Commonplace book, 1801., 1801. Digital

Contains excerpts possibly from Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush's 1774 oration, "An enquiry into the natural history of medicine among the Indians in North-America, and a comparitive view of their diseases and remedies, with those of civilized nations." The notes focus on the Native American diet, female health, and childbirth and child rearing. Also contains notes, likely transcribed from a medical text, on illnesses including bilious remitting, or remittent fever, believed to be caused by intemperance, eating too much animal food, cold damp air, or contagion, among other reasons. Treatment called for cathartics or emetics. There is one entry containing a case history of a patient with a stomach tumor, on whom Hastings and a council of other doctors operated. Other entries contain notes on philosophy and the doctrine of fatalism.