44 Dr. Mac CuUoch on Fevers, 



to mislead those, the great mass, who are guided only by 

 names. On this particular fact we are enabled to confirm 

 the author's remarks, by a wide experience in one of the 

 most insalubrious districts of England : where, while the 

 poorer classes are almost universally subject to this chronic 

 and obscure fever, either in a continuous or intermittent 

 form, the only complaints they ever make are of their 

 "stomach;" dyspepsia, under its endless forms, being so 

 prevalent among them as to be almost universal. 



The author proceeds in this chapter to treat somewhat 

 fully of hysteria, and other symptoms of this fever, which 

 are perpetually mistaken for separate or independent dis- 

 eases : but as we are afraid of exceeding the bounds we 

 have allotted, and also of transgressing on the character of 

 a popular article, we shall pass on — remarking only, that 

 such fevers, with their various symptoms, constitute the 

 general ill health attached to marshy or unhealthy soils, and 

 that he has here offered the means, not only of explaining, 

 but of remedying, a great mass of diseases, always hitherto 

 obscure, while forming a wide cause of torment or incon- 

 venience. 



We shall also pass by the chapter on the Proximate Cause, 

 which is little more, and very properly, than a confession of 

 ignorance. Nor will we dwell on the cure, which occupies 

 the fourth chapter, at least in as far as it is but a statement 

 of the usual methods of physic in these cases: it will be 

 better to appropriate the space we can afford to those 

 remarks which are most important as the correctives of past 

 errors. In the acute or severe disease, these relate to the 

 abuse and the hazards of blood-letting ; but as these remarks 

 occur again in different places, we shall reserve the whole 

 for a future place. As to the mild and chronic varieties, 

 it is shown that blood-letting, purgatives, or debilitating 

 practices, of whatever nature, are invariably pernicious, and 

 that it is from mistaking this disease for others, in which 

 such practice is recommended, that it is so often rendered 

 inveterate, incurable, or even mortal. Thus also, reversely, 

 a good diet and wine are recommended in cases, where, 

 under the same errors, modern fashion prohibits them ; and 

 hence a variety of details in the work, for which we must 

 unavoidably refer to it, from inability even to abridge them. 

 But the final remark is, that when the disorder has become 

 inveterate, scarcely any remedy is of avail but change of air 

 or place ; while as the chief value of that arises arises out 



