Dr. Mac Culloch on Fevers. 5^ 



loureux in the face ; and the author shows that it similarly 

 occurs in other neuralgiae : among others, very remarkably, 

 is that of the eye, producing amaurosis. And we consider 

 here especially that his remarks on this terrible disorder are 

 of especial value ; since they have not merely pointed out a 

 frequent, perhaps the most frequent cause of a disease, the 

 nature and origm of which were utterly unknown, but also 

 indicated the means of prevention or cure. And if he has 

 noticed that it is common in Africa, where this peculiar 

 inflammation is endemic and the produce of marshy land, 

 for those who have experienced it, to suffer that disorder, 

 which consists in blindness or imperfect vision after sunset, 

 we are happy to be able to confirm that fact by some cases 

 which he does not appear to have met with, in our own 

 country, where the very same disorder was the produce of 

 the chronic neuralagic inflammation of the eyes. 



Under this head he has also traced the dependence of 

 mania and fatuity on neuralgia, as he had formerly pointed 

 out their connexion with intermittent ; further drawing some 

 curious and important parallels from the effects of cold : but 

 as we dare not follow him through all this reasoning and 

 evidence, we must barely content ourselves with pointing 

 out, that, in this class of disorders as in intermittent, all 

 these effects are the frequent consequences of the abuse of 

 blood-letting, or of the evacuant system generally : some very 

 remarkable cases, in proof, being also given. 



But we must abandon what we have not room to pursue 

 any further, that we may give a sketch of his views as to a 

 few of the disorders which he has here treated specifically ; 

 selecting those which seem to us the most interesting, as our 

 limits prevent us from doing more. 



Under headach he has attempted to trace a regular 

 gradation between the pure periodical disease, which is a 

 neuralgia, and the ordinary nervous headachs, as they are 

 termed : but while we cannot follow him through this, we 

 think that he has done more towards the elucidation of this 

 common and troublesome disorder than had ever been 

 effected before. And in the same chapter there is an im- 

 portant remark on a species of vertigo, which we can assure 

 him is much more common than he seems to imagine, and in 

 which much mischief is daily done by mistaking it, as he 

 remarks, for a tendency or " flow of blood" to the head : a 

 fashionable phraseology, as he calls it, to which he seems to 

 bear a most inveterate spite, as he misses no opportunity of 

 bringing it forward for censure. 



