A RATIONAL
ACCOUNT
OF THE CAUSES OF
CHRONIC DISEASES.
WHEREIN A NATURAL, EASY, AND SAFE WAY OF PREVENTING, AS WELL AS CURING, THOSE DISEASES, IS POINTED OUT; AND THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE HIPPOCRATIC METHOD OF PRACTICE BRIEFLY EXPLAINED.
THE SECOND EDITION.
TO WHICH ARE ANNEXED, NEW STRICTURES on the THEORY OF FEVERS, and on the SANCTORIAN DOCTRINE OF PERSPIRATION.
WITH AN APPENDIX ON DIET AND EXERCISE.
BY JOHN MORLAND, M. D.
Irrideat si quis vult; plus tamen semper apud me valebit
vera ratio,
quam vulgi opinio.
CICERO.
LONDON, Printed for S. HOOPER, No. 25, Ludgate-Hill.
[PRICE ONE SHILLING.]
ADVERTISEMENT.
TO prevent the unfavourable impressions which
Gentlemen,
of the profession, might otherwise be induced to entertain of him, in consequence of this mode of publication; the author thinks it proper to declare, with his hand on his heart—That the DIVINE ART of HEALING hath not,
cannot
have, a more disinterestedly zealous advocate than he is, nor one that more truely honours every worthy professor of it, who knows his
Art,
but not his
Trade.
FARTHER—That the most valuable part of his life has been employed,
, in painful, laborious (he might add, very expensive) researches, and experiments, with a sole view to the improvement of that art: whereby many individuals have been enriched; some indeed very unworthily — who are at this time accumulating thousands annually, by converting to private emolument his discoveries, originally intended for public good.
To conclude — The most benevolent, the most public spirited member of the faculty of physic, cannot more pathetically bewail than he does, the present alarming growth of
licentious quackery;
that consequential minister in the train of modern
riot
and
intemperance
—which he cannot help looking upon, with heartfelt concern, as the
ominous antitype
of
that luxury,
which first betrayed the people of ancient Rome to the murderous havoc of empiricism, and finally effected the ruin and destruction of that once glorious republic.
SYNOPSIS OF THE CAUSES OF
CHRONIC DISEASES.
ALL arts, whether
plastic, mathematical, mechanical,
or
physical,
are but the handmaids and imitators of Nature. Most successful is the practitioner who can happily trace her path, and can copy nearest to the divine original: Who, knowing her ways, is able to lend a hand when she is obstructed; or can render her propitious by gentle and well timed invitations. In the healing art particularly, it was observed two thousand years ago by
Hippocrates,
the great father of medical science
.
, that, NATURE
is the sovereign curer of diseases,
and that
physicians are, or ought to be, her humble imitators
.
and servants
.
. By unceasing attendance on the sick, invincible patience, and the most vigilant observation of every action and motion of NATURE, that illustrious
Archiater
acquired a wonderful knowledge of the genuine nature of diseases,—of the
, and of the gradual, uniform, consentient operations
. L. de Aliment.
of that exquisite mechanism, and innate, energetic principle of self preservation, with which the CREATOR of
man
hath been pleased to endow our bodies: And, by carefully comparing the same sort of distempers, and their various minute motions, in different patients, and all the circumstances [
] and accidents [
] which usually preceded and attended them, he could readily foretel an approaching disease, and after its invasion, give a right judgment of the progress and event of it.
This surprizing
skill
of his, in foretelling the approach, successive changes, and event, of discases, and
that
of other succeeding physicians who carefully studied and pursued his method, procured them a kind of religious veneration among the people, who were wont to look upon them as prophets inspired by the Gods, and even as arbiters of life and death.
But as this
old method
of acquiring the
is extremely tedious, crabbed, and severe, it has been little regarded for many ages, except by certain particular retainers to the
Coan
school; such, for instance, as
Sydenham
and his truly ingenious and singularly modest translator
Mapletoft
From an authenticated copy of the original manuscript (which the writer had, some years ago, and he believes has still, in his possession) of Doctor Sydenham's dedication of his works to Doctor Mapletoft, it appears, that this modest translator hath, in his Latin version, suppressed many high encomiums paid to himself. A further instance of Doctor Mapletoft's singular delicacy, as related, with other anecdotes of him, to the author by his grandson, a gentleman of distinguished probity and learning, now living, is, that after having exercised the profession of physic, with reputation and success, to the age of forty-eight, he then left off practice, purely on account of the insuperable solicitude of mind his fellow-feeling for the sick under his care constantly produced.
,
Bagtivi, Boerbaave, Mead, Huxham,
&c.
In later times, a much easier and more compendious way to fame and opulence has been happily discovered: And we can now, with singular propriety, apply to the ancient practice of
observation,
what that lucky son of fortune
Gnatho
(in
Terence
) told an honest, simple, half-starved brother of his, on a similar occasion —
— "Olim isti fuit
Generi quondam quaestus, apud seclum prius —
—
HOC NOVUM EST AUCUPIUM."
This
Prince of Physicians
first observed in what manner the symptoms in acute diseases [
,]
when not interrupted by art, or by any external cause
[
] succeeded one another, and by what
evacuations,
NATURE,
when left to herself,
got rid of those diseases
.
: And on this solid basis of
observation,
he originally erected that noblest production of human genius and sagacity,
(monumentum aere perennius) the art of presaging;
and formed
from thence
a method of curing
natural diseases,
by means of such
artificial ones
as NATURE, when too languid and remiss herself, never failed to point out or reveal to this her faithful minister. He had frequently observed, in the practice of his divine mistress, that a spontaneous haemorrhage of blood from the nose always mitigated, and oftentimes carried off, certain kinds of fevers, and other violent disorders. This suggested to him the practice of
artificial
haemorrhages by
bleeding, scarification,
&c. which he likewise used, on certain occasions,
prophylactically,
or by way of prevention: For
experience
had taught this consummate artist, that those means which were wont to assuage bad symptoms after they appeared, would prevent their coming on, if used in proper time. He had likewise observed, that NATURE frequently cured certain diseases by spontaneous abscesses in different parts of the body. When he found NATURE prevented from working her own way, by such salutary operations, he substituted in their room
artificial
abscesses, such as
issues, setons,
&c.
It became farther obvious to him, that some violent disorders were carried off by a spontaneous diarrhoea, or vomiting; others by plentiful warm sweats, or a gentle moisture of the skin; others again by a critical discharge of urine, and some by expectoration, &c. Hence his practice
Of his method of practice in general, compared with our modern improvements, one of the most accomplished physicians [
,
Phoebo ante alios dilectus
] now living, scruples not to say — "Ob cultum Hippocraticae curationis neglectum, magis quam ullam aliam causam, accidisse videtur, quod licet humani corporis compages et facultates longe melius intellectae fuerint, et morborum abditae causae altius investigatae, et medicamentorum copia plurimum aucta, et eorum vires novis experimentis exploratae; nihilominus tamen, rei medicae, in tollendis morbis acutis utilitas a temporibus usque Hippocratis haud increvit, si modo non sucrit imminuta."
,
, of exciting
artificial
diarrhoeas by
purging medicines;—vomits; sudorifics; diaphoretics; diuretics; expectorants,
&c.
That a medicine, which, consonant to this rational and truely physical doctrine of
Hippocrates,
the prime minister of NATURE, would constantly operate with equal safety, ease, and efficacy, in all, even the most opposite constitutions, and uniformly answer every intention of an
universal evacuant,
by attenuating, dissolving, and carrying off, the viscid concretions, and foulnesses, of the stomach and intestines; thereby cleansing and deterging those concoctive organs, and restoring them to their pristine natural action;
or,
by a milder gradual operation
.
, in proper doses, removing obstructions in the remoter vessels, and carrying off any morbid or excrementitious humours, by insensible perspiration
.
