Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
Science
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
The cold bath, also long immersion in cold water, have been frequently
used in this disease. The former aided the lancet, in the cure of the
man whose case is related by Dr. Hartley. There can be no objection
to the cold water in either of the above forms, provided no dread is
excited by it in the mind of the patient.
The reader will perceive here that I have deserted an opinion which I
formerly held upon the cause and cure of the tetanus. I supposed the
hydrophobia to depend upon debility. This debility I have since been
led to consider as partial, depending upon abstraction of excitement
from some, and a morbid accumulation of it in other parts of the
body. The preternatural excitement predominates so far, in most cases
of hydrophobia, over debility, that depleting remedies promise more
speedily and safely to equalize, and render it natural, than medicines
of an opposite character.
In the treatment of those cases of hydrophobia which are not derived
from the bite of a rabid animal, regard should always be had to its
remote and exciting causes, so as to accommodate the remedies to them.
The imperfection of the present nomenclature of medicine has become the
subject of general complaint. The mortality of the disease from the bite
of a rabid animal, has been increased by its name. The terms hydrophobia
and canine madness, convey ideas of the symptoms of the disease only,
and of such of them too as are by no means universal. If the theory I
have delivered, and the practice I have recommended, be just, it ought
to be called the hydrophobic state of fever. This name associates it at
once with all the other states of fever, and leads us to treat it with
the remedies which are proper in its kindred diseases, and to vary them
constantly with the varying state of the system.
In reviewing what has been said of this disease, I dare not say that I
have not been misled by the principles of fever which I have adopted;
but if I have, I hope the reader will not be discouraged by my errors
from using his reason in medicine. By contemplating those errors, he
may perhaps avoid the shoals upon which I have been wrecked. In all his
researches, let him ever remember that there is the same difference
between the knowledge of a physician who prescribes for diseases as
limited by genera and species, and of one who prescribes under the
direction of just principles, that there is between the knowledge we
obtain of the nature and extent of the sky, by viewing a few feet of it
from the bottom of a well, and viewing from the top of a mountain the
whole canopy of heaven.
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