An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those parts — John Shaqi
An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those partsHolwell, J. Z. (John Zephaniah)
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An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those parts
Holwell, J. Z. (John Zephaniah)
Smallpox -- Prevention; Smallpox -- Vaccination
The next article of the Eastern practice, which offers in the course of
our discussion, is their sluicing their patients over head and ears,
morning and evening, with cold water, until the fever comes on; in which
the inoculating Bramins are, beyond controversy, singular: but before we
can penetrate the grounds and reasons for this practice, it becomes
necessary to bestow a few words on the usual manner of cold bathing in
the East, when medically applied, which is simply this; the water is
taken up over night, in three, four, or five vessels, before described,
(according to the strength of the patient,) and left in the open air, to
receive the dews of the night, which gives it an intense coldness; then
in the morning, before the sun rises, the water is poured without
intermission, by two servants, over the body, from the distance of six
or twelve inches above the head. This mode of cold bathing has been
adopted from the Eastern professors of Physic, by all the European
practitioners, and by constant experience found abundantly more
efficacious than that by immersion, in all cases where that very capital
remedy was indicated; notwithstanding it has been ever the received
opinion, that the success of cold bathing, is as much, or rather more,
owing to the weight and pressure of the circumambient body of water,
than _the shock_. The remarkable superior efficacy of this Eastern
method of cold bathing, can only be accounted for, from _the shock_
being infinitely greater, and of longer continuance, than that received
by immersion; which is a fact indisputable, as will be acknowledged by
every one who goes through a course of both methods; the severity of the
one being nothing comparable to the other: this I assert from my own
personal feelings; and I never had a patient that did not aver the same,
who had undergone both trials: indeed, the shock of this Eastern method
is so great, that, in many cases, when the subject was deeply exhausted
and relaxed, I have found it absolutely necessary to begin the course
only with _a quart_ of water.
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