[ 129 I 



XV^ill. Account of the 7nler?ial Exhibition of the Acetate of 

 Lead in several Diseases. Communicated by Thomas 

 EwELL, M.D., of IVaskinglon, to Dr. Mili,er*. 



J-Jast August I was requested to visit a carfman, John 

 Steins, addicted to drunkenness, and living near the navy 

 yard, in an unhealthy situation, fn the night he had beert 

 seized with tever, whicii was followed bv a profuse, discharge 

 of blood fron) his stomach and anus; his wife said he had 

 lost more than two gallons ; and I found him with no pulse, 

 looking exactly as a man dying, frorii loss of b'ood. 



His alarmin;^; situation called for some powerful .^timufus j 

 but it occurred to me that his liver had been affected, which 

 preventing the passage of blood lhr)ue:h thevei,a porise, was 

 followed by .that engorgement of the viscera, which had . 

 caused the rupture of the blood-vessels of his bowels ; and 

 consequently that a stimulus woul-i only serve to increase the 

 pov\erof the vessels to discharge the remainii.ii blopd. I 

 immediately determined to give him the sugar of lead. On 

 adverting to the urgency of the case, as well as the state of 

 his stomach, which had been accustomed to the most pow- 

 erful incitants, I directed him to take *^even grains of the 

 medicine every two hours, until the discharge of blood 

 ceased. On swallowing the second do^e, iie exclaimed, 

 " Great God, at length my guts are healed i" The discbarge : 

 soon lessened, and no doubt the liEcmorrhage stopped; but as 

 a little blood (which had not been evacuated trom the bowels) 

 continued to come off, he took thirty-five grains in less thau 

 twelve hours. Bv degrees I gave him stimuli, and never' 

 did a man recover more rapidly : and this I considered as 

 affording a new proof of the efficacy of free bleeding irf 

 curing fevers quickly, flowever, the man never could get 

 over that particular pallid countenance, peculiar to those 

 bled too copiously. 



Shortly after the cure of Steins, T was called to David 

 Mead, a drummer of the rnanne corps. He too was a 

 drunkard, was fat, and indolent. He had a high fever, for 

 which he svas ordered bleeding, and a dose of calomel. In 

 the night he was taken with a purging of blood, and I, with- 

 out seeing him, directed injections of cold water. In the 

 morning I found him almost dead; and the assistant sur- 

 geon. Doctor Harrison, pronounced " he was about to die." 

 I ordered him to take five grains of sugar of lead every two 

 hours: the bleeding ceased after the third, yet he took a 



• From Drs. Mitchill and Miller's Medical Repository, vol. v. 



Vol. 34. No. 13(j. ^//£[/<.vM809. I fourth 



