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

by S. A. D. Tissot

The Day after the Vomit, he must take the Powder [Nº. 51] divided into two Doses: the next Day he should take no other Medicine but his Ptisan; on the fourth the Rhubarb must be repeated; after which the Violence of the Disease commonly abates: His Diet during the Disease is nevertheless to be continued exactly for some Days; after which he may be allowed to enter upon that of Persons in a State of Recovery.

§ 333. The Dysentery sometimes commences with an inflammatory Fever; a feverish, hard, full Pulse, with a violent Pain in the Head and Loins, and a stiff distended Belly. In such a Case the Patient must be bled once; and daily receive three or even four of the Glysters [Nº. 6], drinking plentifully of the Drink [Nº. 3].

When all Dread of an Inflammation is entirely over, the Patient is to be treated in the Manner just related; though often there is no Necessity for the Vomit: and if the inflammatory Symptoms have run high, his first Purge should be that of [Nº. 11], and the Use of the Rhubarb may be postponed, till about the manifest Conclusion of the Disease.

I have cured many Dysenteries, by ordering the Sick no other Remedy, but a Cup of warm Water every Quarter of an Hour; and it were better to rely only on this simple Remedy, which must be of some Utility, than to employ those, of whose Effects Country People are ignorant, and which are often productive of very dangerous ones.

§ 334. It sometimes happens that the Dysentery is combined with a putrid Fever, which makes it necessary, after the Vomit, to give the Purges [Nº. 23] or [47], and several Doses of [Nº. 24], before the Rhubarb is given. [Nº. 32] is excellent in this combined Case.

There was in Swisserland in the Autumn of 1755, after a very numerous Prevalence of epidemical putrid Fevers had ceased, a Multitude of Dysenteries, which had no small Affinity with, or Relation to, such Fevers. I treated them first, with the Prescription [Nº. 34], giving afterwards [Nº. 32]; and I directed the Rhubarb only to very few, and that towards the Conclusion of the Disease. By much the greater Number of them were cured at the End of four or five Days. A small Proportion of them, to whom I could not give the Vomit, or whose Cases were more complicated, remained languid a considerable Time, though without Fatality or Danger.

§ 335. When the Dysentery is blended with Symptoms of Malignity (See [§ 245]) after premising the Prescription [Nº. 35], those of [Nº. 38] and 39 may be called in successfully.

§ 336. When the Disease has already been of many Days standing, without the Patient's having taken any Medicines, or only such as were injurious to him, he must be treated as if the Distemper had but just commenced; unless some Symptoms, foreign to the Nature of the Dysentery, had supervened upon it.

§ 337. Relapses sometimes occur in Dysenteries, some few Days after the Patients appeared well; much the greater Number of which are occasioned either by some Error in Diet, by cold Air, or by being considerably over-heated. They are to be prevented by avoiding these Causes of them; and may be removed by putting the Patient on his Regimen, and giving him one Dose of the Prescription [Nº. 51]. Should it return even without any such discoverable Causes, and if it manifests itself to be the same Distemper renewed, it must be treated as such.

§ 338. This Disease is sometimes combined too with an intermitting Fever; in which Case the Dysentery must be removed first, and the intermittent afterwards. Nevertheless if the Access, the Fits of the Fever have been very strong, the Bark must be given as directed [§ 259].