, sweat, and urine. — That such a medicine is one important
desideratum
in physic, the learned and judicious professors of the faculty, who have sacrificed at the shrine of NATURE, will readily acknowledge—That the subject of this discourse is such a medicine, the author dares, with undesigning confidence, assert; after a thousand successful trials made of it, by himself, and his medical acquaintances in different countries: Under the sanction of which impartial experience, he can now safely recommend it to the public, as an
universal purgative,
—not as an
universal medicine,
—nor even as a
specific one,
that, 'by its peculiar operation on the animal fluids, can transform any morbific matter, or preternatural ferment, into good blood and humours.'—He knows none such: Nor can he, on this occasion, forbear expressing a real and honest concern, that the
— by
specific remedies,
is not yet
wholly
confined to the mountebank professions of
empirics;
to whom promises cost nothing but the health and lives of those who trust them. That the opinion of the
specific operations,
or, which is the same thing, the occult qualities, of medicines, in the cure of diseases, continues to be a prevailing principle in physic, the publications of the current century, and shop records, mutually evince: Though 'tis evident, that, agreeably to this doctrine, and method of procedure, it will be impossible ever to fix any bounds to the
materia medica,
(and consequently to the still growing, tho' already insupp
rtable expence of physic) or to reduce the
praxis medica
to any rational general principles; whilst the whole vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms are ransacked and tortured, in order to find out those occult qualities and specific operations. — Hence, such is the felicity of the present times, and so wonderfully is the world now enriched with specifics, simple and compound, (under the conjuring titles of alexipharmics, cardiacs, cephalics, neurotics, stomachics, &c. antifebrifics, antihysterics, antepileptics, anticterics, antiscorbutics, &c.) that there is not a family in the kingdom which can spare a few shillings, but may purchase a
dispensatory,
containing several hundreds of those choice appropriated remedies, for the cure of all diseases. — Nor is it of less utility to the junior part of the faculty, or sucking practitioners, [
,] as the learned Doctor
Gideon Harvey
quaintly titles them: Since, by this means, they are accommodated with an elegant set of extemperaneous prescriptions, and a competent number of those most approved specifics, recommended by the authority and experience of the greatest names, are always kept ready prepared in the shops, such as may answer all cases
, to avoid the needless trouble of making a right judgment
.
upon any case in particular.
With regard to this
specific practice,
(the constant political subterfuge of
physic-craft
) it is well known to every judicious experienced physician, that the artful pretence of curing diseases by the occult qualities of specific remedies, is now, as it always has been, the principal source of all the knavery, impudence, and ignorance, that we meet with in the profession.
Any
semicrude
practitioner in this way, who is possessed of a tolerable share of cunning and address, can never want a specious pretext for making a property of his patient, almost as long as he pleases, by flattering his hopes from time to time; tho' the patient finds himself never the better, but perhaps still grows worse: If one specific succeed not, another is tried, and, if that fails, a third, and so on
.
; as long as the poor infatuated believing sufferer has any money, strength, or patience left.
Suffice it here to quote one instance, out of a multitude that might be produced, of this
medicina politica;
and be that the
specific
treatment of those
chronical
disorders commonly distinguished by the technical epithets of
arthritic, rheumatic, scorbutic, hysteric,
and
hypocondriac.
Several hundred volumes (without counting those petit essays
.
that are daily spewing out of the press) have been professedly written
.
on the causes, &c. of these maladies: Though their whole aetiology may be comprised in a few words.—Ease, indolence, intemperance, indulged pleasure, irregular gratifications of the natural appetites, and the want of pure, fresh air
The greatest master in physic looks upon
air
as the fountain of life and health to man; and moreover ascribes to
it,
in a great measure, the different size, shape, complexion, manners, disposition, government, and genius, of different nations. For instance, in the fertile regions of Asia, which approach nearest of any, in his opinion, to the original nature and temperature of the seasons. [
] moderate heat and moisture render the men plump [
], extremely handsome, and of the largest size. —From the extraordinary mildness of their air and climate, the manners of the
eastern Asiatics
are more easy, gentle, and unactive [
], than those of the
northern Asiatics
and
Europeans.
From the same cause, their dispositions are soft, cowardly, and effeminate, impatient of labour and hardship. Whatever, says he, is manly, laborious, painful, or bold and daring, [
] can find no place in such a constitution; but
pleasure
is the governing principle: And hence proceeds the great variety of forms amongst their wild beasts—Neither is the mind, in such a constitution, subject to surprises [
], nor the body to violent changes; circumstances that are apt to give a sharper edge to the passions, and a higher degree of understanding, and sprightly vigour, than where things remain continually in the same state: For the mind of man is always roused, and not suffered to rest, by frequent and sudden changes. Upon these accounts, the
eastera Astatics
are weak, timorous, and servile, easily sliding into monarchies: With reluctance they leave their ease and families, and hazard their lives for despotic masters. On the other hand, in
Greece,
and the
northern
parts of Asia, where the temperature of the seasons is less mild, and less uniform, the men are bold, hardy, and warlike: Without compulsion they quit their ease, and voluntarily expose themselves to toil and danger, animated with the hopes, and rewarded with the fruits, of conquest.
In countries abounding with certain mines, travellers find the frame and temper of their minds suddenly altered; their intellectual faculties more sprightly and vigorous, conceptions clearer, imagination more brisk and lively; and on passing to another soil, an universal relaxation, idea, gloomy, confused, and indistinct, immediately succeed. Thus, consonant to the philosophic notions of the DIVINE OLD MAN, the discovery, and improvement, of arts and sciences may, in some measure, depend upon the air and climate; some succeeding best, where a sprightliness of fancy, others, where intense application of mind, is required.
In a
medicinal
intention, the
vivifying spirit
of pure, fresh air is admirable: In acute diseases of the
putrid
and
epidemic
kind, millions of lives have been lost for want of it.
In a
pharmaceutic
intention, air, or the humid part of it, acts as a true dissolvent, in the same manner as water in its grosser form. The cathartic and astringent virtues of certain vegetables neither volatile nor exhalable by heat, but of the fixed kind and dissoluble by
menstrua
alone, have been observed to be diffused through the air. Hence it appears, that the atmosphere may be impregnated with all the medicinal powers of vegetables which
aqueous menstrua
are capable of extracting. And upon this account it is, that, in standing, walking, or sleeping, under several kind of trees, people have found themselves variously affected.
The peculiar medicinal powers of certain vegetables
exhalable by heat,
are, by the bye, equally remarkable and curious. In obstinate watchings, and deliriums, the author has, by the steams of one of this kind, procured ease, rest, and sleep, after all the usual internal sedative medicines had been tried in vain.
In acute diseases of the malignant kind, where sweating was indicated, but could not be procured by any internal means, the effluvia of a vegetable, applied in a certain manner to the external surface of the body, have proved an efficacious sudorific.
From a variety of similar experiments, and certain observations on the oeconomy of Nature, respecting cuticular inhalations, a physiological conjecture is drawn, namely, that the human body is endued with some secret energetic power of attracting such salutary particles as it may be in immediate need of, from surrounding bodies which contain them.—Hence, old persons, and those whom long and tedious indispositions had brought to the last stage of life, have, by the effluvia of young, sound, and healthy animals, been surprizingly recruited, strengthened, and invigorated.
In Persia, Arabia, and other eastern countries, at certain seasons of the year, the people are obliged, by the excessive heat of the weather, to lie down at night to sleep, on the tops of their houses, in balconies, turrets, &c. exposed to the open air, and dews, which are so copious, notwithstanding the excessive heat, during the time of sleep, that the body is cooled, preserved from thirst, and refreshed by its absorbent power of attracting or inhaling the dews; provided there be any perceivable saltness in the taste of those dews: On the contrary, if the dews have not a saline taste, it is then found dangerous to sleep in the open air, and frequently attended with pernicious, and sometimes fatal consequences.
