds who are still lodged in tents and marquees. The buildings of each group are white-washed, and appear in pleasant contrast with the green slopes and tuberosities of the island, in their rear. The harbor in front presents several ships at anchor, and two or three steamboats, with a neat and nearly finished dock, projecting to a distance into the stream. When we were near the harbour, a gentleman, Mr. Patten, who resides in its neighborhood, and who had kindly directed my attention to different, objects on our little voyage, called my eye to an Irish immigrant ship, then passing us. On inspecting the group of passengers with a glass, I was surprised to find them so healthy in appearance; and when about to express myself to that effect, he discovered and announced that it was a ship from Bremen. Such is the difference between the German and Irish immigrants, in health and personal condition.

A distant view of Gros Isle suggests a new and busy colony, on a romantic shore; but a walk up the dock, which leads directly to the hospital sheds, most painfully dispels the pleasing illusion. As I approached them, the emaciated forms and haggard faces of convalescents, sauntering about, or crouched on the ground and rocks, or sitting underneath the eaves, and on the piles of boards to be used for coffins, impressively told what might be expected within. Conducted by Mr. Patten, I passed through them without stopping, till we reached the quarters of Dr. George M. Douglas, the health officer, who received me with much hospitality. I found him lame, from a kind of hospital gangrene or slough, which had attacked one of his feet, but, intent on his duties, he was bravely hopping about, and answering a hundred questions, or giving as many orders.

Taking me in his buggy, he drove to his office in the midst of the sick, where I was introduced to several of his assistants, They are

chiefly young physicians of Quebec and other towns of Canada, employed by the government. One to whom I was introduced, although walking about, labored under fever; and yesterday I saw another at Quebec, who had returned in the same condition. The number of assistants to-day is nine. Since the first of June, twenty-one or twentytwo have been employed. All except Dr. Douglas, have experienced attacks of the fever, and three have died-one of whom was Dr. Frederick Cushing, formerly of the State of Maine. The exemption of Dr. Douglas is to be ascribed to his having already had the disease. After conversing awhile on its symptoms and treatment, Dr. Watt and Dr. Fenwick conducted me to their respective hospitals, embracing six or eight hundred patients, where I took such a coup d'œil of the sick as my limited time would permit, examining, with some attention, a considerable number in every stage of the disease. From a necessity which the Canadian government, up to this time, has been unable to avert, all the sheds and tents are crowded to such a degree, that one can scarcely turn round among the sick. Men, women and children, in all stages of the disease up to dissolution, are huddled together, and lying in the same foul and infectious clothes with which they started from Ireland; and which, no doubt they had worn, without change, for weeks or months before. The quarantine officers must not be blamed for this, since the means of classification and personal cleanliness are not within their reach. As to nursing, it is evidently in the lowest degree. Nearly all the nurses from Quebec have sickened, and the immigrants furnish but few from their own body. Their sympathies for each other are manifestly small-either never had an existence, or have perished under the combined influence of famine and filth. Examples of the well members of a family refusing to wait on the sick, are familiar to all the medical gentlemen; and a total indifference to the death of nearest relatives, is witnessed every day. Following their remains to the grave, or in any manner assisting in their interment, is not thought of. But one idea seems to be present with them, that of getting up the river. A man who had recovered, on being asked by some one, whether he was going to Montreal in the next steamboat, replied that he wished to do so, but was afraid his wife would not die in time. The family of a young woman who was ill, sent to know how she was before they started. On being expostulated with, they said it was not worth while to stay any longer, as she would no doubt die. Mr. Barter, the apothecary of the hospital, who is now by my side, going to Quebec on official business, confirms all that has been told me by others, and adds, as the result of his own observation throughout the summer, that the living seem more pleased than grieved by the death of their friends. My own limited opportunities suggest the same unwelcome conclusion; for I saw no aspect of sorrow; but a stolid indifference, or inquisitive gazing, at what might be passing around, both in the crowds of convalescents, and in patients not very ill, who lay in the midst of the dying. It is painful to record this testimony against human nature; but we ought to know

to what depths of degradation large masses of people may be sunk by superstition, ignorance, bad legislation, famine and fever. The interests of political economy, religion and medicine, are equally involved in the contemplation of such revolting facts.

Quebec, August 28th.

Before and since my trip to Gros Isle, I have visited the Marine Hospital of this city (under the care of several of its most respectable physicians), where a great number of seamen are down with the fever, and near which there are extensive sheds, filled with sick immigrants. I have also been at the House of Correction, and in the Hotel Dieu, where I saw cases; and at the private hospital of Dr. James Douglas and Dr. Racey, in Beauport, a village three miles from the city, where I saw still more. Many of the cases I examined with care, and held conversations, more or less protracted, with a number of the medical attendants, among whom I may mention Dr. Morin, Dr. Racey, Dr. J. Douglas, Dr. Clark, and Dr. Fremont, whom I may unite with the physicians of Gros Isle, as the authors of what I am about to say on the history and treatment of the fever.

1. The pauper immigrants from Ireland, are its chief victims; but it also affects the Irish pensioners, whose means must have kept them above the minimum of diet to which the former had been reduced by the famine; finally, it invades the officers and seamen of the ships which bring them over, and the physicians and nurses who wait upon them after their arrival. A great number die on the voyages, and many arrive ill; but it has been observed at Gros Isle, that a large number are attacked soon after being landed. Others remain well, and are sent on to Quebec, where a portion of them are taken down, while others escape till they reach Montreal, or the towns above. When at Oswego, in the State of New York, on my way out, I saw a number of cases.

It affects men rather more than women, and adults more than children; hence it has multiplied the number of infants on the banks of the St. Lawrence, to an unprecedented extent. I have already mentioned the mortality of the physicians at Gros Isle, a seventh of whom have died. In the Marine Hospital of Quebec, nine or ten of the old nurses have perished, and others are disabled, so that there is not one now on duty who was there before the fever was introduced. In the sheds, both there and here, but especially there, the crowd of patients is so great, that one, as I have said, can barely turn round among them, and in several of them, men, women and children, are indiscriminately huddled together. As the government has not undertaken to furnish them with clothing, most of them lie in the foul and tattered garments which they wore during the voyage, and perhaps long before. Now whether the disease is propagated by a gas developed chemically, from the organic matter which surrounds them, or by a morbid, aëriform secretion, from their bodies, we are at no loss to account for the sickness of physicians and nurses. On the question of its spread beyond the sheds and hospitals, I have sought 66

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