HUXHAM. 169 with much fluency. But he perceived that the master, who was the object of his veneration, had derived his hght from a careful and minute in- spection into the regions of disease, and in this respect he sedulously imitated his example with a success which few have had the perseverance to attain. He paid an earnest attention to the fluc- tuations of the seasons, to the changes of weather, and to their influence on the production of disease. This was the field which Huxham chiefly culti- vated, — an obstinate and difficult soil, demanding constant attention, and vigilant patience, and most slow in the rewards which it yields to the labourer. In the two volumes of his Ohservationes de Aere et Morhis Epide7nlcis, he has detailed the results of a register kept at Plymouth during nearly thirty years (from 1724 to 1752). A third volume was edited after his death, which occurred at Piymouth, in 1768. This supplementary volume was pub- lished in 1770, by his son ; and it is much to be regretted that this gentleman, who was also a Fellow of the Royal Society, did not enrich the work by some records of that father, who has stamped a lasting, although modest celebrity on the name of Huxham. His Treatise on Fever has become the most popular of his works : it appeared in 1750, and was rapidly translated into German and French. His French biographer (1822) eulo- gizes it in terms which will not find universal assent in this country ; he asserts that it is infi- nitely superior to the various Treatises on Fever which have been subsequently published in Eng- land, without excepting that of Cullen, This preference seems to be founded on his having
