1826.] Monthly Agricultural Report. 435 



when the solicitude of parents is at its height. To almoBt all other disorders, prevalent 

 at tlmt age, the anxieties of friends have attached some familiar appellation — as for example, 

 niumps, chiekeii-pox, wcaniiic^-hrash, thrush ; but to this disease, quite as common, and 

 infinitely more imjiortant (because more tedious and more fatal) than any of those now 

 mentioned, no name I)as ever been given which conveys to the mind of the parent what 

 the practitioner wishes to express by the scientific term— infantile remittent. The phnise, 

 worm fever, is occasionally made use of, but it is incorrect, and liable to mislead, and the 

 medical attendant, therefore, very properly discards it. The Reporter has frequently found 

 the disadvantage of this /((«/«« in the medical dictionary of the nursery ; and he doubts not 

 but that others have experienced the same tiling, with as little power of remedying the 

 deficiency. 



It has certainly been too much the fashion among medical men to ascribe this com- 

 plaint, the infantile fever, to irregularities in the stomach and bowels, to accuse the parents 

 of having brought it on by indidgence and over-feeding, and consequently to trust its cure 

 too miicli to ajicrient remedies. That such remedies are occasionally useful, nay actually 

 indispensable, is perfectly true ; and this fact may be construed, by a superficial obser>-er, 

 into a proof of the soundness of the whole doctrine ; but it is not so. The use ofevacuant, 

 and especially of aperient remedies, is an established mo<le of practice in all forms of 

 feverish excitement, but they are not more requisite in the infantile than in the tyjihord, or 

 the inflammatory fevers of adult life. That the practitioner, tiien, may know his own 

 strength in the treatment of this curious variety of infantile ailment — that he may have a 

 sure guide in the choice and extent of his evacuant remedies, and be able to give a clear 

 opinion regarding its probable duration and termination— he should feel and know that 

 this fever is closely allied to other kinds of fever ; that it is, in fact, the most i)erfcct form 

 of idiopathic hectic which is known, and that it has, like all other fevers, its natural i>criod 

 of decline and crisis. Its violence may often be moderated by judicious evacuations ; but 

 it should be thoroughly understood, that infantile fever cainiot be purged into submission, 

 nor starved into cure. It is often as necessary to soothe and comfort the bowels as to 

 irritate and unload them ; but neither tlie one class of medicines nor the other can effect 

 the desired purpose without time. Lei not, then, the practitioner be too rigorous in his 

 remedies, nor the j)arent too anxious in her expectations ; let the one have a good under- 

 standing of his subject, let the other have faith, and both pa/jencc', and the anxious wishes 

 of all may ultimately be realized. 



An unusual number of droj)sical cases (especially of anasarca and ascites) have fallen 

 under the Reporter's observation during the last month — sufficient to convince him that 

 some general cause has been operating in their production ; he is unable, however, to oflfer 

 any satisfactoi-y hypothesis on this subject. The cases, upon the whole, have not been 

 particularly imtractable : mercury and squills have generally succeeded in affording re- 

 lief — in one case, the foxglove was of the most decided benefit. .Several severe cases of 

 cutaneous disease have also been under treatment, but these subjects must be reserved 

 for future discussion. 



8, Upper John-street, Golden-square, March 21, 1826. GEORGE GaEGoay, m.d. 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



AxL our agricultural operations have proceeded thus far in the season, with a full tide 

 of activity and success, and equal promise of future prosperity ; indeed, a fairer prospect 

 of universal plenty of all the first necessaries has not been witnessed. The severity of 

 the frost in the late season lasted just long enough to reduce the glebe to the most 

 friable and advantageous state and to destroy the insectite ova ,- the happy consequence 

 of which has been, early sj)ring culture and exemption generally from the injuries other- 

 wise to be expected from vermineous insects to the roots and vegetation of the growing com. 

 Some complaints, indeed, we have of the grub and mreworm, but far more of damage 

 from the superabundance of ^ame. So early has been the season and so laudably ex- 

 peditious the cultivators, that, on the most forward soils, all the spring crops were 

 in the ground, and in the best possible state, within the first week of the present month ; 

 nor has any material impediment since occurred to affect the most backward, on which 

 doubtless sowing the Lent corn will be finished equally early, as in the most favourable 

 seasons : the rains, however, in the early part of the month, have retarded business in 

 some of the western counties. The present rough and old styled " IMarch many wea- 

 thers," with a portion of easterly winds, seems to argue well for a mild and genial spring 

 and warm summer. 



Wheat, on good and well manured soils, is a thick and luxuriant plant ; most encou- 

 raging indeed, proportionally, on all soils. In some counties, Kent particularly, they 

 " sheep" their wheats ; that is, feed them down with sheep, in order to check their too 



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