, and habitual exercise, are the genuine original causes of these disorders amongst us; and, in short, of all our national constitutional complaints—of our growing weaknesses, increasing scurvies, multiplying rheumatisms, universal wandering gouts, and the most obstinate chronic and hereditary diseases fixing and radicating themselves still more and more in our natural habits and constitutions.—Hence it is, that the natural evacuations become obstructed and diminished; the secreted humours are thickened, and rendered viscous, adhesive, and clammy; the solids, especially the nervous system, weakened and relaxed; the fluids necessarily contract ill qualities; and an acrid, saline, corrosive serum is produced: This serum, wherever it is thrown, or happens to be deposited, lacerates or erodes and ulcerates the solids, and occasions
per
.
all the symptoms of a true and genuine
land scurvy.
And this name of scurvy it commonly receives, and is distinguished by, as often as it proves effluent
.
, in pimples, blotches, scaly leprous scurf, scabs, tetters, and other such eruptions on the skin: But when it happens to prove influent
.
, and is thrown upon the stomach, bowels, lungs, liver, spleen, mesentery, kidneys, bladder, womb, or any internal part, it sometimes passes under the more polite appellation of nervous or spasmodic complaints; but chiefly under the technical names of febricula, cholic, cachexy, dysentery, dropsy, asthma, atrophy, jaundice, diabetes, dysury, gonorrhaea, fluor albus, or white flux: A complaint,
this last,
the most disagreeable of all others to the natural delicacy of the sex, and, on account of its increasing prevalency, the most alarming in a national light; as being the greatest, however generally unheeded, enemy to conception, and, in its consequences, more fatal to population than the sword itself.—From the same serose or scorbutic cacochymy, in like manner originate
.
, in different constitutions, the cancer; St. Anthony's fire; gout; sciatica; rheumatism; palsy, &c.
Now, the orthodox medical processes, and formulae, of our specific practitioners, in those, commonly denominated, arthritic, scorbutic, hysteric, and hypocondriac disorders, consist chiefly of hot vegetable aromatics, bitters, and astringents, infused in strong wines or spirits; the volatile oils and spirits of vegetables and animals; spirituous solutions of the foetid and oily gums, and vegetable resins; tinctures and infusions of castor, contrayerva, cochineal, saffron, snake-root, valerian, and the like; chalybeates, opiates, and various sorts of pharmaceutic drams heated and raised still higher with the volatile oils, spirits, and salts.—But, if this original morbid constitution, as already observed, should consist in the tenacity and viscidity of the blood and animal fluids, occasioning a diminution of the secretions, and a consequent distention and relaxation of the nervous system; 'tis evident, that the foregoing heating, rarifying method, by aggravating all the symptoms, must strengthen the morbid habit, and confirm the disease still more and more.—And thus it is, in fact, that patients under these complaints are, by our specificians, kept on from year to year, living and dying by turns; being strictly interdicted the use of all strong malt liquors, wine, and common drams; at the same time that they are continually loaded with prescriptions of liquid Fire out of the shops.
But, passing unnoticed, for brevity sake, the intermediate acts of this politico-medical drama, proceed we directly to the catastrophe.
When the constitutions of the patients are, in this manner, nearly exhausted, and life worn out to its bare threads
.
; our specific practitioners immediately put them under the regulations of diet, riding, change of air, bathing, and water-drinking, at Bath, Bristol, Buxton, or some other distant mineral spring; where they may die decently, with a favourable salvo to the doctor's reputation, as having then used the
last
remedies—which, in all medical propriety, ought to have been the
first.
Now, it is in chief as a friendly co-operating auxiliary to
these
truely appropriate remedies
.
, (the
dernier ressort
of our specificians) that the author of the
Universal Purgative,
cordially, conscientiously, recommends the
occasional
use of it, to every native of Britain labouring under any of the above national chronical maladies. Not but that this medicine will always be found, when properly administered, a more salutary assistant to the same remedies, in the
prevention,
than in the
cure,
of those maladies: Forasmuch as NATURE is ever in some degree weakened, by the invasion of an enemy; even though she alone, or judiciously assisted, may have expelled him out of her dominions.
The immediate or first efficient cause (the praeincipient causes
.
have been already given) of all our
arthritic, rheumatic, scorbutic, hysteric,
and
hypocondriac
complaints; and, in short, of the whole gloomy catalogue of
nervous disorders,
seems to be an
acrid serous humour,
produced as above described, and lodged either in the glands, minute vessels, or vascular coats, or interstices of the vessels, of the stomach; occasioning, by its irritation, a preternatural laxity and debility of the fibres of the alimentary canal; a vitiated secretion in the glands of the stomach, and a consequent depraved state of the gastric juices; a laesion (with the naturally consequent spasmodic affections) of the nerves of that concoctive organ; an imperfect digestion; a generation of wind and phlegm; an irregular and less vigorous and uniform motion of the blood in the vena portae, and, of consequence, an inert, viscid, peccant bile, which, in its natural healthy state, is the most highly animalized of all the juices, and the most conducive towards promoting all the secretions and excretions of the human body, particularly those of the alimentary tube—The principal seat of all nervous, hysteric, and hypocondriac affections.
That this rationale is just, the really learned and indefatigable inquirers into the human pathology will allow; and consequently, that the true curative intention will consist wholly,
at first,
in
correcting, attenuating, resolving,
and
expelling,
this acrid humour, by some of the
natural evacuations
.
.
In this first capital intention, the medicine here recommended, properly dosed, and properly administered (for on this
depends the success of every appropriate remedy) has been found, in a long and extensive experience, to produce very salutary effects, even in persons of the most opposite natural habits and constitutions.
Nor will these ascribed effects appear exaggerated to the judicious and experienced practitioner, when he is informed, that this medicine is composed of near a dozen of the most powerful known deobstruents, besides two mineral preparations of the author's own discovery, which two alone, united
, have been found to perform, in fact, what that indefatigable physician the late Doctor
Huxham
peculiarly ascribes to his favourite
Tincture,
in the following words—"It passeth through and scours even the very smallest tubuli of the whole human frame, and is besides sufficiently powerful to give a strong irritation to the great alimentary canal, and therefore more surely to affect the small canaliculi of the body; and yet, from the exceeding tenuity of its minute particles, it by no means lacerates the vessels."
In a similar manner
Per
.
, this medicine operates, in properly adapted doses; removing obstructions in the remoter vessels, and promoting
the secretions in general, particularly those of urine and perspiration.
For the universal
promptitude, ease,
and
efficacy
.
, of its operation, as a
purgative,
even in the most
delicate
and
irritable
habits, the author has the concurrent testimony of many judicious practitioners, some of them physicians of eminence; not only in England, but in Holland, Germany, and Switzerland: And,
in this intention,
the like uniform operation has been found to attend its use, in different, and even in opposite climates; without any of those injurious colliquative effects
.
so generally ascribed by physicians to the preparations of aloes, and particularly to that long popular one originally known by the name of
Francfurt Pills,
first invented and described by
Hartman Beyer;
of which feveral spurious sorts have been since vended, in different countries, under various names—
Pilulae Angelicae, Aloes Rosata, Pilulae Tartareae, Grana Angelica, &c.
