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will be able to judge with fufficient gra exactness of the degree of a fever in a fick person. If the strokes are but one third above the number in a healthy ftate, the fever is not very violent, but if the ftrokes amount to half as many more, it is very violent, and if the number is double, there is the greatest reason to apprehend that the disease is mortal.

The pulse however must not be judged merely by the number of trokes Its ftrength or weakness, hardness or softness, and regularity or irregularity, must also be confidered.

The words ftrong and weak need no explanation. The ftrength of The ftrength of the pulfe is generally a good prognoftic; if it is too ftrong, it may eafily be lowered. The weakness of the pulfe is often a very threatening fymptom.

whey and butter-milk are very good on these occafions, and even water lightly acidulated with lemon or vinegar.

2. Sitting or lying down in a cold place when very bot. This at once ftops perfpiration, the matter of which being thrown upon fome in ternal part proves the caufe of maAny violent diseases, particularly quinfeys, inflammations of the breait, pleurifies, and inflammatory cholics.

If the pulfe excites the notion of a dry ftroke, as if the artery was of C wood, or any other rigid and unelaftic fubftance it is faid to be bard, if the contrary, it is called soft, and this is a better symptom.

If it be ftrong and foft, though it be quick, it is a favourable indication; if it is ftrong and hard, there is reafon to fufpect an inflammation, and D bleeding with a cooling regimen is neceffary: But if it is at once weak, quick, and hard, the danger is imminent indeed.

When the pulfe gives a continued fucceffion of ftrokes in equal time, and of equal force, it is faid to be regular; and if a ftroke is fometimes wanting, it is faid to intermit.

While the pulfe is promifing, the breathing free, and the brain not greatly affected, the danger is not great; and if the patient takes his medicines, and they produce the effects that were expected, if his ftrength does not greatly fail him, and he is fenfible of his condition, there is just reason to hope for his recovery. The danger is in proportion as these circumftances are wanting.

The moft ufual caufes of popular diforders are these :

1. Exceffue Labour, or violent exercife. This generally produces fome inflammatory difeafe; a quinfey, pleurify, or inflammation of the breaft. But the difeafe may fometimes be prevented by drinking plentifully of fome temperate refreshing drink, juft tepid, while the party is hot, and cold afterwards, if more agreable; sweet

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As foon as the first complaint arifes, which is fometimes not till after feveral days, the patient should lose a little blood; his legs fhould be put into warm water, and he thould drink plentifully of the following infufion just warm:

Take as many elder flowers as you can hold between your thumb and fingers; put them into an ' earthen veffel with two ounces of honey, and an ounce and half of good vinegar; pour upon them three pints and a quarter of boiling water; ftir the mixture till the honey is diffolved, then cover up the mug, and when the liquor is cold, ftrain it through a linen 'cloth.'

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Such affiftances will frequently. quell the diforder at the beginning, which if hot medicines are given to fweat the patient will certainly become dangerous if not mortal.

3. Drinking cold water when a perfon is hot. This acts in the fame manner as the preceeding cause, but its confequences are commonly more fudden and violent. It produces quinfeys, inflammations of the breaft, cholics, inflammations of the liver, and all parts of the belly with prodigious fwellings, vomitings, fuppreffion of urine, and inexpreffible anguifh..

The moft prevailing remedies are bleeding, adminiftered immediately, a copious drinking of warm water, with the addition of one fifth part of whey; or of the following ptifan, which is very pleasant.

Take two ounces of whole barley," wash it well in hot water, then boil, Git in five pints of clean water till the barley burfts; towards the end of the boiling throw in one drachm. and an half of falt petre, ftrain it through a linnen cloth and add to it an ounce and an half of honey, and one ounce of vinegar.' This also must be taken warm. At the fame time fomentations of warm water fhould be applied to the throat,

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the breast and belly, and a glyfter of warm water with a little milk should be injected. A half bath of warm water has often afforded immédiate relief,

It is hopeless to admonish people against this fatal custom, for none indulge it ignorantly: The molt illite, rate pealant carefully retrains his horfe from drinking when he is hot, yet perfons, from whom better things might be expected, facrifice life for the immediate enjoyment of a momentary pleafure, in which they might indulge with fafety in a quarter

of an hour.

4. The Inconftancy of the Weather. We ift all at once, and fometimes in

one day from cold to hot, and from hot to cold; this makes defluxions and colds more common among us than the natives of moft other countries.

To avoid difeafes from this cause, we fhould go more warmly cloathed than the feafon feems to require; thofe who ftrip while they ufe any labour or exercise, fhould be fure to put on their cloaths the moment their labour or exercise is over.

As thefe changes of weather are frequently attended with fudden, violent, and unexpected rain, it frequently happens that people are wetted to the skin, even while they are in a state of perspiration with heat; if they continue the exercife they were fing when the accident happened, without remillion, till they can change their cloaths, they will generally avoid ill confequences, otherwife they are in danger of fatal pleurifies.

other critical diforder, in the flower of of life, do infallibly fink into a prema ture old age, with all its weakness and all its pains. The weakness incurred by drunkenness is almost always incuA rable, and fo are most of the difeafes, particularly the aftlima and dropfy.

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8. Bad bread. This is a much more general caufe of difeafe than the pub. fic is aware of., Bread is bad, either when it is made of bad corn, or when itis ill made. It is ill made when it is adulterated with allum, when it does Hot rife fufficiently, and when it is baked too little. Children and valetudinarians fuffer greatly, by diseases arifing from this caufe.

