The only morbid condition of fever, of which we have any knowledge, and over which the medical art has any control is that of inflammation. Although, as has been so often stated, inflammation be not the primary febrile affection, as far as regards the order of events, yet it is, at least, the primary affection, as far as regards the treatment, if it be not the sole affection that admits of treatment. The remedies proper for febrile inflammation do not differ from those which are adapted to ordinary inflammation; but they differ materially in the mode in which they ought to be applied, and the extent to which they ought to be carried. They can be understood neither in their mode nor measure, until the following questions are determined; namely, What is the precise object that should be aimed at in the treatment of fever? What is it which it is most important to do, and which it is in the power of the medical art to accomplish? An exact and true answer to these questions will afford an invaluable guide in practice: it will point out with clearness what is to be attempted; and it will put a stop to useless and pernicious aims. It is in vain to hope to terminate fever by a stroke of art. The pursuit of a remedy, so long and so earnestly sought, endowed with the power of cutting short the disease, is to the physician what the search after the philosopher’s stone was to the alchymist, with this difference, that the alchymist, engaged in a vain pursuit, lost only his time and labour; but the physician, engaged in a pursuit equally hopeless, will often, in addition, lose his patient. Fever cannot be cured instantaneously; and to bring a fever patient under the influence of agents capable of exciting a powerful influence upon the system, in the expectation of at once removing fever, is pregnant with danger; and the expectation upon which such practice is adopted, must appear fallacious to whoever has studied the nature of the disease. Fever cannot be cured instantaneously: it may be moderated; it may be gradually subdued; from being violent and dangerous, it may be rendered mild and safe: the physician may bring it to this condition; and this is all that he can accomplish. If it come under his care early, and he know with promptitude and decision at what to aim, he will rarely fail in his efforts to secure this object. Since the various forms or types of fever differ in nothing but the degree of their intensity, in detailing the treatment, it will be necessary only to state first of all, the remedies which are appropriate to the disease; and, secondly, the modification of these remedies, which may be required by the different degrees of intensity in which it is commonly found to exist.