_Cold water_ was a most agreeable and powerful remedy in this disease. I directed it to be applied by means of napkins to the head, and to be injected into the bowels by way of glyster. It gave the same ease to both, when in pain, which opium gives to pain from other causes. I likewise advised the washing of the face and hands, and sometimes the feet, with cold water, and always with advantage. It was by suffering the body to lie for some time in a bed of cold water, that the inhabitants of the island of Massuah cured the most violent bilious fevers[84]. When applied in this way, it _gradually_ abstracts the heat from the body, and thereby lessens the action of the system. It differs as much in its effects upon the body from the cold bath, as rest in a cold room, differs from exercise in the cold and open air. [84] Bruce's Travels. I was first led to the practice of the partial application of cold water to the body, in fevers of too much force in the arterial system, by observing its good effects in active hæmorrhages, and by recollecting the effects of a partial application of warm water to the feet, in fevers of an opposite character. Cold water when applied to the feet as certainly reduces the pulse in force and frequency, as warm water, applied in the same way, produces contrary effects upon it. In an experiment which was made at my request, by one of my pupils, by placing his feet in cold pump water for a few minutes, the pulse was reduced 24 strokes in a minute, and became so small as hardly to be perceptible. But this effect of cold water, in reducing the frequency of the pulse, is not uniform. In weak and irritable habits, it increases its frequency. This has been fully proved by a number of experiments, made by my former pupil, Dr. Stock, of Bristol, in England, and published in his "Medical Collections of the Effects of Cold, as a Remedy in certain Diseases[85]." [85] Page 185. In the use of the remedies which were necessary to overcome the inflammatory action of the system, I was obliged to reduce it below its natural point of excitement. In the present imperfect state of our knowledge in medicine, perhaps no disease of too much action can be cured without it.