Extract of a Letter from Mr. Causer.
Mrs. S——, the subject of the following Case, was as ill as it is possible for woman to be and recover; from the inefficacy of the medicines used, I am convinced no medicine would have saved her but the Digitalis. I never saw so bad a case recovered; and it shews, that in the most reduced state of body, the medicine in small doses, will prove safe and efficacious.
N. B. The Digitalis, in pills, never occasioned the least sickness. She took two boxes of them.
CASE.
January 2d, 1785. Mrs. S——, of W——, near Kidderminster, aged 38, has been affected with dropsical swellings of her legs and thighs, about six weeks, which have gradually grown worse; has now great difficulty in breathing, which is much increased on moving; a very irregular, intermittent pulse, urine in very small quantity, and in the seventh month of her pregnancy: a woman of very delicate constitution, with tender lungs from her infancy and very subject to long continued coughs.
R. Pulv. scillæ gr. iii.
Jalap gr. x. syr. rosar. solut. tinct. senn. aa ʒii. aq. menth. v. simpl. ℥iss. m. mane sumend.
R. pulv. scillæ ℈i. G. ammoniac, sapon. venet. aa ʒiss. syr. q. s. f. pilul. 42 cap. iii. nocte maneque.
On the 7th found her worse, and the swelling increased; the urine about ℥x in the twenty-four hours.
R. Fol. siccat. Digital. ʒiii. coque in. aq. fontan. ℥xii. ad ℥vi. cola et adde. aq. juniper. comp. ℥ii. sacchar. alb. ℥ss. m. cap. cochlear. i. larg. 4tis horis.