—At Rome, (notwithstanding the observation of that distinguished Roman physician
Giorgio Baglivi,
in his
Praxis Medica;
where, treating of the cure of diseases in that city, he says—"No sort of remedies afford so much benefit to the inhabitants of Rome, as exercise, and a prudent repetition of gentle purgatives—but purgatives, given in the form of pills, have no successful or plentiful operation,") it has been found, by the experience of several travellers, the author's friends, to operate with all desirable efficacy: And, on the like authentic evidence, in a much greater variety of instances, he can safely warrant,
in the same intention,
effects equally salutary, from its use, in both Indies:
In occasional, or habitual costiveness, it will be found an effectual remedy, free from the inconveniences ascribed to
aloetic, rhabarbarine,
and
saline
preparations, in that intention; as it neither produces sickness nor gripes, and leaves no astriction in the bowels.
But, in no one intention will this medicine prove more
universally
salutary and beneficial, than in that of a frequent
family purge,
on the so justly celebrated
prophylactic
plan of that happy explorer of Nature
Lord Verulam—to cleanse the stomach and bowels from those viscid, or slimy, and vitiated bilious, humours which are so frequently collected in them, constituting the source and fomes of various diseases, as well chronic as acute, to which people of every rank are liable; but the delicate, the polite, the studious, and the sedentary, more particularly so:
It being past all doubt with the author, that thousands even of valuable lives are yearly cut off, by prematurity of death, which an exact practical observance of
this plan
(including, in its full extent,
exercise
, Hippocr.
,
with alacrity, temperance,
and
simplicity of diet
) might have happily conducted, with tranquillized passions
laborum innocuae vitae.
, to the placid
of old age—when death becomes ultimately a necessity and no pain, the blessing and not the evil of Nature.
Notwithstanding the here recited, and other valuable properties of this medicine; the author has not the ridiculous presumption to offer it to the public as a
Specific Remedy
in any particular disease.—In the above mentioned chronical disorders, he is warranted, by the indisputable sanction of experience, to recommend it as an efficacious assistant to those peculiarly appropriated remedies—
An early well masticated crust or biscuit; a regulated diet; riding; friction
This remedy was in the highest esteem with the ancients, for the preservation of health, and the cure of CHRONICAL DISEASES: Scarce any man of condition amongst them passed a day, either in sickness or in health, without this
cutaneous exercise. Hippocrates
makes a right knowledge of its use and efficacy one essential requisite in a physician.—"A physician (says he—
de articulis
) ought to be skilled in many things—and particularly in the nature of
friction,"
the effects of which he thus explains—"Strong friction braces, soft or gentle friction loosens, [h. e. resolves those parts that are constringed or obstructed] much friction diminishes, and moderate friction increases the flesh."—"The part you would nourish must be moved: For motion excites heat, and attracts nourishment to the part."—
Aretaeus
too, the most skilful and judicious of his followers, (our own immortal
Sydenham, H
ppocrati secundus pene par,
excepted) insists largely on the use and efficacy of this remedy, in his admirable history of
Chron
c Diseases.
The almost total disuse, in modern practice, of a remedy so strongly recommended by the universal experience of ancient
Greece
and
Rome,
as well as by its perfect agreement with our later discoveries in the oeconomy of Nature, respecting the cutaneous discharges, can only be ascribed to the unreasonable impatience of people, in every rank of life, who can hardly be persuaded to think well of any method which does not surprize with some sudden alteration, or of any remedy that does not promise to cure like a charm. Strange infatuation—to expect immediate relief in
Chronic Diseases
which, perhaps, have been many years contracting, and, by an inveterate habit, are incorporated into the very vitals of the constitution. This precipitate impatience for a cure, by prompting people to trust to the delusive promises of tawdry, boasting medicasters [
], has ultimately occasioned the destruction of more lives than war or pestilence.
;
change of air; seasonable bathing
Among the ancient Romans (says an admired philosophical writer) there were four things much in use, whereof some are so far out of practice in ours, and other late ages, as to be hardly known but by their names; these were
bathing, fumigation, friction,
and
jactation:
The first, tho' not wholly disused by us, yet is turned out of the service of health to that of pleasure, but may be of excellent effect in both: It not only opens the pores, provokes sweat, and thereby allays heat, supples the joints and sinews, unwearies and resreshes more than any thing after too great labour and exercise; but is of great effect in some acute pains, as of the stone and cholic, and disposes to sleep, when many other remedies fail. Nor is it improbable that all the good effects of any
natural
baths may be imitated by the
artificial,
if compounded with care, and the skill of able naturalists or physicians." Thus, for instance, our
Harrowgate waters
(which have been found so efficacious in cutaneous foulnesses, blotches, scabs, scrophulas, leprosies, &c.) are strongly impregnated with sulphur and a kind of lixivial salt, as hath been proved by mixing a certain quantity of sulphur with salt of tartar, melting them over a gentle fire till perfectly incorporated, and then dissolving the mass in pure water.—If then we know the component parts of these waters, why should we not expect the same good effects from the
artificial
as from the
natural
baths made of them, agreeably to this ingenious writer's observation?
Medicated baths must have been of very high antiquity; since we find, by the best authenticated accounts, that the ancient Jews and Egyptians made use of them in curing the most obstinate and desperate maladies.—Virgil, singing the praises of his favourite
Iapis—'Phoebo ante alios dilectus,'
(who was cotemporary with the sons of
Esculapius
) introduces him using a
medicated bath
in the cure of father
Aeneas;
and says of him, that being greatly beloved by Apollo, he offered to teach him
augury, to play on the harp,
and
to draw the bow
well; but that he rather chose
to prolong: he dying father's life, to learn the virtues of plants,
and
to cure diseases
—
—"Scire potestates herbarum, usumque medendi
Maluit, et mutas agitare inglorius artes
Here, by the bye, the learned tribe of critics are miserably perpiexed in accounting for Virgil's (the most chaste, pure, and correct of all poets) calling physic
ars muta,
or a dumb art; and after a prosusion of sagacious conjectures, have left the matter at last, as a true schoolman would have done by a theological problem, where the devil left the friar.—To instance in a few—Some of these
emuncti naris bomines
will have it, that the words
mutas artes,
in this place, allude directly to that sect of physicians distinguished by the name of
empirics,
who, depending upon matter of fact and experience alone, had no occasion to recommend themselves by prating and puffing—Others think, that Iapis is called
inglorius,
because this empirical sect, rejecting all theory and reasoning, became shamefully illiterate—Others, that the word
inglorius
alludes to the physicians at Rome, in Virgil's time, being generally slaves. Others again contend, that the word
mutas
relates to
inglorius;
and that Virgil thereby intimated, that physic was an art of no great renown in the world, and brought its professors no great glory or reputation. But unfortunately none of these opinions will pass muster: For, 1st. The sect of empirics had no existence till many ages after the time of Iapis. 2dly. In the time of Iapis, physic could not be a contemptible or inglorious art, nor of small renown or reputation, since it procured to its professors whilst living the highest veneration, and after death divine honours. Nay, Homer tells us, that a physician, even in those times, was counted of more value than a world of other men—
.
Iliad.
.
This Herculean difficulty might, perhaps, be better solved, by supposing the word
mutas
to be opposed to
citheram,
which
Apollo
offered him, whereby the poet might not only mean music, but poetry too, for which it is often put; and that by the word
inglorius
the poet signifies no more than unaspiring or unambitious; as one who for the knowledge of physic renounced those other gifts or talents, to which the poet, as such, was obliged to give the preference—For this reason Virgil might call physic
ars muta,
in opposition to poetry and music, which were properly
vocales.
."
