This volume contains almost 200 pages (numbered 15-212) of financial records, patient records, and memoranda related to Jonathan Murduck, who sailed to Calcutta, India, in 1803, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1804-1805. Accounts pertain to goods shipped on the Louisiana in 1804, Murduck's personal purchases at Port-au-Prince, and medical consultations for ships' officers at Port-au-Prince. Memoranda concern trade between the United States, the Caribbean, India, China, and Sumatra, and medical cases.
Groups of financial accounts, medical records, and memoranda overlap throughout the volume. The earliest dated sections, which appear toward the back of the volume, pertain to an 1803 voyage to Calcutta, India; these include Murduck's financial records, a list of items purchased in Calcutta, a list of books, a list of personal objectives for the voyage, and an account of the author's daily routine. The volume contains essays on trade between Philadelphia and Calcutta, Sumatra, and "Cochin China" (pp. 194-210), as well as "Notes for [a] History of yellow fever" (p. 211). Pages 106-107 contain a recipe for a wood varnish. Other memoranda and notes concern the market at "St. Domingo," trade between the United States and the Caribbean, the effects of the French Revolution on Hispaniola, and the trade of tortoiseshell, sage, and nitre or saltpeter.
The bulk of the records pertain to Jonathan Murduck's finances and medical practice at Port-au-Prince in late 1804 and early 1805, including an invoice of items shipped on the Louisiana in October 1804, expenses related to the Louisiana, Murduck's personal financial accounts, accounts of private expenses, and records of sales and purchases of goods such as coffee. Medical records list the names of captains and other officers treated at Port-au-Prince, as well as the costs of medicines and/or consultations. Two case studies refer to patients afflicted with gonorrhea. A fragment laid into the volume also concerns medical cases, and the final page contains a pasted-in fragment containing "Notes for a Letter to Dr. Rush" concerning prevailing diseases in Port-au-Prince.
