The use of cold water and cold bathing has since been diffused by the ingenious and elegant pen of Dr Currie. This I conceive to be one of the greatest improvements which the practice of physic has received in modern times.
FOOTNOTES
[1] A plan established in the army proved so useful, that I will here mention it. The letters and reports of the medical gentlemen in the pest-houses, I constantly sewed together, made them up in monthly volumes, and kept them at my quarters, where every medical gentleman in the army was invited to come and daily peruse them. The disease became thus the subject of daily discussion; and, from these discussions, I was enabled daily to propose queries in my letters to the gentlemen in the pest-houses. Thus, the history of the disease, in most of its points, came to be investigated; and, previously to entering a pest-house, before his tour of duty came round, every gentleman had acquired some knowledge of the plague, and of the success of other practitioners.
[2] These circumstances I learned from a member of the French Institute, and from the Pharmacien en Chéf to the French army, who often related to me the order which Bonaparte gave him to poison the wounded with opium.
[3] In Dr Duncan’s Annals of Medicine, for 1801, I have adduced a striking instance of this.
[4] Dr Buchan was on the staff of the British army, but twice nobly volunteered his services, and twice did duty in the lazaretto of Alexandria, at this period common both to the English and Indian armies.
[5] This remark we found to be particularly applicable to the last stages of the disease. In the beginning of the season, one case occurred that gave rise to much conversation in the army. From having come into contact with a case of plague, a Lascar, in the department of the commissary of cattle, was sent into the observation-room of the pest-house of Rosetta; he was brought there much against his will, and contrived to make his escape from it, on the evening of the day on which he was admitted, though fired at by the dragoon-centries placed round the establishment. Ineffectual search was made for him every where in the neighbourhood of Rosetta, and we could hear nothing of him for about five weeks, when he was discovered at Boulac. On being brought down to Rosetta, I examined him with Mr Guild, the surgeon of his corps. We found him then well; but certainly he had had the disease, for we saw an axillary bubo not quite healed. He told us, that he remained concealed for a great part of the time among the rushes by the side of the river. On mentioning this case to Dr Currie, of Liverpool, I think he said, he had heard of some similar cases.
[6] Since my arrival in England I see that the contagious nature of the Egyptian ophthalmia has been noticed by two gentlemen of the English army, Mr Edmonstone and Mr Powers.