On Pneumatic Medicine. 73 



pronounce as one out of the many patients rescued from 

 the jaws uf death by the powers of pneumatic medicine*. 



Another Case of Typhus Fever. 



December 1703. — Dr. Beddoes published the following 

 communication I had the honour to address to him. 



" I was lately called to a child 13 years old: she had 

 typhus fever, which had attacked two others in the same 

 liouse. Mr. Murdock, the father of the child, apologized 

 for sendinf^ to m*e when his daughter was at the point of 

 death. Having entered the room, 1 found her convulsed, 

 speechless, and the eyes sunk, and her breathing extremely 

 laborious. The attendants had even ceased to give her food, 

 nor was medicine so much as thought of. Having placed 

 near her mouth the superoxygenated air, and afterwards 

 filled the room with fine sprays of vinegar, and well venti- 

 lated the chamber, she revived to the wonder of all present, 

 took food, ai'tevwards medicine, and finally recovered to the 

 astonishment of every one. 



Remarks Inj Dr. Thornton on these Cases. 



1 . Putrid fevers are often engendered by bad air alone. 



Captain Ellis, late governor of Georgia, in his voyage 

 to Hudson's Bay, gives us the following account from on 

 board the Halifax. The people were all healthy for a con- 

 siderable time ; viz. till the ventilators were so spoiled by 

 rats eating not only the leathern but the wooden parts of 

 them, that they became of no manner of use: then putrid 

 fevers appeared, and most of the crew died. 



Sir John Pringle, in his work on the diseases of soldiers, 

 gives us likeu ise numerous examples of the same kind. 



The late Dr. Darwin one day at Nottingham assembled 

 a large crowd of people around him, and standing upon a 

 tub, thus addressed himself to the populace. 



" Ye men of Nottingham, listen to me. You are inge- 

 nious and industrious mechanics. By your industry life's 

 comibrts are procured for yourselves and families. If you 

 lose vour health, the power of being industrious will forsake 

 vou. That von know; but you may not know, that to 

 breathe fresh and changed air constantly is not less neces- 

 sary to preserve health than sobriety itself. Air becomes 

 unwholesome in a few hours if the windows are shut. Open 

 those of your sleeping-rooms whenever you quit them to go 



* This young lailywaE cured in i79S,and lias continued since that 

 period in j i-Mftct hculih. 



to 



