Although we thought the distemper had then risen to an extraordinary height, and were willing to hope that its malignity might abate as we advanced to the northward, we yet found, on the contrary, that we lost near double that number in the month of May; and, as we did not get to land till the middle of June, the mortality went on increasing, and so prodigiously did the disease extend, that, after the loss of above 200 men, we could not muster at the last above six foremast-men in a watch that were capable of duty.

This disease, so frequent in long voyages, and so particularly destructive to us, is surely the most singular and unaccountable of any that affects the human body.  Its symptoms are innumerable and inconstant, and its progress and effects singularly irregular, for scarcely have any two persons complaints exactly resembling each other; and where there have been, some conformity in the symptoms, the order of their appearance has been totally different.  Though it frequently puts on the form of many other diseases, and is not therefore to be described by any exclusive and infallible criterions, yet there are some symptoms which are more general than the rest, and of more frequent and constant occurrence, and which therefore deserve a more particular enumeration.  These common appearances are large discoloured spots dispersed over the whole surface of the body, swelled legs, putrid gums, and, above all, an extraordinary lassitude of the whole body, especially after any exercise, however inconsiderable and this lassitude at last degenerates into a proneness to swoon, and even to die, on the least exertion of strength, or even on the least motion.  This disease is usually attended, also, by a strange dejection of spirits, with shiverings, tremblings, and a disposition to be seized with the most dreadful terrors on the slightest accident.  Indeed it was most remarkable, in all our reiterated experience of this malady, that whatever discouraged our people, or at any time damped their hopes, never failed to add new vigour to the distemper, for such usually killed those who were in the last stages of the disease, and confined those to their hammocks who were before capable of some kind of duty, so that it seemed as if alacrity of mind and sanguine hopes were no small preservatives from its fatal malignity.

But it is not easy to complete the long roll of the various concomitants of this disease; for it often produced putrid fevers, pleurisies, jaundice, and violent rheumatic pains, and sometimes occasioned obstinate costiveness, which was generally attended with a difficulty of breathing, and this was esteemed the most deadly of all the scorbutic symptoms.  At other times the whole body, but more especially the legs, were subject to ulcers of the worst kind, attended by rotten bones, and such a luxuriance of fungous flesh as yielded to no remedy.  The most extraordinary circumstance, and which would scarcely be credible upon any single evidence, was, that the