Dr. Mac Culloch on Fevers, 53^ 



by a neuralgia, and tlie reverse ; while the one appears to be 

 the cure of the other : and in this case also, the hour of 

 attack is the same in both. Also, a double tertian or quoti- 

 dian may consist of one paroxysm of fever, and one of neu- 

 ralgia in alternation ; and one case is given where a toothach 

 ana an ague fit thus occupied the alternate days for a whole 

 year. 



** To these two general branches of evidence, consisting in 

 community of cause and interchangeableness," the author 

 adds another founded on the effects of remedies : the same 

 treatment acting in the same manner on both sets of disorders, 

 whether the effects be good or evil ; and what is also re- 

 markable, the most purely local pain being cured only by 

 remedies that act on the constitution at large. 



Further, every neuralgic disease, whatever its character 

 be, is an intermittent, or else a remittent : the types being 

 equally various, and the regularity of occurrences and the 

 durations of the paroxysms similar ; while, when chronic, 

 they similarly consist of relapses of a certain duration. And 

 if there be an irregularity, it is in the very chronic cases; 

 while the same irregularities occur in simple chronic marsh 

 fever, and from the same causes. Lastly^ that we may cut 

 short that evidence even to superfluity, in which the author's 

 anxiety to prove his case has led him to indulge^ every fit of 

 neuralgia, whatever be its nature, is attended by a paroxysm 

 of fever, though this may be obscure, as it is often over- 

 looked : the author having also shown, that the cold stage, 

 which is frequently quite local and limited, precedes the 

 painful one, and that this is simultaneous with, or a substitute 

 for, the hot fit. 



Such is the general train of argument ; but we must refer 

 to the work itself for the more detailed facts in evidence 

 which do not admit of abridgment. 



We must next attempt an abridgment of another of the 

 author's general arguments : it being one of importance, 

 inasmuch as it is that which connects the inflammatory dis- 

 eases, here enumerated, with simple neuralgia. 



During the fit of pain in any considerable nervous branch, 

 the surrounding parts become unusually sensitive and red, 

 or there is increased action in the capillary arteries. If that 

 painful affection be in numerous ultimate ramifications of 

 nerves, the pain is more mild and diffused, while this species 

 of action, tending towards inflammation, becomes generally 

 also more conspicuous. This is what happens in neadach, 

 and in toothach very remarkably; and, in the latter di^ 



