6S Dr. Mac Culloch on Fevers. 



•were but the same disease in other nerves, though it seems 

 now surprising how this could have been overlooked. As 

 littJe had it been noticed that an intermittent fever attended 

 evei'y neuralgia, or that this was in reality but a mode of 

 marsh fever; since the popular term occasionally in use, 

 namely, ague in the head, seems merely to have been adopted 

 from its intermitting character, and no generalization was 

 attempted on the subject. Still less was that ophthalmia 

 termed rheumatism of the eye, supposed to be thus associated, 

 clearly as the proofs are here made out ; and while the in- 

 troduction of toothach into this genus is the novelty which 

 is most likely to meet with opposition, perhaps not less re- 

 pugnance will at first be excited by the attempt to refer 

 palsies, and even amaurosis, to this cause. Of all this dis- 

 covery, arrangement, generalization, or whatever else it 

 ought to be called, our author claims the merit ; nor, indeed, 

 do we see how we can refuse his rights to originality ; while, 

 if our readers shall admit that he has made out his case, (a 

 matter respecting which we intend to reserve our own opi- 

 nion,) we would point out this as a striking instance of 

 the advantages which medicine, in common with all the 

 sciences, must derive from following the true method of phi- 

 losophizing ; as we suggested already in our introductory 

 remarks. 



But we must attempt to abridge the reasons, first, for 

 considering neuralgia as a mode of intermittent or marsh 

 fever ; and next, for ranking the several disorders here enu- 

 merated under neuralgia. 



The application of malaria is the most common cause of 

 both, though that of cold is not excluded, at least as to 

 neuralgia ; while it is here also shown that this disease is 

 produced by injuring a nerve, and the more easily, it is sus- 

 pected, if there is a tendency to intermittent in the habit, or 

 if the situation is insalubrious. 



In the same situation, or even house, where many persons 

 are exposed to malaria, some will be affected by intermittents 

 and others by neuralgia under various forms. 



The same person, being imbued with the habit of chronic 

 intermittent will, in some relapses, be attacked by mere 

 fever, in others by a neuralgia; and a patient of this nature 

 may have many of the neuralgisein the catalogue, in rotation. 

 And in such cases, should tne disease recur, even through 

 years, the same hour of attack will be that of the neuralgia, 

 or neuralgiae, and of the fever also. 

 , A simple intermittent fever is replaced, even in one day, 



