[111] Mr. Telford related to me, that he had cured several intermittents that had baffled the bark, by means of white vitriol, whilst he was surgeon of the Yarmouth in 1779. He gave it in doses of five grains every four hours in the intermission, and was successful in every case except two, in which the patients were far advanced in the dropsy.
He met with several cases of the same kind in the Alcide, in 1782, in which he was successful with the flowers of zinc, after having given large quantities of bark to no purpose. He preferred, however, the white vitriol, as being milder in its operation, and less apt to disagree with the patient’s stomach.
He did not employ either of them in the recent state of the disease, nor does he assert that they are universal or infallible remedies; but only alledges, that he has experienced the most evident good effects from them in an advanced stage of the disease, and a reduced state of the patient, where the common remedy had failed.
[112] Dr. Huck Saunders, whose recent loss the world has reason to regret on account of his experience and sagacity as a physician, as well as his virtues as a man, communicated to me, in conversation, some observations on the cure of obstinate intermittents, which deserve to be mentioned here. When he was physician to the army at the Havannah he cured a number of agues which had resisted the bark, by giving two ounces of the vinous tincture of rhubarb and six drams of the tincture of sena seven or eight hours before the fit. This being repeated two or three times, carried off the disease. He also informed me, that he had met with agues in England which did not yield to the bark; but, upon leaving it off, and putting the patients on a course of mercury, they were cured upon returning to the use of the bark.
Arsenic has also been found to be an effectual remedy in intermittent fevers. I was informed by Dr. Huck Saunders, that when he was in North America, in the war before the last, there was an expedition undertaken against the Cherokee Indians, whose country is extremely subject to agues; and as an adequate quantity of bark would have been very cumbersome where light service was necessary, Mr. Russel, who had the medical management of the expedition, provided a great number of pills, containing each one eighth part of a grain of arsenic, by the proper use of which he was enabled to cure the intermittent fevers with which the troops were seized.
I shall here mention another unusual remedy in intermitting fevers; and though I can bring only one instance in proof of its efficacy, yet this is so strong as to make it deserve farther trial. A man, on board of the Sandwich, had an obstinate intermittent which had resisted the bark, and was stopped by applying to the stomach a plaster, composed of gum plaster, epispastic plaster, and opium, in proportions which I do not now recollect.
[113] Sir John Pringle on the Diseases of the Army.
[114] This is elegantly expressed as follows, in Sir George Baker’s learned Dissertation on this disease:—“Primo neglectus tractatu asperior occurrebat: etenim corpus extenuatum atque confectum ut morbo fervido impar erat, ita ipsi impar curationi. Itaque optimum erat occurrere ipsis principiis atque auxilia mature præripere. In hoc enim corporis affectu aliquod certe in medicina opus est, haud multum in naturæ beneficio.”
[115] In Dr. Griffith’s form of his medicine for the piles, six drachms of fresh-drawn linseed oil are joined with two drachms and a half of the vinous tincture of rhubarb, and given twice a day in a draught. I commonly used oil of almonds at the hospital. This may be considered as another instance of those useful combinations of medicines, which experience alone sometimes discovers. I have found it of use also in other internal hæmorrahages.
[116] See Diseases of the Army, p. 273. 6th Edit.