advifes. He is fo particular in his directions about it, that I need fay little. I fhall only add, that thếriaca, and the like folid medicines, being offenfive to the stomach, are not the most proper fudorifics. I fhould rather commend an infufion in boiling water of Virginia fnake-root, or in want of this, of fomé other warm aromatic, with the addition of about a fourth part of aqua theriacalis, and a proper quantity of fyrup of lemons to fweeten it. From which, in illneffes of the fame kind with the gaol-fever, which approaches the nearest to the peftilence, I have seen very good effects.

Whether either of these methods of bleeding or of fweating will answer the purpose intended by them, must be left to a larger experience to determine; and the trial ought by no means to be neglected, efpécially in those cafes which promife but little fuccefs from the natural courfe of the disease.

9.7

A DISCOURSE on the SMALLPOX and MEASLES.

PREFACE.

A

Confiderable part of this difcourfe was written by me many years fince; and the whole had been finished and given to the public long ago, would the bufinefs of my profeffion, in which I have been conftantly engaged, have allowed me time to do it. However, I flatter myself, that this intermiffion of the work will in the main turn to the advantage of the reader: because whatever inconveniencies may attend age, they are for the most part amply compenfated by daily acquifitions of knowledge and experience. Wherefore, without farther apology, I fhall now briefly lay down the motives which firft induced me to write on this fubject.

In the year 1717 the learned Dr Freind published the first and third books of Hippocrates's epidemics, illustrated with nine commentaries concerning fevers. Of these the seventh treats of purging in the putrid fever, which follows upon the confluent fmall-pox; and, in fupport of his opinion, he has annexed to it the letters of four physicians to himself on that fubject; one of which is mine. For after having been several years one of the physicians to St Thomas's hospital, in the year 1708, I obferved, that fome of my patients recovered from a very malignant fort of fmall-pox, even beyond expectation, by a loofenefs feizing them on the ninth or tenth day of the difeafe, VOL. II.

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and fometimes earlier. Hence I took the hint, to try what good might be done by opening the body with a gentle purge on the decline of the diftemper, especially where the patient had conftantly been coftive from the beginning; which is far from being an uncommon cafe. The fuccefs was in a great measure anfwerable to my wifhes: for, by this method, I recovered many who were in the most imminent danger.

At that time, and indeed during the remainder of his life, I was strictly joined in friendship with Dr Freind; and as we frequently conversed on the businefs of our profeffion, I explained this point of practice to him, and met with his approbation. Soon after this, he was called to a confultation with two other eminent phyficians, on the cafe of a young nobleman, who lay dangerously ill of the fmall-pox : whereupon he propofed my method. But they obftinately oppofed it until the fourteenth day from the eruption, when the cafe appearing quite defperate by convulfions with a lethargy coming on apace, they confented to give him a gentle laxative draught; which had a very good effect. Hereupon Dr Freind gave his opinion to repeat it; but that was over-ruled, and the patient died the feventh day after. The doctor himself has given an ample account of this cafe *.

This affair foon made fo great a noise, that even the gentlemen of the faculty were divided upon it; fome commending, others finding fault with Dr Freind's advice which fo effentially affected his reputation, that he thought himself under a neceffity of * Freindi opera, p. 263. vindicating

vindicating it and therefore he entreated me to fend him the purport of our former converfation in writing. Such was our friendship, that I foon complied with his request; and he shewed my letter to Dr Radcliffe, (who at that time was very defervedly at the head of his profeffion, upon acccount of his great medical penetration and experience, and had honoured me with a confiderable fhare of intimacy), and told him withal, that he intended to publifh his defence. Whereupon Dr Radcliffe obtained leave of me for Dr Freind to annex my letter to his book. But after two or three sheets had been printed off, he was prevailed on by fome friends to drop his undertaking: and thus both his work and my letter lay by for fome years, that is, until he published his commentaries on fevers. While he was employed in this work, he had fresh thoughts of printing the aforefaid letter with it; for which purpose I revised and enlarged the letter, tranflated it from the original English into Latin, and, in fhort, new-modelled it into the form in which it appears in that book.

in

It very rarely happens, that a new method of cure any difeafe gives universal fatisfaction: however, not only Dr Freind and myself invariably perfifted in this from the first time I mentioned it to him; but several phyficians likewise, both in town and country, to whom we imparted it, found its falutary effects. But there never are wanting fome men of fo invidious a turn of mind, that their principal pleasure confists in blackening the reputation, and decrying the productions of others; as if what they ftrip their neighbours of, was to be added to their own characters. Thus Dr Freind's book had no fooner appeared in public,

but fome of this ftamp flew to arms, as if to fave the commonwealth. In front of this band ftood forth Dr John Woodward, phyfic-profeffor at Grefhamcollege, a man equally ill-bred, vain, and ill-natured, who, after being for fome time apprentice to a linendraper, took it into his head to make a collection of fhells and foffils, in order to pafs upon the world for a philofopher; thence having got admiffion into a phyfician's family, at length, by dint of interest, obtained a doctor's degree. This man published a book, entitled, The fate of phyfic_ and difcafes *, wherein he took great liberties with Dr Freind, and thofe in the fame fentiment with him, but pointed his arrows most particularly at me ; and these were neither arguments nor experiments, of which he had none, but barefaced calumuy and raillery, which he poured forth in abundance. It is much against my

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will, that I thus revive the remembrance of that libel, which already is well nigh funk into oblivion; and for which the author has been justly expofed by Dr Freind nor fhould I have wafted paper on this infignificant ftory, had not the arrogance and vanity of the man extorted it from me. And, in fine, if I have dwelt longer on this whole affair than might be expected, my motives were, firft, to explain who was the author of this method of practice, and then, how little foundation Dr Woodward had for his per fonal reflections and brawling.

Now, as to what concerns this discourse, I must inform the public, that I have preferred perfpicuity to flowers of language, by delivering every precept in as few words as to me feemed confiftent with a clear * London, 1718, 8vo.

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