A DEFENCE
OF
BLOOD-LETTING
AS A
REMEDY FOR CERTAIN DISEASES.
Blood-letting, as a remedy for fevers, and certain other diseases, having lately been the subject of much discussion, and many objections having been made to it, which appear to be founded in error and fear, I have considered that a defence of it, by removing those objections, might render it more generally useful, in every part of the United States.
I shall begin this subject by remarking, that blood-letting is indicated, in fevers of great morbid excitement,
1. By the sudden suppression or diminution of the natural discharges by the pores, bowels, and kidneys, whereby a plethora is induced in the system.
2. By the habits of the persons who are most subject to such fevers.
3. By the theory of fever. I have attempted to prove that the higher grades of fever depend upon morbid and excessive action in the blood-vessels. It is connected, of course, with preternatural sensibility in their muscular fibres. The blood is the most powerful irritant which acts upon them. By abstracting a part of it, we lessen the principal cause of the fever. The effect of blood-letting is as immediate and natural in removing fever, as the abstraction of a particle of sand is, to cure an inflammation of the eye, when it arises from that cause.
4. By the symptoms of the first stage of violent fevers, such as a sleepiness and an oppressed pulse, or by delirium, with a throbbing pulse, and great pains in every part of the body.