Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
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Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
In my attempts to teach the citizens of Philadelphia, by my different
publications, the method of curing themselves of yellow fever, I observed
no difficulty in their apprehending every thing that was addressed to
them, except what related to the different states of the pulse. All the
knowledge that is necessary to discover when blood-letting is proper,
might be taught to a boy or girl of twelve years old in a few hours. I
taught it in less time to several persons, during the prevalence of the
epidemic.
I would as soon believe that ratafia was intended by the Author of Nature
to be the only drink of man, instead of water, as believe that the
knowledge of what relates to the health and lives of a _whole_ city, or
nation, should be confined to one, and that a small or a privileged order
of men. But what have physicians, what have universities or medical
societies done, after the labours and studies of many centuries, towards
lessening the mortality of pestilential fevers? They have either copied
or contradicted each other, in all their publications. Plagues and
malignant fevers are still leagued with war and famine, in their ravages
upon human life.
To prevent the formation and mortality of this fever, it will be
necessary, when it makes its appearance in a city or country, to publish
an account of those symptoms which I have called the _precursors_ of the
disease, and to exhort the people, as soon as they feel those symptoms,
to have immediate recourse to the remedies of purging or bleeding. The
danger of delay in using one, or both these remedies, should be
inculcated in the strongest terms, for the disease, like Time, has a lock
on its forehead, but is bald behind. The bite of a rattle-snake is seldom
fatal, because the medicines which cure it are applied or taken as soon
as the poison comes in contact with the blood. There is less danger to be
apprehended from the yellow fever than from the poison of the snake,
provided the remedies for it are administered within a few hours after it
is excited into action.
Let persons who are subject to chronic pains, or diseases of any kind, be
advised not to be deceived by them. Every pain, at such a time, is the
beginning of the disease; for it always acts first on debilitated parts
of the body. From an ignorance of this law of epidemics many persons, by
delaying their applications for help, perished with our fever.
Let nature be trusted into no case whatever, to cure this disease; and
let no attack of it, however light, be treated with neglect. Death as
certainly performs his work, when he steals on the system in the form of
a mild intermittent, as he does, when he comes on with the symptoms of
apoplexy, or a black vomiting.
Cleanliness, in houses and dress, cannot be too often inculcated during
the prevalence of a yellow fever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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