1. Where bleeding had been omitted for three days, in acute cases, it was seldom useful. Where purging had been used, it was sometimes successful. I recovered two patients who had taken the mercurial purges, whom I bled for the first time on the seventh day. One of them was the daughter of Mr. James Cresson, the other was a journeyman ship-carpenter at Kensington. In those cases where bleeding had been used on the first day, it was both safe and useful to repeat it every day afterwards, during the continuance of the fever. 2. I preferred bleeding in the exacerbation of the fever. The remedy here was applied when the disease was in its greatest force. A single paroxysm was like a sudden squall to the system, and, unless abated by bleeding or purging, often produced universal disorganization. I preferred the former to the latter remedy in cases of great danger, because it was more speedy, and more certain in its operation. 3. I bled in several instances in the remission of the fever, where the pulse was tense and corded. It lessened the violence of the succeeding paroxysm. 4. I bled in all those cases in which the pulse was preternaturally slow, provided it was tense. Mr. Benj. W. Morris, Mr. Thomas Wharton, jun. and Mr. Wm. Sansom, all owe their lives probably to their having been bled in the above state of the pulse. I was led to use bleeding in this state of the pulse, not only by the theory of the disease which I had adopted, but by the success which had often attended this remedy, in a slow and depressed state of the pulse in apoplexy and pneumony. I had moreover the authority of Dr. Mosely in its favour, in the yellow fever, and of Dr. Sydenham, in his account of a new fever, which appeared in the year 1685. The words of the latter physician are so apposite to the cases which have been mentioned, that I hope I shall be excused for inserting them in this place. "All the symptoms of weakness (says our author) proceed from nature's being in a manner oppressed and overcome by the first attack of the disease, so as not to be able to raise regular symptoms adequate to the violence of the fever. I remember to have met with a remarkable instance of this, several years ago, in a young man I then attended; for though he seemed in a manner expiring, yet the outward parts felt so cool, that I could not persuade the attendants he had a fever, which could not disengage, and show itself clearly, because the vessels were so full as to obstruct the motion of the blood. However, I said, that they would soon find the fever rise high enough upon bleeding him. Accordingly, after taking away a large quantity of blood, as violent a fever appeared as ever I met with, and did not go off till bleeding had been used three or four times[76]." [76] Vol. ii. p. 351.