Case of Hijdropholia cured in India hj Bleeding. 4 1 9 



(System was evidently unJer the influence of the mercury 

 before he could be said to be free from the disease, an opi- 

 nion might still he entertained, and actually was so, by 

 many wifh whom I have conversed on the subject, that 

 the cure was, after all, effected by the mercury^ and not by 

 the bleeding. 



Dr. Berry himself, to whose rare and laudable zeal for 

 the promotion of useful science, even at the period of clos- 

 ing a long and honourable career of public service, the 

 world is indebted for liie knowiedse of Mr. Tymon's un- 

 precedented case of success, alleges that the bleeding " saved 

 Mason's life by dianni-^hing violent action, and admitting 

 the effect of medicines that in all former experience had uni- 

 formly failed." 



As this notion too corresponds with the most prevailing 

 theory of the disease — though that theory has not in a single 

 instance been verified by the success of the practice to which 

 it gave rise, I consider it of great importance to correct 

 it; lest, by still expecting sonte good from mercury and 

 opium in hydrophobia, the attention of the physiciaa 

 should be diverted from a sufficient abstraction of blood, — 

 on which, and on which alone, as far as a single case can 

 prove any thing, the life of the patient seems entirely to 

 depend. 



That the first bleeding in the case above related, wholly 

 though not permanently, removed every symptom of the 

 disease, was proved, I presume, in the most ample manner, by 

 the following six remarkable circumstances; first, the removal 

 of the spasms; 2d, the freedom of respiration ; 3d, the re- 

 storation of the power of swallowing fluids, and the ab- 

 sence of horror at their approach; 4th, the desire, instead 

 of the abhorrence, of a current of air ; 3lh, the inclinatioa 

 for a natural alvine evacuati(jn ; and 6lh, the power of 

 sleeping. — All thi-se unequivocal indications of recovery 

 took place during or iirimtdiatcly after the first bleeding; 

 and as none of them ever happened before to a patient in 

 hydrophobia, except near the close of the melancholy scene, 

 when they denote an eniire sinking of the jiowrs of life, — 

 rather than llie ces>a(i<;n of disease, — it ^eenls but fair to 

 ascribe them to a remedy which had never before been 

 used as it was on this occasion — or, if so, unluckily not at 

 the I nie when i' was cap.ihle of doing good. 



When a reciurenee of the disease was threatened in 



two hours afterwards, the power of the reniedv was again 



co:)si)icii.ir,slv manitcsied, and a second bleeding «d/ </e//- 



quium in^iaally blop^jcd the progress ot the symptoms, and, 



D d 2 before 



