The scurvy, that most obstinate malady, will sooner yield to a proper vegetable diet, than to all the boasted antiscorbutic remedies of the shops.
In consumptions, when the humours are vitiated, and the stomach so much weakened as to be unable to digest the solid fibres of animals, or even to assimilate the juices of vegetables, a diet consisting chiefly of milk will not only support the patient, but will often cure the disease after every other medicine has failed.
Nor is an attention to other things of less importance than to diet. The strange infatuation which has long induced people to shut up the sick from all communication with the external air, has done great mischief. Not only in fevers, but in many other diseases, the patient will receive more benefit from having the fresh air prudently admitted into his chamber, than from all the medicines which can be given him.
Exercise may likewise in many cases be considered as a medicine. Sailing, or riding on horseback, for example, will be of more service in the cure of consumptions, glandular obstructions, &c. than any medicine yet known. In diseases which proceed from a relaxed state of the solids, the cold bath, and other parts of the gymnastic regimen, will be found equally beneficial.
Few things are of greater importance in the cure of diseases than cleanliness. When a patient is suffered to lie in dirty clothes, whatever perspires from his body is again resorbed, or taken up into it, which serves to nourish the disease and increase the danger. Many diseases may be cured by cleanliness alone; most of them may be mitigated by it, and in all of them it is highly necessary both for the patient and those who attend him.
Many other observations, were it necessary, might be adduced to prove the importance of a proper regimen in diseases. Regimen will often cure diseases without medicine, but medicine will seldom succeed where a proper regimen is neglected. For this reason, in the treatment of diseases, we have always given the first place to regimen. Those who are ignorant of medicine may confine themselves to it only. For others who have more knowledge, we have recommended some of the most simple but approved forms of medicine in every disease. These however are never to be administered but by people of better understanding; nor even by them without the greatest precaution.
CHAP. XIII.
OF FEVERS IN GENERAL.
As more than one half of mankind is said to perish by fevers, it is of importance to be acquainted with their causes. The most general causes of fevers are, infection, errors in diet, unwholesome air, violent emotions of the mind, excess or suppression of usual evacuations, external or internal injuries, and extreme degrees of heat or cold. As most of these have already been treated of at considerable length, and their effects shewn, we shall not now resume the consideration of them, but shall only recommend it to all, as they would wish to avoid fevers and other fatal diseases, to pay the most punctual attention to these articles.
Fevers are not only the most frequent of all diseases, but they are likewise the most complex. In the most simple species of fever there is always a combination of several different symptoms. The distinguishing symptoms of fever are, increased heat, frequency of pulse, loss of appetite, general debility, pain in the head, and a difficulty in performing some of the vital or animal functions. The other symptoms usually attendant on fevers are, nausea, thirst, anxiety, delirium, weariness, wasting of the flesh, want of sleep, or the sleep disturbed and not refreshing.
When the fever comes on gradually, the patient generally complains first of languor or listlessness, soreness of the flesh, or the bones, as the country people express it, heaviness of the head, loss of appetite, sickness, with clamminess of the mouth; after some time come on excessive heat, violent thirst, restlessness, &c.