NAPLE S.

NAPLES is located on the declivity of an extensive hill, and reaches from its summit to the margin of the bay. On entering the gate near the most elevated part of the old city, the coup d'œil, as is proverbially known, is grand and beautiful, comprising a complete view of the town, which stretches around in a semicircular manner like a vast amphitheatre. Besides the view of the city, you have the superb and widely-extended bay before you, and the islands of Capri and Ischia at its entrance. On the left, at a little distance from the dense part of the city, are seen the two eminences of Vesuvius; one long since extinct, leaving only the shell of a crater; the other a truncated cone, now, since the terrific eruption we have just described, again calm and tranquil, and emitting only a thin, spiral column of smoke, scarcely visible from the deep brilliancy of the blue sky beyond.

This city is by far the largest and most populous in Italy, containing over 400,000 inhabitants. The older and upper parts are compact and densely populated, with extremely narrow streets to exclude the sun, as is the usage in all Southern Europe; an admirable arrangement to obtain a cool and pleasant shade, but one which, by crowding the masses of the inhabitants into too close proximity, is calculated to aggravate the malignancy and multiply the extension of a contagious or infectious disease when introduced. A fact that must be familiar to those who recall the ravages of yellow fever some years back in the cities on the Mediterranean coast of Spain,

Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malaga, Barcelona, &c. And the same may be said of that pestilence in its more fatal progress in the more densely-populated quarters of our own cities on the Atlantic coast.* There is one wide and principal street extending through the old part of the city, and terminating at the palace in the direction of the bay.

The new part of Naples is truly superb, and merits all the encomiums that have been lavished upon it. In front of it, directly on the bay, is a beautiful public promenade, tastefully ornamented with trees and shrubbery. This is called the Chiaja; and the houses and comfortable accommodations here are such as to cause it to be selected as the place of residence by all strangers and travellers who visit this city.

This new portion of Naples, forming on the bay another segment, as it were, of a circle, is peculiarly well adapted for invalids, on account of its being sheltered from the cold northers by the abrupt ascent of the hill above.

In this beautiful climate of Naples, with its balmy air, but not with skies more serene than our own, and never with the rich tints of our autumnal leaf, all nature seems to smile, and the very

"Air breathes wooingly,"

to court the languid invalid to its delicious repose. It is unquestionably, of all parts of Italy I have visited, the one I should prefer as a residence for invalids from the North affected with pulmonary complaints.

Even in the earliest times it was as celebrated as now for its bright skies and balmy air, whither the rich from Rome resorted to enjoy luxurious indolence and the ele

* See works of Blane, Fellowes, Pym, Gilpin, Bally, Pariset, Audouard, Townsend, Hosack, &c., on Yellow Fever.

gant gayeties and refinement which its polished inhabitants, who are of Greek origin, maintained for centuries. The Consul Claudius and the Emperor Nero were among those who made this city and its environs their favourite residence.

Independent of its well-known equableness and mildness of climate, and the beauty of the surrounding country, it possesses peculiar attractions in its public establishments, and especially in its Museo-Borbonico of antiques from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other ancient places in the neighbourhood. In the saloons of this wonderful collection, furnishing exhaustless resources of gratification to the inquiring mind, a literary man might most agreeably beguile away his time without danger of ennui, and in the acquisition of curious information.

Incredible as it may appear, it is not to be denied that the proportion of affections of the chest are quite as common here among the inhabitants, and the mortality as great, as in the city of New-York. This may seem strange language; but it must be recollected, that although the climate of Naples, taken throughout the season, merits all the eulogiums that have been bestowed upon it for its mild and moderate ranges of temperature and clear weather, contrasted with our own Protean and boisterous latitudes, yet to the enervated inhabitants, and especially to the poor, half-naked peasants and lazaroni, herding by hundreds as they lay along the bay basking in the sun, ever happy, ever singing, even in their rags, the changes of temperature from the chilling blasts of the tramontane winds and the damp sirocco or southwest from the Mediterranean, are exceedingly pernicious. Though the vicissitudes are not by any means as excessive as ours, still on the native they produce effects fully as disastrous in disturbing the equilibrium

of the circulating fluids, and causing sudden revulsions and defluxions upon the chest and respiratory passages. And I think one reason why travellers and invalids from colder countries are not so frequently subject to the influence of these changes as the natives, is, that their constitutions are more or less inured to severe atmospheric changes, and that they keep their apartments more comfortable, and take the precaution to guard themselves better with suitable clothing.

Besides pulmonary affections, and occasionally an outbreak of typhus in the more confined habitations of the poor, there are few or no diseases prevalent at any time in this city, which may certainly be pronounced, therefore, eminently salubrious.

There is, however, enough of the materiel of disease to have given occasion for the erection of a large hospital, under excellent regulations, and for a respectable medical school connected with it.

Among the physicians attached to the latter is Professor Quadri, one of the most distinguished surgeons in Italy, his forte being particularly in the ophthalmic branches. In this metropolis of nearly half a million of inhabitants, and necessarily, therefore, subject frequently to casualties for surgical practice, we could find no trace whatever of the great and capital operations of modern times ever having reached this part of Italy. The field of surgery, it is true, for want of extensive commerce, is somewhat limited here, excepting for what may delicately be called punctured wounds; I mean those of the stiletto, the weapon of the Italian's revenge, though certainly incomparably less bloody than our famous Bowie-knife, or the Cuchilla and machetta of the Spaniards. These wounds, it may be observed, happen most frequently during the feuds among the common people; and, though seldom

fatal, are frequently, in this warm climate, followed by tetanus and sometimes by death.

In travelling through this renowned country, whose history is so interwoven with that of all others that border the Mediterranean, and with the greatest portion of Europe, extended and almost universal as was once the military sceptre of Rome over the nations of the earth, I confess that I looked in vain for those evidences of advancement in medical science, which I might well have cherished the hope to meet in the land which gave birth to Morgagni and to Scarpa, to Mascagni and Tommasini. Though but few years have elapsed since the death of the famous surgeon Scarpa, and that Tommasini still sustains the reputation which his country acquired in later centuries in the healing art, but little or no progress has been made in the adoption of those discoveries and processes of operation. and treatment which are now in common use in most parts of Europe and America.

The Campo Santo, or Public Cemetery for the Poor, in Naples, is situated between the city and Vesuvius, on a considerable elevation, and seemed to me, in its general construction, particularly worthy of imitation for our country, as well as for every other. It is a large enclosure, surrounded by a massive wall at least twelve to fifteen feet high; and the most simple and chaste order is observable in its interior arrangements. Nothing was seen but long rows of flat stone slabs, with the single inscription on each that denoted the day of the year to which it was appropriated. Thus there are 365 vaults, of large dimensions and of great depth, and one is opened for each day of the year. The great advantage to public health of this mode is that each vault, with all the bodies deposited in it, is at the close of the day se