or Plaited Hair, is a disease peculiar to Poland, and hence the name. Mr Cox, who gives a short account of it, attempts likewise to assign the physical causes which are supposed to produce it. Many causes of this kind, he tells us, have been supposed to concur in rendering the plica more frequent in those regions than in other parts. It would be an endless task to enumerate the various conjectures by which each person has endeavoured to support his favourite hypothesis. The most probable are those assigned by Dr Vicat. The first cause is the nature of the Polish air, which is rendered insalubrious by numerous woods and morasses, and occasionally derives an uncommon keenness, even in the midst of summer, from the position of the Carpathian Mountains; for the south and south-easterly winds, which usually convey warmth in other regions, are in this chilled in their passage over the snowy summits of this range. The second is unwholesome water; for although Poland is not deficient in good springs, yet the common people usually drink that which is nearest at hand, taken indiscriminately from rivers, lakes, and even stagnant pools. The third cause is the gross inattention of the natives to cleanliness. Indeed experience shows, that those who are not negligent in their persons and habitations, are less liable to be afflicted with the plica than others who are deficient in these particulars. Thus persons of the higher ranks are less subject to this disorder than those of inferior stations, the inhabitants of large towns less than those of small villages, the free peasants less than those in an absolute state of vassalage, the natives of Poland Proper less than those of Lithuania. Whatever we may think as to the possibility of all or any of these causes, by themselves, or in conjunction with others, originally producing the disorder, we may venture to assert, that they all, and particularly the last, assist its propagation, inflame its symptoms, and protract its cure. In a word, the plica polonica appears to be a contagious distemper, which, like the leprosy, still prevails amongst a people ignorant in medicine, and inattentive to check its progress, but is rarely known in those countries where proper precautions are taken to prevent its spreading.