[117] Since coming to England, I have been informed by Dr. Garden, a learned and ingenious practitioner from South Carolina, that this medicine, in order to produce its proper effect, should be given in a very weak decoction; for that after having almost abandoned it in consequence of its failure when he gave it in strong decoctions, and in substance, he was again convinced of its efficacy by using it in a very weak decoction, a scruple being boiled in a pint of water to half a pint.
[118] [See page 345]. A fact mentioned in Capt. Cooke’s Voyage to the North Pacific Ocean, may be also alledged in favour of this opinion. He remarks, that the Kamschadales, who were habituated to hard labour, were free from scurvy, while the Russians and Cossacks, who were in garrison in their country, and led indolent lives, were subject to it.
[119] I was informed of this fact by Mr. Cairncross, an ingenious surgeon belonging to one of the battalions that served there during the siege.
[120] I imagined that this was a new practice; but I find, since the first edition of this work was printed, that it has been recommended by Pere Labat in his voyage to the Antilles.
[121] There is a symptom which takes place when men are beginning to recover from scurvy, (particularly when the cure is rapidly effected by the use of lemon and orange juice) upon which I have frequently reflected, but for which I have never been able to account. This consists in acute pains, which are felt in the breast and limbs, resembling rheumatic pains. I once knew the crew of a ship which was much affected with scurvy, and had about ninety men under cure by lemons and oranges, who were most of them affected with this symptom in one night, and made such a noise by crying out as to alarm the officers who were upon duty.
[122] See the Medical Essays of Edinburgh. Sennertus, lib. iii. part i. sect. ii.—Haller Elem. Physiolog. lib. xix. sect. ii.
[123] In the Princessa, 1781, and the Nonsuch, Prince George, and Royal Oak, in 1782.
[124] Since this was first written, the melancholy tidings have arrived of another case to be added to this fatal list. It is that of the amiable and gallant Lord Robert Manners, who commanded the Resolution on the 12th of April, and having lost his leg, besides receiving a wound in his arm and breast, died of this untractable symptom on his passage to England; and though he shared a fate to be envied by every lover of true glory, his loss can never be enough deplored by his country and friends, being formed by his great virtues and accomplishments, joined to the lustre of his rank, to hold out an example of all that was good and great as a man and an officer.
[125] See Kaau Boerhaave’s account of this epilepsy in a school at Harlaem, in a book, entitled Impetum faciens dictum Hippocrate per corpus consentiens (page 355.) A fact of the same kind is also related in a pamphlet, entitled Rapport des Commissaires chargés par le Roi de l’examen du Magnetisme Animal.
[126] London Medical Observations and Inquiries, Vol. VI.