Bad paltry meat, and fruit pies, and puddings are allo extremely pernici. ous, the dough is often unleavened, ill baked, and greafy, and it is stuffed with either fat or four ingredients, which render the ill qualities of the C dongh more active: Women and children, who, in country plages, and among the lower clafs of people, confume most of this food, are the very fubjects to whom it is moft pernicious. It produces obftructions in the bowels, a flimy vifcidity in the general mass of Dhumours, general weakness, flow fe vers, a hectic, the rickets, and the king's-evil.

This article is concluded with a general remark of great importance, Eating flowly, and chewing very well, fays Dr Tiffot, greatly leffen the dan Eger of a bad regimen, and increase the benefits of a good one.

When the body and limbs have been wet, the best expedient of all is, to bath them in warm water. If the legs and feet only have been wet, it F will be fufficient to bath them only. The bath is still more effectual if a a little foap be diffolved in it.

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5. Clofe and putrid air. The fume of dunghills, ftagnant water, and, in general, all ftinks, are in the highest degree unwholefome. The windows of fmall houses ought to be opened daily in all weathers, for a certain time; farmers fhould never keep their dunghills near their houses, and in town, when the fhores are offensive, every poffible expedient fhould be ufed to let the putrid air out, and fresh G air in.

6. Drunkenness. The poor wretches. who abandon themselves to drunkennefs, if they do not die of inflammations of the breast, pleurifies, or fome

8. Bad water. This is a common caufe of diseases in fome country places, but the bad effects of water may be easily prevented by the following methods:

If water is thick and turbid, or not clear, it should be left to fettle before it is used, and it will generally become pure, merely by fettling. If not, and it appears to be flimy or muddy, it fhould be poured into a large veffel, half filled with clean fand, and stirred about, so as perfectly to mix the fand with it. When the agitation is over, the fand will fink, and generally carry down with it all the foulneffes of the water. The following is ftill a better expedient:

Procure two veffels, and place one on a fhelf over the other: Let the upper one have a hole very near the bot tom, and be balf filled with fand; into this veffel pour the water, and it will be filtered by the fand, and pass clear out of the hole at the bottom,

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The caufes which aggravate difeafes are thefe: 1. the fatal, but almoft u. B niverfal prejudice that all diftompers at the beginning may be cured by fweat, and that weat should be procu red by hot medicines, hot rooms, and a load of covering. Whoever thus attempts to force a sweat at the beginning of a difeafe, takes pains to kill himfelf; and I have feen fome ca-, fes, fays Tyfot, in which the continual care to provoke this sweating has as manifeftly killed the patient as a ball would have done if it had been fhot through his head. In all acute difeafes, a very few excepted, the blood is already too thick, and fweating, by forcing out the thinner part of the blood, renders it still thicker.

mours inflamed, before any internal infraction is formed, and before any load is depofited on a particular part,

Sweating is alfo ferviceable when the caufe of the difeafe is removed by plentiful dilution. Such fweats mult not, by any means, be checked; for the impeding this difcharge may be as fatal under thefe circumftances, as an endeavour to force it in thofe that have been already defcribed. Upon the whole, let it be remembered, that warm water is the beft fudorific in the world.

adiy. Difeafes are alfo aggravated by another prejudice equally general and equally dangerous. That the fick being weak must be forced to eat that they may gain ftrength to ftruggle with their difeafe.

In confequence of this abfurd and fatal notion, fevers that would not otherwise be dangerous, are frequently

rendered mortal.

Let this certain truth, therefore, bẹ henceforth believed and remembered, never yet did any person in a fever die merely through weakness; they may be D fupported, even for fome weeks, by water only, and will be ftronger, at the end of that time, than if they had taken folid food, fince folid food can only encrease their difeafe, and confequently their weakness, of which their difeafe is the caufe. From the firit invafion of a fever, digeftion ceafes; whatever folid food is taken, corrupts, and adds strength only to the distemper.

But fuppofing that fweating was beneficial at the beginning of difeafes, the method generally taken to excite it, would, nevertheless, be fatal. The firft endeavour is to ftifle the patient E with the heat of a clofe apartment, and a load of covering, at the fame time taking all poffible care to prevent a breath of freth air from fqueezing into the room; in confequence of which the air he breathes is very foon unfit for refpiration, and with the F weight of his bed-cloaths is fufficient to produce a fever if there had been no tendency to one before. The next ftep is to adminifter the most heating things, Venice treacle, wine, trong wine whey, with fpirits of hartfhorn, and other mixtures, with faffron and other ingredients of the fame kind, medicines which both heat and bind, when the difeafe requires that the patient should be kept cool, and the belly moderately open.

It is, indeed, true that fweating does cure fome difeafes in the begiuning, but this happens only when the difeafe arifes fimply and folely from a topped or abated perfpiration, and when the fweat is produced without beating medicaments, and before the blood is become thick and the hu(Gent. Mag. MAY 1765.)

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The fame prejudice that forces the fick to eat, under a notion of giving them ftrength, forces them to eat the moft pernicious kind of food; frong gravy, foup, eggs, and flesh, as long as it can by any effort be chewed and fwallowed. If a man in perfect health fhould be compelled to eat flinking meat, rotten eggs, and fower broth, he would very foon be feized with vomiting, purging, and delirium ; livid fpots would at length appear, and he would be in the utmost danger from what is called the purple fever. Now meat given to a man in a tever very foon becomes putrid, eggs rotten, and broth four; fo that he is in the fame ftate exactly as the healthy perfon juft defcribed, who should take these aliments in their putrid state, and the diforder which they would produce, fuper added to that before fubfifting, it is eafy to conceive what must be the fate of the patient. The only things that can ftrengthen the fick, are those that weakthe difeafe.

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