Volume 5

The philosophy of medicine, or, Medical extracts on the nature of health and disease, including the laws of the animal oeconomy and the doctrines of pneumatic medicine / by a friend to improvements.

Date:
1799-1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The philosophy of medicine, or, Medical extracts on the nature of health and disease, including the laws of the animal oeconomy and the doctrines of pneumatic medicine / by a friend to improvements. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    98/596 (page 80)
    water in putrid fever. He orders the bodies of his typhus patients to be waflied with a fponge, dipped in cold water and vinegar, at leaft twice a day. This operation I fliall call lavatio frigida. The earlier this mode is pradifed, fays this emi- nent phyfician, the better; becaufe, in typhus the patient grows daily worfe, for in the fecond week there is a great increafe of fever, and a proportional lofs of ftrength, but even then Dr. Gregory has found the application of the wet fponge as a miracle ; nor have delirium ox -petechia been confidered by him as any bar to the adoption of this remedy; on the contrary, where thefe have been prefent, and the pulfe much quickened, he has, by the lavatio frigida^ fpeedily reduced the pulfations from 110 to 90 in the minute, and the delirium, and other threatening fymptoms, have foon after difappeared. About a fortnight ago, a ftudent of phyfic, who had been ill for fomc days before Dr. Gregory was applied to, had, befides a great degree of fever and delirium, nu- merous fpots, or petechia:, on his bread, belly, and extremities. The lavatio frigida was ufed on the day the Do£tor firft vifitcd him, and by next morning the delirium had ceafed, and the pete- chiai difappeared. The pulfe, which on the pre- ceding day had been 110, was now at 80; and by continuirg the application of the wet fponge now and then, the pulfe became natural on the fourth day after the Doctor firfl: faw him. Many fimilar