That the wonderful power of absorbency in all the external (as well as internal) parts of the human body was well known to Hippocrates, appears from the following passage in the sixth book of his
Epidemics
—
.—Galen, quoting this very passage, and in direct allusion to the doctrine of cuticular absorption, says—
—"But they [the pores or absorbent orisices of the bibulous veins] attract no small part from the circumambient air."—Upon this principle, Hippocrates recommended bathing where the body wanted moistening, and to be cooled: In hot weather he prescribed warm baths, and in cold weather cold ones.—The intense thirst accompanying certain acute diseases, in hot climates, is assuaged immediately by immersion of the body in warm water.—After continuing twenty minutes in a bath of warm water, the author of this has, during a course of
statical
experiments, frequently found himself from forty to fifty ounces heavier than he was before immersion. By the same means he has found an extreme thirst removed almost immediately. Bathing in seawater has been found, by experiment, to produce the same refreshing effect.—And hence, perhaps, the deplorable calamities, to which the seafaring part of mankind are frequently exposed (burning like a ship on fire, in a deluge of surrounding waters) by the extreme want of fresh water, might be mitigated at least, by repeated immersion in the sea-water. All chronic diseases, proceeding from a redundancy of saline or acrimonious particles floating in the vital juices, or accumulated upon the glands appointed to separate them from those juices, are relieved by sea-bathing; as the solvent parts of the sea-water are thereby imbibed through the pores of the skin, and carried into immediate action upon those saline or acrimonious particles; and there is not, perhaps, any menstruum, natural or artificial, hitherto known, that is so perfect and immediate a solvent for saline bodies as the aqueous vehicle of the sea-salt in its pure and divested simplicity.
;
medicinal water-drinking
The old maxim, that 'what can do much good may also do much harm,' is not, perhaps, so truely applicable to any one popular remedy, as to the
natural medicinal waters.
Those of the acidulous or purging kind, by means of the neutral salt with which they abound, are of excellent service in certain constitutions, where the first passages want cleansing; but this service is done by only a few repetitions: If they are long continued, (and many who drink them, without proper advice, are apt to think, the more they purge, the farther they are from being sick) the remedy often proves worse than the disease: For it is well known to physicians, that all fevers which come after long purging, and especially those which supervene the imprudent use of purging waters, are of the worst kind, and frequently prove fatal.
There is not in the whole compass of medicine, a more efficacious remedy, in certain cases, than the
natural chalybeate waters,
that is, such as receive their medicinal properties from iron: For, as the learned
Boerhaave
observes, where the powers of the body are debilitated by a preternatural relaxation of the solids, and an indolent, cold, aqueous indisposition of the fluids, no virtue of any vegetable or animal substance, no diet, or regimen, can effect that, which is effected by iron and its preparations. Yet how many fevers are every year occasioned by an imprudent use of them, as well as vertigos, epilepsies, and apoplexies, (frequently ascribed to other causes) in plethoric habits?
From this just and candid information, the intelligent reader will naturally conclude, that he ought never to meddle with any of those waters, without the previous advice of some skilful physician, who will not fail, on so peculiarly proper an occasion, to inculcate and explain to him that golden precept (equally applicable to every human undertaking) of our divine master
Hippocrates
—
.
; and
summer voyages at sea
Amongst the more moderate exercises [
, as
Galen
descriptively titles them] prescribed by the ancients, to supply the defects of their
pharmacy,
which, in general, was rude and barbarous, the
sea-carriage
was held in high esteem. Even so low down as the eve of the commonwealth of Rome, properly so called, (before the butchery of despotism had made the life of a Roman scarce worth preserving, by destroying, or driving into corners, all that was great and valuable) the Roman physicians used frequently, and with very good effect, to send their patients, labouring under certain chronic diseases, to
Alexandria
in
Egypt,
partly for the sake of the exercise by the motion of the ship, but chiefly upon account of the
vomiting
it occasioned; that they might thereby supply their want of
gentle emetics:
For it was a distinguishing part of the exquifite diligence and sagacity of the ancients, to make good what they wanted in the
pharmaceutic art,
by other means.—And here the author cannot deny himself the pleasure of informing his readers, that this
succedaneous vomitive
of the ancients is, at this time, a noted
vulgar remcdy,
in the beginning of certain
infections
diseases, and particularly of that most dreadful one the
jail distemper;
and that where it can be used soon after the appearance of the symptoms, and repeated several days successively, it will be found the
most efficacious one,
perhaps, hitherto discovered; several very remarkable instances of its efficacy in carrying off the jail-distemper caught at the
Old-Bailey
in May, 1750, and in September, 1772, having, on these two melancholy occasions, come under his immediate notice.—In some consumptive disorders they prescribed the exercise of
sailing,
as a sovereign remedy to fortify the lungs, remove obstructions, and determine the quantity and force of the fluids towards the surface of the body; that is, to promote perspiration—"Si vera phthisis est, says
Celsus,
opus est longa navigatione, &c."—This practice of the ancients probably took its rise from an old vulgar observation, namely, that '
sailors
were, in general, much less subject than other people to a consumption of the lungs:' For, having remarked, that discoveries and improvements, which would have done honour to the most enlightened understandings, were sometimes stumbled upon by persons of more confined abilities, they thought it no discredit to their own superior talents to insorm themselves, even by means of the lower class of people, of simple remedies conlirmed by experience; agreeably to the advice of the great father of physic [
.]
Being sensible that the art of healing took its rise from
natural sagacity
improving upon accidental discoveries, and unforeseen events, they did not employ their time in writing imaginary theories, and mingling false philosophy with intrinsic truth; but in carefully collecting the simple observations, experiments, and casual discoveries of others, even the most obscure and illiterate people, and afterwards sul jecting them to the rigid scrutiny of variously repeated trials; in making diligent observations and cautious experiments themselves, and in writing pure and accurate histories of diseases which came under their cognizance; i. e. in diligently collecting the laws enacted by Nature, and describing them in the very manner Nature spoke them. And if this direct though difficult route to
medical certainty
had been steadily and uniformly pursued by succeeding physicians, without deviating into the uncertain though smoother paths of fanciful philosophy, or hypothesis, (that specious image of truth, that idol to which the learned still bow down) or being seduced by the love of ease, and the facility of playing with the passions of mankind to their own private emolument, from the age of
Hippocrates,
down to our time, physic in general would have made a different appearance from what it does at present ["Si jam indè ab Hippocratis temporibus ad hanc nostram usque aetatem, (to use the more expressive language of the learned and judicious Baglivi)
praestantissimae artis
Studiosi, hanc quidem promovendae artis rationem constanter retinuissent, dici vix potest, quot quantique progressus hac hodiè parte haberentur. Cùm verò rem alioqui adeò necessariam, tam praeclaram, atque ità feliciter institutam reliquerint, ut se infinitis, et (ut apostoli verbis utar)
interminatis quaestionibus,
et
implicarent, aliam afferre causam non possum, quàm offensi, ac ulciscentis Numinis iram. Hoc sanè, vel invitus fatebitur, quisquis in aetatem hanc nostram oculos conjecerit; cùm enim caeterae omnes quâ disciplinae, quā artes, non solùm in pristinum splendorem restitutae suerint, sed in dies magis magisque excultae, novisque inventis ornatae floreant; sola Medicinae praxis, nescio quo sato, maxime sui parte jaceat, et, quod maximè dolendum, vilior quotidie apud indoctos evadat Quod cur ita sit, (proceeds this Hippocratic physician) id unum in causâ esse arbitror, quod
objervationum
unde
rs
praestantissima effecta fuerat, ratione contemplatâ,
lystematis,
et
hypothesibus
prorsus indulserint; non tàm de cognoscendis, curandisque morbis, quàm quo pacto eorum probabilem rationem redderent, solliciti. Ex quo fit, ut, in maximam humani generis perniciem, et Medic
nae dedecus, non jam tutissima Artis praescripta, sed proprii ingenii commenta consulant."] and the
Materia Medica,
one of the most essential parts of it, in particular, would not have now been, what every experienced, honest physician knows and laments, more confused, precarious, and uncertain, than any other branch of science.
