[137] Arnot, History of Edinburgh, 1779, p. 211.
[138] Gent. Magaz. 1741, p. 705.
[139] Edin. Med. Essays and Obs. I. Art. 1.
[140] Gent. Magaz. 1742, p. 186.
[141] John Wall, M.D., Medical Tracts, Oxford, 1780, p. 337. See also Obs. on the Epid. Fever of 1741, 3rd ed., by Daniel Cox, apothecary, with cases.
[142] Edin. Med. Essays and Obs. VI. 539.
[143] “And here I cannot but observe how many ignorant conceited coxcombs ride out, under a shew of business, with their lancet in their pocket, and make diseases instead of curing them, drawing their weapon upon every occasion, right or wrong, and upon every complaint cry out, ‘Egad! I must have some of your blood,’ give the poor wretches a disease they never might have had, drawing the blood and the purse, torment them in this world,” etc.—An Essay on the present Epidemic Fever, Sherborne, 1741. The practice of blood-letting in continued fevers received a check in the second half of the 18th century, but it was still kept up in inflammatory diseases or injuries. Even in the latter it was freely satirized by the laity. When the surgeon in Tom Jones complained bitterly that the wounded hero would not be blooded though he was in a fever, the landlady of the inn answered: “It is an eating fever, then, for he hath devoured two swingeing buttered toasts this morning for breakfast.” “Very likely,” says the doctor, “I have known people eat in a fever; and it is very easily accounted for; because the acidity occasioned by the febrile matter may stimulate the nerves of the diaphragm, and thereby occasion a craving which will not be easily distinguishable from a natural appetite.... Indeed I think the gentleman in a very dangerous way, and, if he is not blooded, I am afraid will die.”
[144] Munk, Roll of the College of Physicians, II. 53.
[145] Gentleman’s Magaz. III. 1733, Sept., p. 492.
[146] Effects of Air on Human Bodies, 1733, pp. 11, 17. His excellent remarks on the need of fresh air in the treatment of fevers, two generations before Lettsom carried out the practice, are at p. 54. The curious calculation above cited was copied by Langrish, and usually passes as his.