[3]. In inflammatory fevers with great arterial action, as the stomach is not always affected with torpor, and as there is a direct sympathy between the stomach and heart, some people have believed, that nauseating doses of some emetic drug, as of antimonium tartarizatum, have been administered with advantage, abating by direct sympathy the actions of the heart. This theory is not ill founded, and the use of digitalis, given in small doses, as from half a dram to a dram of the saturated tincture, two or three times a day, as well as other less violent emetic drugs, would be worth the attention of hospital physicians.
Sickness might also be produced probably with advantage by whirling the patient in a chair suspended from the cieling by two parallel cords; which after being revolved fifty or one hundred times in one direction, would return with great circular velocity, and produce vertigo, similar I suppose to sea-sickness. And lastly the sickness produced by respiring an atmosphere mixed with one tenth of carbonated hydrogen, discovered by Mr. Watt, and published by Dr. Beddoes, would be well worthy exact and repeated experiment.
[4]. Cool air, cool fomentations, or ablutions, are also useful in this inflammatory fever; as by cooling the particles of blood in the cutaneous and pulmonary vessels, they must return to the heart with less stimulus, than when they are heated above the natural degree of ninety-eight. For this purpose snow and ice have been scattered on the patients in Italy; and cold bathing has been used at the eruption of the small pox in China, and both, it is said, with advantage. See Class [III. 2. 1. 12]. and Suppl. I. [8].
[5]. The lancet however with repeated mild cathartics is the great agent in destroying this enormous excitement of the system, so long as the strength of the patient will admit of evacuations. Blisters over the painful part, where the phlegmon or topical inflammation is situated, after great evacuation, is of evident service, as in pleurisy. Warm bathing for half an hour twice a day, when the patient becomes enfeebled, is of great benefit, as in peripneumony and rheumatism.
[6]. When other means fail of success in abating the violent excitement of the system in inflammatory diseases, might not the shaved head be covered with large bladders of cold water, in which ice or salt had been recently dissolved; and changed as often as necessary, till the brain is rendered in some degree torpid by cold?—Might not a greater degree of cold, as iced water, or snow, be applied to the cutaneous capillaries?
[7]. Another experiment I have frequently wished to try, which cannot be done in private practice, and which I therefore recommend to some hospital physician; and that is, to endeavour to still the violent actions of the heart and arteries, after due evacuations by venesection and cathartics, by gently compressing the brain. This might be done by suspending a bed, so as to whirl the patient round with his head most distant from the center of motion, as if he lay across a millstone, as described in Sect. XVIII. 20. For this purpose a perpendicular shaft armed with iron gudgeons might have one end pass into the floor, and the other into a beam in the cieling, with an horizontal arm, to which a small bed might be readily suspended.
By thus whirling the patient with increasing velocity sleep might be produced, and probably the violence of the actions of the heart and arteries might be diminished in inflammatory fevers; and, as it is believed, that no accumulation of sensorial power would succeed a torpor of the origin of the nerves, either thus procured by mechanical compression, or by the bladder-cap of cold water above described, the lives of thousands might probably be saved by thus extinguishing the exacerbations of febrile paroxysms, or preventing the returns of them.
In fevers with weak pulse sleep, or a degree of stupor, thus produced, might prevent the too great expenditure of sensorial power, and thus contribute to preserve the patient. See Class [I. 2. 5. 10]. on stupor. What might be the consequence of whirling a person with his head next the center of motion, so as to force the blood from the brain into the other parts of the body, might be discovered by cautious experiment without danger, and might probably add to our ability of curing fever.
[XVI]. Recapitulation.
[1]. The sensorial power causes the contraction of the fibres, and is excited into action by four different circumstances, by the stimulus of external bodies, by pain or pleasure, by desire or aversion, or by the previous motions of other contracting fibres. In the first situation it is called the sensorial power of irritation, in the second the sensorial power of sensation, in the third the sensorial power of volition, and in the fourth the sensorial power of association.