[66] In some short manuscript notes upon Dr. Mitchell's account of the yellow fever in Virginia, in the year 1741, made by the late Dr. Kearsley, sen. of this city, he remarks, that in the yellow fever which prevailed in the same year in Philadelphia, “some recovered by an early discharge of black matter by stool.” This gentleman, Dr. Redman informed me, introduced purging with glauber's salts in the yellow fever in our city. He was preceptor to Dr. Redman in medicine.
[67] Treatise on the Inflammatory Rheumatism, vol. i. p. 407.
[68] Dr. Redman was not the only instance furnished by the disease, in which reason got the better of the habits of old age, and of the formalities of medicine. About the time the fever declined, I received a letter from Dr. Shippen, sen. (then above 82 years of age), dated Oxford Furnace, New-Jersey, October 13th, 1793, in which, after approving in polite terms of my mode of practice, he adds, “Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. I would only propose some small addition to your present method. Suppose you should substitute, in the room of the jalap, six grains of gamboge, to be mixed with ten or fifteen grains of calomel; and after a dose or two, as occasion may require, you should bleed your patients almost to death, at least to fainting; and then direct a plentiful supply of mallows tea, with fresh lemon juice, and sugar and barley water, together with the most simple, mild, and nutricious food.” The doctor concludes his letter by recommending to my perusal Dr. Dover's account of nearly a whole ship's crew having been cured of a yellow fever, on the coast of South-America, by being bled until they fainted.
[69] Diseases of Barbadoes, p. 212.
[70] Diseases in Voyages to Hot Climates, vol. ii. p. 322.
[74] Diseases of Barbadoes, p. 16, 43, 46, 48, 52, 122.