§ 35. Many years ago, during an attendance upon Mr. B——, of a consumptive family, and himself in the last stage of a phthisis; after he was so ill as to be confined to his chamber, his breathing became so extremely difficult and distressing, that he wished rather to die than to live, and urged me warmly to devise some mode to relieve him. Suspecting serous effusion to be the cause of this symptom, and he being a man of sense and resolution, I fully explained my ideas to him, and told him what kind of operation might afford him a chance of relief; for I was then but little acquainted with the Digitalis. He was earnest for the operation to be tried, and with the assistance of Mr. Parrott, a very respectable surgeon of this place, I got an opening made between the ribs upon the lower and hinder part of the thorax. About a pint of fluid was immediately discharged, and his breath became easy. This fluid coagulated by heat.
After some days a copious purulent discharge issued from the opening, his cough became less troublesome, his expectoration less copious, his appetite and strength returned, he got abroad, and the wound, which became very troublesome, was allowed to heal.
He then undertook a journey to London; whilst there he became worse: returned home, and died consumptive some weeks afterwards.
PUERPERAL ANASARCA.
§ 36. This disease admits of an easy and certain cure by the Digitalis.
§ 37. This species of dropsy may originate from other causes than child birth. In the beginning of last March, a gentleman at Wolverhampton desired my advice for very large and painful swelled legs and thighs. He was a temperate man, not of a dropsical habit, had great pain in his groins, and attributed his complaints to a fall from his horse. He had taken diuretics, and the strongest drastic purgatives with very little benefit. Considering the anasarca as caused by the diseased inguinal glands, I ordered common poultice and mercurial ointment to the groins, three grains of pulv. fol. Digitalis night and morning, and a cooling diuretic decoction in the day-time. He soon lost his pain, and the swellings gradually subsided.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See an original and valuable treatise by Dr. Fowler, entitled, Medical Reports of the Effects of Tobacco.