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
I have good reason to believe, that an English sea-captain, who was
on the verge of the grave with the consumption, in the spring of the
year 1790, owed his perfect recovery to nothing but the above gradual
manner, in which, by my advice, he made use of the exercises of riding
in a carriage and on horseback. I have seen many other cases of the
good effects of thus accommodating exercise to debility; and I am sorry
to add, that I have seen many cases in which, from the neglect of this
manner of using exercise, most of the species and degrees of it, have
either been useless, or done harm. However carelessly this observation
may be read by physicians, or attended to by patients, I conceive no
direction to be more necessary in the cure of consumptions. I have been
thus particular in detailing it, not only because I believe it to be
important, but that I might atone to society for that portion of evil
which I might have prevented by a more strict attention to it in the
first years of my practice.
The more the arms are used in exercise the better. One of the
proprietary governors of Pennsylvania, who laboured for many years under
consumptive diathesis, derived great benefit from frequently rowing
himself in a small boat, a few miles up and down the river Schuylkill.
Two young men, who were predisposed to a consumption, were perfectly
cured by working steadily at a printing press in this city. A French
physician in Martinique cured this disease, by simply rubbing the arms
between the shoulders and the elbows, until they inflamed. The remedy is
strongly recommended, by the recoveries from pulmonary consumption which
have followed abscesses in the arm-pits. Perhaps the superior advantages
of riding on horseback, in this disease, may arise in part from the
constant and gentle use of the arms in the management of the bridle and
the whip.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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