During a course of experimental inquiries into the peculiar and distinct medicinal properties of vegetables, that is, their real effects, disting uished from the operations of Nature unassisted, in the human body, (prosecuted for upwards of twenty years, in the manner originally, and hitherto almost solely, practised by
Dioscorides
) the author is not ashamed to own, that he has, with uncommon assiduity, and no inconsiderable trouble and expence, sought every possible means of informing himself of the traditional knowledge, and empirical practice, of the common people; and from this source alone he has drawn more real assistances, in ascertaining the medicinal powers of simples, than from the most famous modern
herbals;
in which, not one in forty (innumerable experiments warrant the assertion) will answer the character it beart, and many are still celebrated for a thousand divine virtues, that are scarcely endued with one valuable property.—The merit of Dioscorides's
Herbal
(meaning his GENUINE work; for the writer has abundant reason to suspect, that many spurious articles, misnomers, and false de
riptions hitherto unnoticed, have been foisted into it since his time) must have been of a very different complexion.—What Petronius says of the celebrated philosopher Democritus, namely, that he lived and died in the midst of experiments, may, with strict truth, be applied to this indefatigable author of
medical botany:
For, we are assured, that he advanced nothing in his
Materia Medica,
but what was confirmed to him by
real
experiments. The last experiment he made was upon an highly deleterious plant: The dose proved too strong for his constitution; and he expired in the very act of describing its effects upon himself, and the symptoms it produced.—If this poisonous plant was, as hath been supposed, a species of the
wolf's bane,
it was most probably that with the
blue belmet flower,
—universally deemed by the ancients one of the rankest vegetable poisons.
The industrious Linnaeus, speaking of the
yellow wolf's bane—Flor. Lappon.
p. 179. No. 221.—tells the following story—"As I was travelling in the northern parts of Sweden, early in the spring, I met with a poor woman who was gathering the leaves of this plant
[aconitum folits peltatis multifidis lispidis, petalo supremo cylindracio]:
When I asked her for what use she gathered those leaves, she replied, that they were to be caten. Being desirous to advise her better, for I thought she was not acquainted with the herb, and might mistake it for a species of the geranium or crane's-bill, called gratia Dei, which it greatly resembles; I intreated her, in a very serious manner, not to destroy herself by eating a most deadly poison. She smiled at my apprehensions for her, and told me that she was very well assured of being right in her choice of the herb, and that she with the rest of her neighbours had eaten of it for a great many years. I went to her cottage, where she cut the plant she had gathered into small shreds, and boiled it with a little piece of fat meat, and made a soup with the ingredients, on which herself, her husband, two children, and an old woman, made an hearty meal; and, what I own greatly surprized me, without any damage or bad consequence. And thus it happens, says this diligent explorer of Nature, that THINGS ARE FREQUENTLY DISCOVERED BY TEMERITY, WHICH REASON MIGHT NEVER HAVE INVESTIGATED."
Notwithstanding this remarkable instance of the harmless effects of the leaves of this plant when young and tender, it appears from the real experiments made by Matthiolus upon condemned malefactors with its
root alone,
that the fatal effects of it could not be prevented by any antidotes he was acquainted with. —The most effectual
corrector
of vegetable poisons in general the writer has yet found out, in the course of his experiments, is a pure vegetable acid, or vinegar of wood; the process for obtaining which was originally published by Glauber, (an ingenious chymist, but a wretched philosopher) in the first part of his
Philosophical Furnaces,
where he shews professedly how to distil an acid spirit or vinegar from all vegetables, in great quantity, and at a small expence.
: By which last alone, under a proper dietetic regimen, and the occasional use of these pills, he has known inveterate chronic diseases cured, which had baffled all the powers of medicine.
Nor is it irrational to suppose, from the known antiscorbutic properties of this composition, that it might prove a salutary prophylactic, or preventive of the
marine scurvy,
in seafaring people:—The propriety of this supposition is, in fact, confirmed by attested successful experiments made of it, by two very able sea-surgeons —But, on this head, the author can say nothing from his own experience—
his
sole criterion of the
real
powers of medicine: And by this criterion, he honestly confesses, he has found several elaborate preparations of his own, (for he too was formerly an indefatigable labourer in the curious
of medicine, searching after a succedaneum to the tree of life) as well as the most pompously authenticated
secifics,
in
chronic diseases,
that have been exhibited to the public, for thirty years past, deplorably wanting, and inadequate, not only to the particular ends proposed, but to the genuine ultimate end of physic in general—
; not excepting even
those
of the learned
Vienna Austrian
school—to which the distinguishing palm—the supreme eclat of
working wonders,
in
regular practice,
has, by the united suffrage of the faculty in Europe, been deservedly given of late years.
By the same criterion, he is convinced of the possibility of discovering a
remedy,
which would immediately cure a
fever,
the most violent and dangerous symptom attending certain
acute discases.
The celebrated professor
Pitcairn
long ago published to the world his notion of such a remedy, as a grand
desideratum
in physic: And an illustrious successor of his, in the same professorial chair,
Boerhaave,
used often, in his public lectures, to speak of the possibility of discovering a remedy that might cure most or all acute febrile diseases; and actually recommended the trial of medicines composed of
antimony
and
mercury,
("ad magnam penetrabilitatem arte deductis") for that purpose.—The author is in possession of a
remedy,
without
antimony, mercury,
or any other
mineral,
in its composition, which he believes will immediately cure a
fever, in its incipient state:
That it has been used, with great success, at
Constantinople,
and other places in
Turky,
in carrying off the
plague
itself, when administered on the first appearance of the symptoms, he is assured by a traveller, of great learning and curiosity, to whose friendly communication he owes his knowledge of it.
The prevailing
hypothesis,
that a
fever
is 'NATURE'S instrument to expel an enemy;' or, in other words, that 'every fever is its own cure,' and consequently, that no medicine can be said, in strict propriety, to cure a fever, was originally invented by
Asclepiades,
(that finished master in the
) above eighteen hundred years ago
The very learned and ingenious Dr. Middleton, in his 'Dissertation on the state of physicians among the old Romans,' makes Asclepiades cotemporary with Cicero; who, in his first dialogue
de Oratore,
introduceth Lucius Crassus speaking of him as his intimate friend and physician—"Neque vero Asclepiades, is, says he, quo nos medico amicoque usi sumus, tum, cum eloquentia vincebat caeteros medicos, in eo ipso quod ornate dicebat, medicinae facultate utebatur, non eloquentiae."—He likewise asserts, that when Asclepiades came first to Rome, he knew nothing of physic; contrary to the express testimony of Caelius Aurelianus, Oribasius, and other authentic documents, from which it plainly appears, that he practised physic at Parium, and other cities bordering upon the Hellespont, and even at Athens, (where we find him treated with particular marks of distinction by the celebrated philosopher Antiochus Academicus, afterwards preceptor to Cicero) long before he settled at Rome. The Doctor's other assertion, respecting the friendship and intimacy between Asclepiades and Cicero, includes a manifest anachronism, really surprizing in so great a critic, more especially in one who has elsewhere given such ample proofs of his knowledge in the biographical history of those times; and what adds to our wonder on this occasion is, that he quotes the above passage from Cicero's
Orator
in support of it: But whoever will be at the trouble of comparing the genuine memoirs antiquity has given of the life, social connexions, and death, of L. Crassus, one of the principal interlocutors in the
Orator,
and the ingenious account the Doctor himself gives of those highly finished and truely admirable dialogues, in his history of Cicero's life, with that remarkable quotation of Sextus Empiricus—
adversus Logicos, sect.
