On Pneumatic Medicine. 309 



This was at Rotterdam, and occurred in a case of confluent 

 small -pox, the virulence of the fever attending which was 

 effectually and quickly subdued by this simple antiseptic, 

 I mention this particularly because it has been held to be a 

 very late discovery, and the honour of it has been ascribed 

 to an ingenious clergyman * of this country, which I am 

 anxious should be bestowed where it is most due, upon the 

 practitioners of my native place. It may not be irrelevant 

 here to remark, that yeast is made up and preserved in Hol- 

 land in almost a solid form, being of the consistence of 

 putty, in which state it will keep, if the weather be mode- 

 rately cool, for six weeks or longer ; and it is sent in bladders 

 from one place to another, so that no part of the country, 

 or even a remote farm-house, need ever be in want of this 

 necessary article. I know not the mode adopted to reduce 

 the yeast to this consistency, but I think it would be worth 

 the trouble of inquiry, and adoption in this country, where 

 much inconvenience is sometimes felt from the liquid and 

 diffused state in which alone yeast is met with, and its great 

 liability to be spoiled. 



The simplicity and cheapness of this medicine, whilst it 

 is a recommendation to the intelligent physician, is an ob- 

 stacle to its introduction where apothecaries prescribe. What 

 can be more simple than the happy discovery of the effects 

 of cold effusion ? or what niore widely salutary than the in- 

 estimable discovery of vaccination, on which you, sir, have 

 so ably exercised your pen ? And yet we see that, from in- 

 terested or other motives, these simple but effectual remedies 

 are scouted by a considerable numbtr of practitioners. 



In addition to Mrs. W.'s case, whom you personally at- 

 tended,! have to add the case of her youngest child, 1 8 months 



* Mr. C;irtwrijiht, whcise claim to the merit ef the discovery is rather 

 confinned, than set uside, by M du Moulin's own statentent. To the best of 

 his recollection it was in the vcar 1799 that he first knew yeast exhibited as a 

 medicine in Holland ; but Mr. Cartwrijflit's discovery was some years earlier. 

 I cannot at the present moment 1 ly my hands o:i any document ascertaining 

 the precise date, but 1 find it referred to in Dr. Bcddoes's C'ousidtfialioiis un 

 J'iiililiijus Air, part iii. publislied in 179.i, p. 61. This honour of the disco- 

 Ttry must therefore nill remain with Mr. Cartwrijjht.— T.oiT. 



U 3 old. 



