[ 153 ]. 



XXV. Seventeenth Communication from Dr. Thorniotij relu' 

 tive to Pneumatic Medicine. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 



Nov. lo, 1804, 

 DEAR SIR, N . I, Hinde-strect, Manchester- square. 



X HAVE the honor to enclose you the followingvery striking 

 oase for the information of the philosophic world : 



Case of Chronic Herpes cured ly the Vital Air. 



Mr. Thomas Cluttcrham, glover, now residing at No. 3, 

 Thayer-street, Manchester-square,\vasapatientof mine so far 

 back as September 1796; and he had been afflicted, he be- 

 lieves, from his cradle with a general humour extending nearly 

 over the wholesurface. Various remedies had been used at dif- 

 ferent times, but to no purpose, under very able practitioners. 

 His disease appeared to me to be confirmed herpes (impetigo 

 scabida of the very accurate Dr. Willan),' and his face, 

 when I first saw him, looked very like one labouring under 

 the small-pox, being one general incrustation. The erup- 

 tion, as I observed before, was also diffused over the 

 whole body. This disease had now existed tiuenty-three 

 years. I ordered him to continue the use of the same re- 

 medies, before found ineffectual ; as bark and steel, and, in 

 addition, he inhaled the vital air, — agallon to four of atmo- 

 spheric air twice in the day, — and continued this for 

 three months, without intermitting a day (Sundays in- 

 cluded), when the eruption, gradually declining, was wholly 

 conquered, and I pronounced him, I hoped, permanently 

 cured. 



Olsei'vations on this Case. 



1. The patient is now before me (November 20, 1804), 

 and says " he has enjoyed excellent health ever since, and 

 has had no eruption of any kind, either in the face or any 

 part of the body ; nor has he taken any medicine whatever 

 since." 



2. He remembers " that the vital air very much in- 

 creased his appetite; that he ate more hearty during its ad- 

 ministration than at any former, or even at the present 

 period." 



3. " His spirits were raised in consequence." 



4. Is not the rationale of this remarkable cure as follows? 

 The vessels on the surface were torpid in their powers; but 

 vvhcii lUe heart was roused to increased action by the vital 



