more._ Population estimated at 65,000; deaths were 2,108;
proportion of one to thirty and two thirds.

I have thus selected the mortality of St. Louis during the most sickly
season since my residence in this country, and compared it with the
bills of mortality of four eastern cities for two years, those of 1820
and 1823, and the result is favorable to the health of St. Louis, and by
consequence, to the adjoining States. For ten years past, there has been
no general sickness in St. Louis, during the summer and autumnal
months, excepting the cholera in 1832.

Some parts of Indiana and Ohio are unquestionably more subject to
bilious attacks than Illinois. The reason is obvious. Much of that
region is heavily timbered, and, upon cutting it away in spots, and
letting in the rays of the sun upon vegetable matter undergoing
decomposition, miasmata are generated. These regions will become
comparatively healthy, when put under general cultivation.

The story is told, that the late emperor of France lay encamped with one
of his armies near a place reputed unhealthy, when one of his officers
requested a furlough. The reason being asked, and given, that the place
was unhealthy, and the applicant feared to die an inglorious death from
fever: Napoleon replied, in his accustomed laconic style, "Go to your
post; men die everywhere."

If a family emigrate to a new and distant country, and any of the number
sicken and die, we are apt to indulge in unavailing regret at the
removal; whereas had the same afflictive event happened before removal,
it would have been regarded in quite a different light. Let then, none
come to Illinois who do not expect to be sick and to die, whenever
Divine Providence shall see fit so to order events.

The _milk sickness_ is a disease of a singular character, which prevails
in certain places. It first affects animals, especially cows, and from
them is communicated to the human system by eating the milk, or flesh.
The symptoms of the disease indicate poison; and the patient is affected
nearly in the same way, as when poisonous ingredients have been received
into the system. Cattle, when attacked by it, usually die. In many
instances it proves mortal in the human system; in others, if yields to
the skill of the physician. Much speculation has been had upon its
cause, which is still unknown. The prevailing idea is, that it is caused
by some poisonous substance eaten by the cattle, but whether vegetable
or mi