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
4. LOOSE DRESSES, AND A CAREFUL ACCOMMODATION OF THEM TO THE CHANGES
IN THE WEATHER. Many facts might be mentioned to show the influence of
compression and of tight ligatures of every kind, upon the different
parts of the body; also of too much, or too little clothing, in
producing, or increasing diseases of every kind, more especially those
which affect the lungs. Tight stays, garters, waistbands, and collars,
should all be laid aside in the consumption, and the quality of the
clothing should be suited to the weather. A citizen of Maryland informed
me, that he twice had a return of a cough and spitting of blood, by
wearing his summer clothes a week after the weather became cool in the
month of September. But it is not sufficient to vary the weight or
quality of dress with the seasons. It should be varied with the changes
which take place in the temperature of the air every day, even in the
summer months, in middle latitudes. I know a citizen of Philadelphia,
who has laboured under a consumptive diathesis near thirty years, who
believes that he has lessened the frequency and violence of pulmonic
complaints during that time, by a careful accommodation of his dress to
the weather. He has been observed frequently to change his waistcoat and
small clothes twice or three times in a day, in a summer month.
A repetition of colds, and thereby an increase of the disease, will be
prevented by wearing flannel next to the skin in winter, and muslin in
the summer, either in the form of a shirt or a waistcoat: where these
are objected to, a piece of flannel, or of soft sheepskin, should be
worn next to the breast. They not only prevent colds, but frequently
remove chronic pains from that part of the body.
5. ARTIFICIAL EVACUATIONS, by means of BLISTERS and ISSUES. I suspect
the usefulness of these remedies to be chiefly confined to the
inflammatory and hectic states of consumption. In the typhus state, the
system is too weak to sustain the discharges of either of them. Fresh
blisters should be preferred to such as are perpetual, and the issues,
to be useful, should be large. They are supposed to afford relief by
diverting a preternatural secretion and excretion of mucus or pus from
the lungs, to an artificial emunctory in a less vital part of the
body. Blisters do most service when the disease arises from repelled
eruptions, and when they are applied between the shoulders, and the
upper and internal parts of the arms. When it arises from rheumatism
and gout, the blisters should be applied to the joints, and such other
external parts of the body as had been previously affected by those
diseases.
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