201—from a celebrated work of the just-mentioned Antiochus, published much about the same time the scene of these
dialogues
was laid at the
Tusculanum
of Crassus, [i. e. in the year of Rome 66z, when Crassus, who died soon after, was 56 years old, and Cicero but a youth of sixteen] in which he makes honourable mention of Asclepiades, but as who had been some time dead—I say, whoever collates these several accounts, will presently discover Doctor Middleton's palpable misinterpretation of this passage in Cicero.—This Asclepiades was indisputably the greatest master antiquity can count in the
medicina politica:
By a peculiar attention to the passions, and foibles of human nature, he was enabled to discover an universal propension in mankind to be deceived—From thence he took the hint of
advancing his fortune,
by cultivating this
ductile propension
to the highest pitch it was capable of; and in defence of this practice the following argument was originally invented, and occasionally urged—
Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur;
which has been used, on similar occasions, ever since. He first invented the
lecti pensiles,
or hanging beds, in which the sick might, with great facility, be rocked to sleep. These anodyne machines of his took prodigiously: Many of his noble patients had them made of silver; and they afterwards became a considerable part of the Roman luxury.
Notwithstanding the boundless strife of opinions that unhappily attended physic after the death of its great parent
Hippocrates,
the ancient pharmacy still preserved its footing, in some degree, as likewise the Hippocratic doctrine, till this
arch-craftsman
of the profession had the cunning and address to demolish the whole, calling it, in derision, 'a meditation upon death.'—He made the whole
materia medica
to consist only of such things as would give ease, and exhilerate the spirits of the patient: Nay, in certain cases he administered to the luxury of his patients, and indulged them in the use of wine, even to intoxication. This flattering of the palate, in conjunction with his new amusive inventions, and a lucky accident of his discovering some signs of life in a man that was carrying to be buried, whom he soon recovered, and whom the people were persuaded to believe he had raised from the dead, conspired to make him the supreme archiater of those times; and what still farther contributed to establish him in this elevated station, was his having publicly challenged the Fates, by constantly declaring that he should never be visited by any bodily distemper. Nay, Pliny the historian informs us, he held diseases and prematurity of death so much in defiance, that he would frequently, amongst his acquaintances, offer to lay any wager, and even to stake his whole fortune, that he should never be sick, as in fact he never was, not even at the time of his death; for that he broke his neck by a fall down a pair of stairs.
. But this hypothesis, however specious, however recommended, by the sanction of antiquity, and the later authority of great names, has always appeared to the author unsupported by Reason and FACTS.—The most plausible argument he has met with, in favour of this
theory,
is, that in acute diseases of the eruptive kind, and particularly in the
small-pox,
'as soon as the morbific matter is expelled to the surface of the body, the fever ceases:" therefore, 'the fever is an effort of NATURE to relieve herself.' But it is well known to every experienced practitioner, that the less the fever is in the natural small-pox, the fewer will be the pustules, and the variolous matter more happily expelled; or, according to our great
Sydenbam, [Angliae lumen, artis Phaebum]
"Quo sedatior est sanguis eo melius erumpent pustulae."
It has indeed been a received opinion, almost ever since the first appearance of the smallpox
The small-pox was first described, and treated of by
Aaron
of
Alexandria,
in his
Pandects of physic,
which he published about the middle of the
seventh century,
according to
Haly Abbas
's account. But as the original works of this author, in the Syriac tongue, and the Arabic translation of them by Maserjawaihus, are both lost, and nothing of them now remains, but some extracts, which
Mohamed Rhazes
has left us in his
Continens;
we have no certain account extant of the precise aera of this disease, nor in what country it first appeared. The most probable opinion is, that it had its rise in
Arabia Faelix,
and was brought from thence to
Alexandria
by the
Arabs,
when they took that city, A. D. 640, in the reign of
Omar Ebnol Chatab,
the second successor to
Mohamed:
For
Paulus
of
Aegina,
who lived at
Alexandria
about
twenty years
before, makes no mention of it in his works; though he assures us, in his preface, that he had treated of every disease
then
known. From this time, the small-pox spread, with amazing rapidity, wherever the
Saracens
extended their conquests: Westward into
Spain,
about 30 years after, according to
Ockley;
and eastward as far as
Japan,
whither it was carried near the same time, as
Kaempfer
informs us.—Respecting the practice of the celebrated
Rhazes
above-mentioned, it may not be impertinent to remark, on this occasion, that he carried the
cold regimen
farther than it has been ever carried since, even by Mr. Sutton himself, as evidently appears from his method of treating the
small-pox
and
measles.
in Europe, that 'a certain degree of fever is always required, to concoct, separate, and expel, the vitiated and infectious matter.' But Mr.
Sutton
(the reputed author of the new method of inoculation; though, by the bye, the very same method,
in every essential point,
was practised by
Mr. Glass,
an eminent surgeon in the university of Oxford, long before Mr. Sutton was known) has fully demonstrated, by many thousands of successful experiments, that the
fever
in this disease is so far from being 'NATURE'S instrument to expel an enemy,' that
itself
is her greatest enemy; and consequently ought to be
prevented,
or
extinguished
[
.
Hippocr.
]
immediately. And, in his peculiar attention to this single point, the author has sufficient reason to believe Mr. Sutton's SUPERIOR success wholly consists: For, having had many favourable opportunities, during several years, of ascertaining, by means of a most accurately-made
pyranthropometer,
the natural heat of the body, in Mr. Sutton's patients, when in perfect health, immediately before their entering on his preparatory course, and afterwards during the progress of the disease; he found, in a variety of instances of a
compleat
and
regular
small pox, the bodily heat, when at the highest, from six to fourteen
degrees
below
that
of perfect health.
The most distinguished ancient physicians of the
Hippocratic
school, had no other
idea
of a fever than
that
of their great master—viz. a
fiery
or
preternatural heat.
This preternatural heat they conceived of, as a
symptom,
the cure of which was the province of the physician; whilst the removing, and carrying off, the
primary cause
of this symptom, that is, the cure of the
disease,
was considered chiefly as the work of NATURE. Now, the
primary cause
of every fever is, as the author conceives, some
stimulant or acrid matter spasmodically affecting the vascular and nervous system:
Whether this matter be, 1st. A
foreign substance
lodged in the flesh—2dly, A
putrid fomes
absorbed into the habit, from gunshot wounds, &c. in removing these two causes, NATURE may often require the
surgeon's
helping hand—3dly,
Deleterious miasmata
residing in the air—4thly, A
putrid fomes
of any kind, producing an
acrimonious
state of the fluids—5thly,
Purulent matter
lodged in the body, from internal suppurations—Or, 6thly,
external cold,
or, what is usually called
catching of cold.
This last mentioned, and, perhaps, most frequent cause of fevers, has been generally supposed to be the
materia perspirabilis
of
Sanctorius
The doctrine of perspiration, though it owes its name, and present establishment, to Sanctorius, was not unknown to the ancient Greek physicians.
Hippocrates
believed all the surfaces of the parts of a human body, as well those of the muscles and viscera, as of the skin, to be naturally in a continual state of perspiration.—The following remarkable observation is
Galen
's (
Lib.
6.
de tuenda sanitate
) "Prospiciendum est, ut eorum quae eduntur et bibuntur, respectu eorum quae expelluntur, conveniens mediocritas servetur: Sane is modus servabitur, si ponderabitur a nobis in utrisque quantitas."
From this passage in Galen, Sanctorius undoubtedly took the first hint of his
statical
experiments for ascertaining the daily waste of the animal fluids, made by the outlets of the external superficies of the body, and by the lungs: But it is impossible to ascertain the quantity of this waste, without knowing, at the same time, the quantity of moisture, &c. absorbed or imbibed by the pores of the skin and lungs;
which Sanctorius did not advert to:
For the author of this, after violent exercise in riding, notwithstanding a great expence of perspirable matter, and no food taken, has, in certain constitutions of the air and atmosphere, facilitating the
cutaneous immissions,
often found himself, by most exact statical experiments, many ounces, sometimes twenty and upwards heavier than he was before. Hence it appears, that all we can with certainty discover, respecting the quantity of
sanctorian
perspiration, by experiments of this kind, is, the difference between the
exhalata
and the
inhalata,
that is, between the perspirable matter we exhale from the pores of the skin and lungs, and whatever we imbibe or inhale through the same: For exhalation and inhalation so confound each other as to render it impossible to ascertain the exact quantity of either; as the author purposes, in a short time, to demonstrate more at large to the medical reader.
