Fifteen years after Noah Webster wrote his 1784 Grammatical Institute of the English Language, and seven years before he issued his first dictionary — for which he would become known as the “Father of the American Dictionary” — he wrote the first American study of epidemiology. It was the two-volume, 700-page Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases. As the grammatical columnist at NR, I’ve stayed away from COVID-19 issues. But because I collect old editions of Noah Webster’s works, as well as his original letters — all things Webster, really — I decided to brave the 18th-century dust in …
Something to Consider
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