Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health

by S. A. D. Tissot

In such Cases, first of all the Patient should be made to smell to, or even to snuff up, some Vinegar; and his Forehead, his Temples and his Wrists should be bathed with it; adding an equal Quantity of warm Water, if at Hand. Bathing them with distilled or spirituous Liquids would be prejudicial in this Kind of Swooning.

2, The Patient should be made, if possible, to swallow two or three Spoonfuls of Vinegar, with four or five Times as much Water.

3, The Patient's Garters should be tied very tightly above his Knees; as by this Means a greater Quantity of Blood is retained in the Legs, whence the Heart may be less overladen with it.

4, If the Fainting proves obstinate, that is, if it continues longer than a Quarter of an Hour, or degenerates into a Syncopè, an Abolition of Feeling and Understanding, he must be bled in the Arm, which quickly revives him.

5, After the Bleeding, the Injection of a Glyster will be highly proper; and then the Patient should be kept still and calm, only letting him drink, every half Hour, some Cups of Elder Flower Tea, with the Addition of a little Sugar and Vinegar.

When Swoonings which result from this Cause occur frequently in the same Person, he should, in Order to escape them, pursue the Directions I shall hereafter mention, [§ 544], when treating of Persons who superabound with Blood.

The very same Cause, or Causes, which occasion these Swoonings, also frequently produce violent Palpitations, under the same Circumstances; the Palpitation often preceding or following the Deliquium, or Swooning.

Of Swoonings occasioned by Weakness.

§ 496. If too great a Quantity of Blood, which may be considered as some Excess of Health, is sometimes the Cause of Swooning, this last is oftener the Effect of a very contrary Cause, that is, of a Want of Blood, or an Exhaustion of too much.

This Sort of Swooning happens after great Hæmorrhages, or Discharges of Blood; after sudden or excessive Evacuations, such as one of some Hours Continuance in a Cholera Morbus ([§ 321]) or such as are more slow, but of longer Duration, as for Instance, after an inveterate Diarrhœa, or Purging; excessive Sweats; a Flood of Urine; such Excesses as tend to exhaust Nature; obstinate Wakefulness; a long Inappetency, which, by depriving the Body of its necessary Sustenance, is attended with the same Consequence as profuse Evacuations.