, retained in the body, or, as it is commonly expressed,
obstructed perspiration:
But a course of
statical
experiments instituted principally with a view to ascertain this doctrine, and regularly prosecuted with a most scrupulous exactness, for eighteen months, fully convinced the author, many years ago, (as a similar course of experiments, prosecuted, for one year, at
Charles-Town, South-Carolina,
in like manner convinced his ingenious friend and fellow-labourer Dr.
Lining
) that no fever is caused merely by obstructed perspiration.
APPENDIX.
OF all the branches of medical knowledge, the most highly interesting, and subservient to health, long life, and happiness in this world, is the
prophylactic,
founded upon the two great preventive principles, DIET and HABITUAL EXERCISE
By habitual exercise the author means not such as is frequently undertaken, but seldom gone through with; but such as is brought to a habit, by being closely repeated, with moderation, and without any irregular intermission. 'Tis the want of a right conception of a
habit
that has occasioned the abuse and neglect of this sovereign
preventive
of diseases, as well as
common aid
to physic.—By continual dropping, even so soft a body as water can act upon a stone; by incessantly pursuing his blow, the smith can bring heat into his bar of iron: The act itself, simply considered, is weak and trifling; but the habit is of wonderful efficacy. —'By temperance, and a singular perseverance in the virtuous toil of martial exercises,'
Socrates
(the light and glory of the heathen world) is said to have acquired a constitution superior to the inclemency of the elements, and to the attacks of disease; striking instances of which we find recorded by
Plato (Conviv.
and
Phaed.
where it appears, that he had brought himself, by the force of habit, to use the same cloathing, and to go barefooted, all the year round), by
Diogenes Laertius
in his life of that prince of philosophers, and by
Aelian
in his
various history:
The following is one of them—"When an almost universal pestilence had seized upon the camp, at the siege of
Potidaea,
insomuch that eleven hundred men in the army were carried off, and
Athens
was half depopulated, by the contagion, he escaped the distemper in both places, and was the only one, before
Potidaea,
who, during the two years blockade of that city, did not in some measure feel the severity of it [
.]
—THE ONLY SURE MEANS OF PRESERVING TO THE BLOOD ITS ORIGINAL PURITY, TO THE SECRETIONS THEIR FREE COURSE, TO THE NERVES THEIR DUE TONE, TO THE MUSCLES THEIR STRENGTH AND FIRMNESS, AND TO THE TASTE ITS NATIVE RELISH FOR GENUINE SIMPLICITY.
On this preservative branch of medicine, and particularly on the
dietetic
part of it, a multitude of books have been written; many of them by physicians of eminence, with a spirit of philanthropy that does honour to the profession. But, as those productions consist chiefly of general rules laid down for mankind without distinction, to preserve their health, and prolong their lives, they have not proved in any degree adequate to the proposed end: For, so infinite is the variety of constitutions, (in respect of which all food acts, by a certain immutable law of Nature,
relatively & secundum quid,
as logicians express it, not
absolutely & per se
) that any general rule laid down to any number of men, for this purpose, must be hurtful or destructive to the greatest part of them at least, if they all comply with it. Happily for mankind, all the needful directions, on this head,
universally
conducive to health and long life, may be comprized in a very small compass, without overloading the memory, or confounding the judgment.—If people would only follow the dictates of that most beneficent of all legislators, Nature, by letting the stomach
always
take the lead of the palate, and by feeding moderately upon such things as they find they can digest with the least trouble and inconvenience
.—Vid. Galen. lib. vi. de sanitat. tuend. c. 9.
, they would need no other practical rule of diet: So far as this extends, every reasonable man, of competent age and experience, must infallibly be a better judge of what he ought to do, for the benefit of his health, than any physician can be, who is not intimately acquainted with all the circumstances of his constitution.
As for those whimsical hypocondriacs who, like their brain-sick brother in the comedy of
Moliere,
are eternally making an outcry, tho' nothing ails them, and those more especially who have been persuaded to purchase health and longevity by eating and drinking exactly by weight and measure, as if they could supply the various and alterable exigences of Nature just as they fill a tub, the capacity and discharges of which are always uniform and the same; they are in imminent danger of falling into the doctors hands
It would seem, that this sort of
must have been very badly off for a physician, in the time of honest Esculapius, [
—so the prince of poets titles him] of venerable memory, if what Plato tells us of him, in his
Republic,
be true; namely, that it was his deliberate opinion—"That in all well regulated societies, where every man has his station affigned him, no man can, or ought to have leisure to be a
valetudinarian
all his life, and bestow his whole care upon his carcase." He farther informs us, that his two sons, Podalirius and Machaon, were of the same opinion, and maintained, "that physic was not made for
such people,
and that it was not their duty to prescribe for them, even though they were as rich as Midas!!"
. An oeconomist of this sort might, with equal propriety, impose upon himself the critical task of standing or sitting continually in the same place, of lying always in the same bed, of wearing constantly the same weight of cloaths, and of riding or walking every day precisely the same number of feet and inches; nay farther, he must compound with Providence for continual wet weather, or continual dry, for the same immutable degree of heat and cold, and the same invariable constitution of the air in which he breathes: For 'tis certain that all these may, some way or other, affect the constitution, appetite, and digestion, so as to require sometimes larger, and sometimes more sparing meals, and the occasional use of weaker or stronger liquors.
In general, the best rule, perhaps, that can be laid down, for preserving health, and prolonging life, is (what the most elegant
Celsus
recommended to the world sixteen hundred years ago)
to observe strictly no particular rule at all;
but, upon the rational principle of moderation and temperance
[noverca medicorum],
to follow the sober dictates of Nature; who has not ordained a single want to man, the
reasonable
satisfaction of which, (besides its manifest subserviency to health) does not afford a pleasure every way superior to what can be found in any unnatural gratification of the appetities: For true pleasure is the bounty of Nature, and Reason her dispenser of it.
To conclude—In spite of all the false refinements of art, the true sublime of taste, and the sweet simplicity of Nature, will for ever continue inseparable. In
diet,
SHE is so far from objecting to
variety,
that she delights in it: Her protest is only against
that,
which is produced by the destruction of
Simplicity;
against
that,
by which the
palate
is debauched from its natural taste, the
appetite
irrecoverably depressed through the cloying repetition of preventive viands
. Hippocr.
, [such, for instance, are the infernal compounds of French cookery] the functions of the
body
robbed of their sprightly vigour, and all
its
powers for the true relish of pleasure enervated; in short, against
that,
whereby the votaries of luxury are prematurely cut off from her richest inheritance, HEALTH and LENGTH OF DAYS.
FINIS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
ONE of the most troublesome and obstinate complaints, to which children are liable, is the HOOPING COUGH. The methods of treating it hitherto in use, have generally been found ineffectual to stop its progress, or to suppress it with safety, before it hath run its natural course.—
OUR great master in physic, DR. SYDENHAM, in his account of it says—"What others may be able to do in this disease, I know not: as for myself, I have used abundance of all sorts of medicines, and still lost my labour."
THE author of the foregoing discourse, whose practice is much among children, therefore informs the public, that by a long series of experimental inquiries into the nature and causes of the diseases of children in general, and of this hitherto intractable, and frequently fatal one in particular, he has discovered a safe and easy method of treating it with success.